# Total War SHOGUN 2 DX11 with built-in benchmark: even more demanding than Metro 2033!



## voidshatter (May 9, 2011)

It has successfully owned my 2 x 6950 2GB Crossfire 

The latest 2GB patch from Steam now enables a small built-in benchmark, through the beginning scene of the demo battle.







The 3rd option is not hardware demanding at all. With the following steps it is possible to stress test your system:

a) Select "Play Total War: SHOGUN 2", and change everything to max in game options:






b) Exit game, and re-open the Steam startup menu and select "Benchmark Game Settings".

Here are results of 2 x 6950 2GB Crossfire:






and for single 6950 2GB:






and here is a plot of the output log file using Excel:






Crossfire suffers a lag spike in the 4th second or so. Not sure if others have the same problem.

I'd say such fps is not playable for multiplayer game sessions, or 3rd party MODs to enable larger size of troops.


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## Easy Rhino (May 9, 2011)

that game should be demanding in dx11 mode considering the pretty graphics and the scope of gameplay.


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## Neuromancer (May 9, 2011)

Looks good! is the benchmark available in the demo or just the full game?

EDIT: Oh yeah and that is excellent multi gpu scaling


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## voidshatter (May 9, 2011)

Neuromancer said:


> Looks good! is the benchmark available in the demo or just the full game?
> 
> EDIT: Oh yeah and that is excellent multi gpu scaling



Not sure about the demo but it's definitely included in the full game


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## KainXS (May 10, 2011)

what do you get when you do the dx9 bench


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 10, 2011)

hmm i was aware of theis bench option before it was enabled thanks to a certain someone, overall i found the bench rather worthless compared to upping the unit sizes and just doing a custom battle


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

KainXS said:


> what do you get when you do the dx9 bench



149fps for DX9 Graphics Balanced 720p

30fps for DX9 CPU


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## LifeOnMars (May 10, 2011)

What CPU do you have?


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## Lionheart (May 10, 2011)

I just want the damn game, but Im poor at the moment


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

LifeOnMars said:


> What CPU do you have?



980X [6C6T] @ 4GHz


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## cadaveca (May 10, 2011)

voidshatter said:


> 980X [6C6T] @ 4GHz



How about just filling out your system spec's? 


Results in OP are due to AA levels. 6950 2GB (unlocked @ 850/1300)get 9x.x FPS with no AA, 4x.x FPS with 4x, P67 platform, 2600k @ stock, 4GB @ 1333 CAS9.



DX9 CPU:






DX9 Balanced:





Game settings maxed(No AA):





DX11 1080P(4xAA)


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> How about jsut filling out your system spec's?



It's damn annoying  OK then, I'll try to recall the full spec...

980X [6C6T] @ 4GHz
EVGA E760
6 x 2GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz C7, Uncore 3200MHz
2 x MSI 6950 2GB Twin Frozr II @ 810/1250, 1536SP
Catalyst 11.5 WHQL
Intel X25-M 160G G2
2 x 1TB WD Black
blablah

It doesn't seem to work when I fill in the form  never mind


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## cadaveca (May 10, 2011)

Well, seems, like I surmised, CPU doesn't really play much of a role in this benchmark, or it's stupidly memory intensive.


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Well, seems, like I surmised, CPU doesn't really play much of a role in this benchmark, or it's stupidly memory intensive.



I was sure that before this patch, the game fully utilize 3 cores of my CPU.


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## cadaveca (May 10, 2011)

Wow, 3 cores. No, but really, lol WHUT.

I just love the EPIC music.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 10, 2011)

3 cores LOLZ if i remember right all CA did the entire time the game was in development was keep saying the game will use up to 6 cores up to 6 cores up to 6 cores yadda yadda lol



more on topic


Steam will no longer allow me to play Shogun II, gives me game not available try again later.

scratch that now it dosent even do that, 

steam is loading shogun II... then it just dissappears and nothing happens no exe loaded nothing lol this patch is full of fail


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 3 cores LOLZ if i remember right all CA did the entire time the game was in development was keep saying the game will use up to 6 cores up to 6 cores up to 6 cores yadda yadda lol
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well maybe I was not observing the peak usage. I just looked into task manager and saw 50% usage on my 6C6T (HT off) several times. I'll now make a log of CPU usage during the benchmark using Everest.


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## AlienIsGOD (May 10, 2011)

same Crazy, Steam kept crashing every time i tried to run the game or the benckmark.  Now i cant even log into Steam, getting the network connection error or steam network problem message


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 10, 2011)

awesome so Creative Assembly's new patch systematically wiped out Steam LOL, man they never cease to impress me Creative Assembly's games are like mini nukes using guesstimation timer on when to detonate.


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## cadaveca (May 10, 2011)

Same problem here. WTF!!!


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 10, 2011)

WOOO HOOO ALL ABOARD THE CA FAIL TRAIN!!!! lmao, worse case senario it will be fixed within 6 months, best case senario an hour or 2 lol


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 3 cores LOLZ if i remember right all CA did the entire time the game was in development was keep saying the game will use up to 6 cores up to 6 cores up to 6 cores yadda yadda lol
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes it can sometimes use 6 cores during my most stressful benchmark session 






However most of the time my graphics cards are clearly the bottleneck.


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## AlienIsGOD (May 10, 2011)

I blame the OP for bringing this benchmark to our attention   as soon as i seen this thread and tried to load the game and/or benchmark it, crash city


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Results in OP are due to AA levels. 6950 2GB (unlocked @ 850/1300)get 9x.x FPS with no AA, 4x.x FPS with 4x, P67 platform, 2600k @ stock, 4GB @ 1333 CAS9.



I was suspecting that the game in DX11 mode with AA eats a huge amount of vram, because when I disable AA I get dramatical boost of fps. I speculate that not even 2GB vram is enough to feed it. I'm also interested to see how 580 1.5GB performs at such stress benchmark. It is reported that 5870 1GB is refused by the benchmark at DX11 max settings because of insufficient vram.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 10, 2011)

id like to see how a 580 performance as well since some german pc magazine basically said all ATi cards were unable to sustain 30fps in DX11 mode.


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## AlienIsGOD (May 10, 2011)

my results: DX10/SM4.1, Very High preset @ 1440 x 900, 2 x 4850 = 64.7 FPS AVG

Q9450 @ stock = 13.7739 FPS


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## voidshatter (May 10, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> id like to see how a 580 performance as well since some german pc magazine basically said all ATi cards were unable to sustain 30fps in DX11 mode.



Me too  It is already double confirmed that GTX470/570 cannot afford to benchmark at DX11 max settings.

All I could find was a user with a GTX590, however he was too shy to post his benchmark results. All he mentioned was that all the 1.5GB vram was fully occupied, while he gets like 30-35 fps in game.


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## AsRock (May 10, 2011)

Game seems to work just fine until i exit or the benchmark finished it crashes this only happens in DX11.


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## cadaveca (May 10, 2011)

Yeah, was having some issues with the app last night, wouldn't even start for a couple of hours after the update. I even think the results I posted earlier may be wrong, and what happened last night was part of it.


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## AlienIsGOD (May 10, 2011)

I ran the benchmarks just fine this morning @7am, but ya last nite was a lost cause in terms of even getting the game to load nvm benchmark


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## AsRock (May 10, 2011)

AlienIsGOD said:


> I ran the benchmarks just fine this morning @7am, but ya last nite was a lost cause in terms of even getting the game to load nvm benchmark



Maybe you just needed a restart ?.  Metro 2033 did that on me.


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## yogurt_21 (May 10, 2011)

interesting, will have to check out if the bench works with the demo, I have to wait until my b-day to pick the game up, no budget currently for 50$ games.


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## AlienIsGOD (May 11, 2011)

AsRock said:


> Maybe you just needed a restart ?.  Metro 2033 did that on me.



tried 2 reboots, several restarts of Steam and launching the game countless times.... Was prolly something on Steams end as others were having issues as well


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## TRIPTEX_CAN (May 11, 2011)

yogurt_21 said:


> interesting, will have to check out if the bench works with the demo, I have to wait until my b-day to pick the game up, no budget currently for 50$ games.



I we could pass off Steam games I'd give my copy to you. Came free with some hardware.

4xAA 16xAF 1920x1080 I get 50.25 with my GPUs stock.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 11, 2011)

1920x1080 4xAA i get 73fps average everything stock so i cant complain to much.


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## voidshatter (May 11, 2011)

TRIPTEX_CAN said:


> I we could pass off Steam games I'd give my copy to you. Came free with some hardware.
> 
> 4xAA 16xAF 1920x1080 I get 50.25 with my GPUs stock.





crazyeyesreaper said:


> 1920x1080 4xAA i get 73fps average everything stock so i cant complain to much.



Edit: ah sorry didn't see these were 4xAA, then these results are more reasonable  Still 73fps is a little too high to me

1920x1200 everything max except 4xAA, I get 57 fps here, while GTX570 SLI gets 50 fps


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## ShiBDiB (May 11, 2011)

My 470 artifacts and crashes on the regular since the patch.. no good.


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## Mr McC (May 11, 2011)

I'll finally be able to play my copy on Sunday. Can anybody tell me what level of perfomance I should expect in DX11 using a single 5870 at 1920x1080?


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (May 11, 2011)

So far so good.. no crashes or artifacts for moi. Just dl'd the patch, no restarts or whatsoever everything booted up normally.

What exactly did they tessellate in this game anyways? Cant find any difference


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## AsRock (May 11, 2011)

AlienIsGOD said:


> tried 2 reboots, several restarts of Steam and launching the game countless times.... Was prolly something on Steams end as others were having issues as well



Shame, i actually got rid of my exit game crashes after restarting but came back when i chenged the video settings :|.



TRIPTEX_CAN said:


> I we could pass off Steam games I'd give my copy to you. Came free with some hardware.
> 
> 4xAA 16xAF 1920x1080 I get 50.25 with my GPUs stock.



51FPS here although i don't have bloom on as i never like it.



Mr McC said:


> I'll finally be able to play my copy on Sunday. Can anybody tell me what level of perfomance I should expect in DX11 using a single 5870 at 1920x1080?



I think it runs very well and it'll look pretty still with a 5870 but that depends your requirements.  Thinking the settings will be near max but does depend on how big your armys are too.



thunderising said:


> looks like this is unoptimized shit for a PC exclusive



What a crock of shit...


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 11, 2011)

voidshatter said:


> Edit: ah sorry didn't see these were 4xAA, then these results are more reasonable  Still 73fps is a little too high to me
> 
> 1920x1200 everything max except 4xAA, I get 57 fps here, while GTX570 SLI gets 50 fps



570s = 1.2gb of vram,
6970s = 2gb of vram 

its well known the game is a vram hog at this point with many users reporting AA getting turned off when using ultra texture sizes on 1gb gpus,

the game is basically doing the same thing Grand Theft Auto 4 did with the vram limiter at 2gb i can max any and all settings without issue, a 580 should have no problems either at 1.5gb but anything lower is going to be hit or miss. 

There is a work around to the vram limiter but it can cause crashing and system hangs depending on the PC.

at 1,2gb your possibly just over the ammount needed but im willing to bet your hitting an vram wall during the benchmark i noticed it on my rig as well looking at the log there are key areas were frame rate drops as vram usage goes up.


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## voidshatter (May 11, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 570s = 1.2gb of vram,
> 6970s = 2gb of vram
> 
> its well known the game is a vram hog at this point with many users reporting AA getting turned off when using ultra texture sizes on 1gb gpus,
> ...



I have mentioned many times that GTX570/470 were not future-proof due to vram shortage, but I was attacked infinitely many times by enraged GTX560/460 fanboiz saying that I was justifying my purchase of 6950 2GB crossfirex...

If you get 73 fps with 4AA + vsync off but everything else at max, I bet you have tri-crossfirex?


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 11, 2011)

nope 2 6970s

you might want to have steam verify game cash and install the latest drivers again cause from what i can see even 6870s are putting up better scores then your system right now from a buddy running 6870 xfire

but its been verified buy some other users even GTX 480s hit a vram limit at max settings with AA, hitting 1.4-1.5gb of vram usage, so the game is definetely a vram whore the more you have the better the game seems to run,.


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## voidshatter (May 11, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> nope 2 6970s
> 
> you might want to have steam verify game cash and install the latest drivers again cause from what i can see even 6870s are putting up better scores then your system right now from a buddy running 6870 xfire
> 
> but its been verified buy some other users even GTX 480s hit a vram limit at max settings with AA, hitting 1.4-1.5gb of vram usage, so the game is definetely a vram whore the more you have the better the game seems to run,.



Could you upload your benchmark log file for me to check if you have everything at max except 4AA? It should be located at

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Shogun2\logs

and looks like:

09_05_23_25_02_benchmark1.log.txt

Thanks


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 11, 2011)

yea ill have to rerun he bench but hold on


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 11, 2011)

dropped to 52fps avg i found out that the game was not overwriting my graphic settings after deleting my preferences file restarting the game and reconfiguring the frame rate dropped,

4 bench runs back to back went 69.7 69.4 71.1 72.2 this was before deletion 
after deleting the preferences file and re enabling all features
4 bench runs give me 51 52 52 51

that with gpu and cpu at stock

gonna try again with some quick software overclocks

quick gpu clocks of 950 / 1450
cpu at 3800 / 2600 

avg went up to 58 56 only did 2 quick runs,

gonna see the difference between MLAA and 8xAA


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## voidshatter (May 11, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> quick gpu clocks of 950 / 1450
> cpu at 3800 / 2600
> 
> avg went up to 58 56 only did 2 quick runs,
> ...



Thanks, that's the same as my 57 fps then  It is now consistent with 3 other results I observe from Cayman GPUs


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 11, 2011)

MLAA looks better then 8xAA frame rate much improved, hell MLAA at stock settings offers a 3fps boost compared to 2xAA looks the same as 8xAA with more objects actually being anti aliased.

overclocked with MLAA i hit 61-63 fps

but i can already tell im cpu limited, and hdd comes into play as well, seems the game is using my hdds page file.

also strange but during the CPU bench im only using 2 cores out of 4

but yea 8x AA vs MLAA 

8x frame rate is 47fps avg 
MLAA framrate rate is 61 

MLAA applies to foliage etc where 8x does not seems mlaa gives better overall image compared to 8x and at lesser cost.


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## voidshatter (May 11, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> also strange but during the CPU bench im only using 2 cores out of 4



Here are my CPU usage:

max settings:






high 1080p:





dx9 cpu bench:





Thus this game still follow the general rule that 99% games cannot fully utilize more than 2 physical cores


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 11, 2011)

yup which sucks because thats what the limiting factor is namely the CPU

animation information etc is done via cpu so if better multi threading existed for this title larger scale battles would be possible for everyone,

i have a cut off point i can handly 35-39k troops but if i touch 40k game drops to 1fps no matter what and its not vram, the cpu simply cant do the animation anymore. rather dissapointed, i wanted to push the game engine to its limit aka 56k lol


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (May 20, 2011)

dx9 vs dx11 comparison vid


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## chaotic_uk (May 20, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 1920x1080 4xAA i get 73fps average everything stock so i cant complain to much.



how are you getting 73fps ?


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 20, 2011)

if you read the entire thread and each post you would realize that the Preferences.txt file was borked on my install and not applying all DX11 features after deleting it and then re verifying game cache average dropped into the 50s



crazyeyesreaper said:


> dropped to 52fps avg i found out that the game was not overwriting my graphic settings after deleting my preferences file restarting the game and reconfiguring the frame rate dropped,
> 
> 4 bench runs back to back went 69.7 69.4 71.1 72.2 this was before deletion
> after deleting the preferences file and re enabling all features
> ...


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## entropy13 (May 22, 2011)

1920x1080 4xAA I get 30-35fps in the campaign map, 25-28fps in the battle map (land) zoomed out, 15-19fps zoomed all the way in. Still playable though and it did look better.


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## zanat0s (May 27, 2011)

me at 2500x1600 and antiallising 4 and everything ULTRA or on i get 37. FPS!


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## entropy13 (May 27, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> 1920x1080 4xAA I get 30-35fps in the campaign map, 25-28fps in the battle map (land) zoomed out, 15-19fps zoomed all the way in. Still playable though and it did look better.



LOL I forgot to add that I slightly underclocked my GTX 570 because of the weather then.


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## le_filoZof (Jun 14, 2011)

*Ram*

Thank you all for the benchmarks !

How much ram is required at max settings on W7 ? 

Thanks !


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jun 14, 2011)

4gb system ram is plenty, to max graphics settings you need 2x GPUs in sli and crossfire with 1500mb of vram or more


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## Hanam (Jun 14, 2011)

I run everything on max at 1920x1200 except Anti Aliasing which is at x4.  It seems to effect the campaign map in a bad way frames per second wise.

In-battle with the maximum amount of units (with max aa), my fps is great.  It's the silly campaign map that is finicky with anti aliasing.

Performance stuff aside, I really enjoy the game.  Co-op is great.


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