Age of Empires 4 DF Tech Review: A Great Game With Technical Issues To Address

[@mahavakyas002]

man.. so nostalgic.. the good old days.. playing Rise of Nations, AoE 2 & 3 with friends for 100s of hours.

[@Gorilla_Jones]

Yup, awesome.

[@Blacktrous]

Not gonna lie, Empire Earth was so much better back in the days.

[@vincentwarte4435]

Feel ya, bro. Best times, best friends, best games.

[@blueversace4447]

Rise of Nations is extremely underrated

[@sezuma4]

@@blueversace4447 one of my favorite RTS game, just below Arsenal Extended Power

[@kamwar69]

No proper multi-core support in 2021 is ridiculous.

[@sweetswing1]

To be fair they started making this game around 15 years ago I think.

[@ValkenDnB]

@@sweetswing1 yeah but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t optimize your engine.

[@notyourbuddy26]

@@sweetswing1 mind blown

[@velvetine74]

You're right! However, that's why i'm still rockin Intel. 16 cores at 5Ghz is still the better gamer choice than 64 cores at 3.5ghz, in my humble opinion!

[@MacwinsTV]

@@velvetine74 It's IPC , Not GHZ

[@JK-li1ve]

A brand new game in 2021 utilizes a single core...my god

[@wii166]

Like 90% of the games at least i'm into it seems

[@offspringfan89]

@@wii166 That's why I say 8C/16T CPUs are useless for gaming, heck I even think 6C/12T are tbh, 4C/8T processors with high clock and IPC are enough for most games.

[@sean8102]

@@offspringfan89 I disagree. I'd say this single threaded usage of AOE IV is why in a busy 4v4 MP map my FPS will drop to ~48-50 FPS (on a EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra, 8700K, 16 GB DRR3 3200, and the game on a PCI-E NVME SSD and a 1440p monitor) once my base gets a decent number of buildings in it. Not a crazy number of buildings (you can't zoom out that far in this game anyways to show that much at once). And while my FPS is 48-50 my RTX 3080 utilization is at

[@saricubra2867]

Crysis 2007 again.

[@saricubra2867]

This is Alder Lake's job.

[@gtotheunit91]

That's so weird it's using a single thread.......RTS are usually very CPU heavy. You'd think Relic would want to be using as much processing power as possible if your CPU is good enough

[@marioluigi1523]

Single thread in 2021 what do they think we’re using Pentium 4 FAIL

[@gcook725]

Perhaps the reason why unit caps are limited to 200

[@richardm6985]

@@gcook725 think that's just a series staple, to preserve the specific intensity of gameplay from age 2

[@prototype8137]

@@richardm6985 nah Its most likely technical limitations. Its always been a staple to increase unit sizes in rts games.

[@richardm6985]

@@prototype8137 i think either case is as likely as the other.. that the population is the same as previous games suggests that it's deliberate, to me... Just started playing, it's amazing so far

[@Simte]

I try not to be biased with nostalgia but this game remained me the LAN parties of old AOE2 and my notebooks full of strategies to win hahah.

[@ktzore]

Notebook were more important than owning official copy of game or PC for that matter...played mostly in cyber cafe 😊😊

[@seanflah408]

I've never heard documentaries pronounced in that particular fashion.

[@Prelmable]

In German we emphasise the syllable "-tar" in the (german) word "Dokumentar". He's German and perhaps thought it's similar in English.

[@seanflah408]

@@Prelmable I thought it might be due to something like that but I didn't have the knowledge to confirm it. Thank you. It must be said that regardless of any influence on his pronunciation, he probably speaks more clearly than the majority on KZbin.

[@solachesis451]

@@Prelmable Alex is German? For some reason I always thought he was an American which worked in Germany and subsequently learned German for work/living.

[@SimonVaIe]

@@solachesis451 that's john

[@VariantAEC]

Documen ... Wait for it... ...tary!

[@--Anurag--]

0:53 Oh man! That AOE theme will never get old. Love it. First game I bought with my own money was AOE 1 and the Rise of Rome expansion.

[@CharcharoExplorer]

It seems to be a good game but... 2021, DX12 game... hammers ONE core and uses at most 4 cores? This thing has worse core usage than Wolfenstein 2009, a DX9 game from 2009 lol.

[@oropher1234]

It probably is not really DX12. I think it's just running DX11 straightaway ported to DX12, without any code changes.

[@HermannTheGreat]

Relic aren't a good development studio

[@banban5568]

@@HermannTheGreat They are good RTS devs but not great coders.

[@colonelccccc]

especially coming from the company that owns the game and DX12 !!!

[@HermannTheGreat]

@@banban5568 I remember back in the day they didn't listen to much of what their fans wanted early in 40k1/2 releases. 2 needed larger maps, more units, more DLC. And 3, that was a giant flop. They had great potential, just needed more programmers as you've stated. Hopefully COH3 will be very good.

[@szihu]

I wish they upscaled building sizes (not footprints, just visually) by 20% and allowed to zoom out a bit further away, so that units are not actually larger than some buildings. Or a tradeoff of 10% buildings up and 10% units down, since they are cartoonish stylized anyway and lack many details. Hopefully there will be a mod for this if this isn't getting addressed at all.

[@LateNightHalo]

I really wish someone would make a high quality, sprite-based RTS game. There’s something charming about seeing the little sprites moving about the map, using a bit of imagination to make them seem more lively and having a world that’s a bit “abstract” due to its technical style

[@braidena1633]

I'll probably get some flak for this but I was really jazzed to play Diablo 2 again with the sprites and when i switched it to legacy mode my first thought was ew get this off my screen

[@picolete]

Isn't the last version of AoE 2 that?

[@DubElementMusic]

yap, most dev. fucket up since 3d

[@zukodude487987]

Its called AoE2 newest version.

[@Lukashmfe]

Agree. Aoe II DE looks so much better and it starts with the color palette.

[@WannaDJ]

Grew up playing AoE 2 and 3, will give this one a shot!

[@T3AMKILL]

AOE2 had a very thick booklet going through the history of each unit and building. Anyone remember it? I used to read it all the time in the bathroom lol

[@cnelsonlv99]

Yep!

[@invalidusername201]

I would do the same anytime a game came with a manual

[@HaloXeon]

It's good to see the game at it's best on a 3090, but even an RTX 2060 is out of reach for most people. It would be nice to see more of an "everyman's" setup included in testing. Considering the GTX 1060 is still by far the most commonly owned GPU and the overwhelming majority of people still play at 1080p.

[@DadaMarinho]

I really hate this test with an 3090. Why this would be informative? If the games runs poorly in an 3090 but great in an 1060, it is a big win.

[@KhromTX]

I agree, kind of tired of techtubers only using the highest end hardware when testing games.

[@user-s8jb3qb6y]

@@DadaMarinho he used a 2060 also so

[@user-s8jb3qb6y]

@@KhromTX he used a 2060 also so try again

[@KhromTX]

@@user-s8jb3qb6y the point is tech influencers put far too much emphasis on only the highest end hardware in gaming benchmarks, with the exception of gamers Nexus. HaloXeon is right that there needs to be more attention paid to cards people actually run, like the 1060.

[@KRGraphicsCG]

I loved this game growing up and if the devs fixed the multi core CPU issues and REALLY used the hardware to it's maximum, it would be even better. Would I buy this game? Yes

[@JFinns]

This really isn't the kinda game that needs to be that optimized. Getting 120fps or 144fps etc. is great but doesn't effect gameplay like fast paced games. The devs nailed the strategy aspects which is key.

[@KRGraphicsCG]

@@JFinns true, but then again, I don't want frame drops while I'm playing any game, especially on powerful hardware

[@KRGraphicsCG]

@@JFinns and I'm cool with the painter look

[@Quplas]

Many RTS games suffer from the same issue. Some problems in computing are very difficult to multithread. It is not a case of "just fix", rather than "come up with a solution for a problem that hundreds of game developers haven't been able to truly solve". They can't just enable some cl_use_more_cores=true flag and solve everything.

[@Stealthydoughnut]

@@JFinns RTS games are affected by fps a decent amount. a little less than fps but not much.

[@JM_Traslo]

Could we see a DF Retro for Ultima Underworld, the game that inspired Carmack to rewrite the Doom Engine in the 90s and heavily inspired the Elder Scrolls as a series?

[@BrokenArrowX]

Oof that lack of multithreading hurts to look at.

[@johngalactus4014]

They played it very safe with the game, nothing groundbreaking but it's definitely going to please long time AoE fans.

[@unclesam7853]

I've played hundreds of hours of aoe2 back in the day, I like the way the game is but they definately should've done more....this game just looks like a reskin of aoe2 definative edition/aoe3....like there seems to be barely any improvement at all considering when aoe3 came out....not to say I'm unhappy but it's not enough

[@unclesam7853]

Atleast they should've made the battles like total war

[@zeantriox]

im not so sure about that.

[@andree1991]

I bet this game was made by women

[@KL-tn1xc]

This is exactly why rts is so stale these days.

[@WayStedYou]

4:58 Haven't formations been in since AoE II?

[@andree1991]

These people review games for money. They are not require to actually be fans and know the history like actual gamers do. But what an idiotic thing for him to even say when AOE has it as well 😂

[@ShindlerReal]

Specific structures that advance age in the game first appeared in AoE III Asian Dynasties too.

[@cikame]

Yup

[@averytucker790]

Yup!

[@sakib9102]

Nice review. I really do hope relic gets these issues fixed within this year. Just fixing the multithread issue alone should do a lot to make the game quite better than it is currently.

[@liukang3545]

hah l0l good luck with an ancient 3d engine :D

[@GPsarakis]

With how long MS has been supporting it's games it wouldn't surprise me if we get a steady pace of patches and new content to add more while they started off safe.

[@Beaut_Beau]

12:34 What a pathetic, impersonal response from the developers, basically "we already knew about the problems, we just didn't care enough to fix them" Not good enough Relic.

[@notnoodle2196]

Very very happy to see an RTS here on DF, excellent work as always! Seriously hoping for Total War Warhammer III to be covered!!!

[@Windiewalker]

Yeah we should make it louder. As someone who played TW: WH games more than 2k hours, I'd really love that.

[@solachesis451]

Me: Game looks nice but simplistic, I'm sure my 1080 will max it at 1440p! Alex: 2060 at max at 1440p can be 45fps. Me: oh no.

[@heroine1212]

It’s ridiculous, the performance kills the fun of the game for me. I got the Xbox Pass for the first time and played Doom Eternal, Desperados III, Back 4 Blood etc. without any issues on 1440p maxed out while streaming… … just to install this shitty looking game and it feels worse than Battlefield 2042. like bruh

[@Karmidzhanov92]

I’m running the game on ultra with i7 4790K oc’d to 4.6 GHz and 1080ti (no OC) and I’m getting consistent 100-120fps.

[@sean8102]

@@Karmidzhanov92 Join a 4v4 MP match, and get about 30 mins into the match. And see what FPS you get, with everything maxed out of course.

[@bridew]

@@Karmidzhanov92 1080p or 1440p?

[@Sh4rkill3r]

10:10 you say to set geometry details to high because it doesnt change much. but that add texture popin the game that is not present only on maximum geometry. On high, trees change LOD constantly from low poly to high poly during camera changes. So maximum is prefered to avoid popin.

[@JacoEEE]

I am very underwhelmed by the graphic presentation. Right at the start of the stress test, I also noticed that the shadows were flickering. Furthermore, this simple graphic style, which largely dispenses with all the details on the units, both on the 3D model and on the textures, is quite sobering. The colour palette is also too washed out, there is a lack of stronger contrasts. Stronger, or at all, ambient occlusion in the grass would have done the landscapes good, especially since the AA does not manage to hide the flickering in the grass. Furthermore, I don't like the design of the UI icons at all. It differs too little from each other and doesn't work with different colours at all, although it has been scientifically proven that different colours in the brain have an extremely good distinguishing and memorizing effect. I am also wondering why the extremely bad looking water is not mentioned in the video. No or hardly any reflections or any other effects. And as beautiful as the volumetric fog may be. This grey haze that is laid over everything that is not in the centre of the field of view ... I do not mean the fog of war or the covered area that has already been explored by the map. The visible area. Everything that comes near the edge of the screen sinks into a grey haze. For me, they completely messed up the game with that style. The buildings are also too small and not easy to distinguish from one another. Also, I don't understand why the boundaries of the buildings were set so that the units run through their walls. Very good to see that the villagers are walking through the palisade of the village centre. 02:00 If the devs don't want you to be able to block units with several adjacent buildings, they could have made the buildings smaller in the space assigned to them. So that with a building there is always placed some space around it, over which units can then go. So it looks more as if the devs noticed late in development that they don't want players to be able to block units with buildings, so it has been set so that the units can go through 5% of the boundaries of the buildings. That looks stupid. The animations of the units are very rough and why do siege units no longer have operators like in Age III? I am very disappointed with the presentation and especially the lack of details in every aspect. Especially when you look at what was delivered with Age III ... I find that, regardless of the technology, Age I - III in their DE editions look much better than Age IV. The only thing I like about the presentation is the sound design and that streets and decorative objects are automatically placed around buildings. I'll wait for mods to deliver sharper textures and hopefully better 3D models. And the icons have to be replaced. Then I'll try to somehow get rid of this grey haze with Reshade or monitor settings and create a little more contrast. In terms of gameplay, I really liked the stress test back then. But if so much about the presentation bothers me, it spoils all the fun in the game.

[@Canma890]

Agree 100%

[@DSRT888]

They went with the Cartoonish look :/.

[@NewChangersFiis]

The players will make the "Definitive Edition" at the end

[@rayyanali4471]

Its weird how they went from Company of Heroes to this.

[@chintoki]

@@rayyanali4471 It's probably not Relic but Microsoft.

[@TechGamer-pq1gu]

for a game that is meant to have hundreds if not thousands of units on-screen at the same time only working off a single thread does not makes sense especially here in 2021 what are the Devs thinking are rushing this game out with an outdated engine with updated features but it can't use those updated features very well.

[@liukang3545]

theyre not thinking, theyre st00peed

[@Schizm1]

I have to say - AOE4 graphics are growing on me. It looks more "paintery" but readability and surprise amount of detail on the buildings are nice. I just whish for more particle effects combine with lightning. Like heavy rainstorms or snowy blizzards or even heavy fog lit by torches.

[@MacGuyver85]

Likewise. I’m starting to realise that the style they went with is akin to medieval paintings. Still somewhat disappointed though. So much more could have been done.

[@versaleyang]

This kind of style is specifically made for competitive gaming, readability is key in making fast decisions. Fancy graphics will only cause confusion and mistakes. When SC2 came out, even though my PC back then could play the game in highest graphics settings, me and most other ppl and especially pro players always played the game on lowest settings in multiplayer for the readability. It doesn't surprise me that they went for this graphical simplicity on purpose.

[@brandonjohnson4121]

The fact that a new game in 2021, almost 2022, is single-threaded is just disgusting. Single-core performance hasn't been a discussion point in around half a decade now, and now this from a AAA game? What the hell.

[@andrewgebert5718]

I was fortunate enough to work on AOE3:DE a couple years back. Really awesome to see how IV turned out

[@derschnuff8819]

For me as a newcomer to the Age Series, i really think AOE 4 is a very well crafted game. Its atmospheric, its easy to pick up, graphics are good but not overdesigend in a distracting way. Started with AOE 2 DE and for a little transtition i played although AOE 3 DE. I was wondering about that title, because it seems to be know to be hated and loved by the community. For me who has not so much traditional AOE gaming brackground, i really like AOE 3 DE. Even today its a cool game to pick up, graphics are still good and the gameplay is somewhat different than AOE 2 but still entertaining :). I hope the Devs of AOE 4 can get better control of the high GPU-load during scrolling. Would help a lot with lower GPU-setups. Greetings and happy halloween.

[@diverman1023]

I'm not sure if I'm the only one, I like the overall look of AOE 4 but those arrows look TERRIBLE to me, they move so awkward unlike in the older games

[@manuelvillalta6028]

Microsoft about to release 3 classics..AOE4, Halo:I, Forza 5. Great year for gaming, game pass is a no brainer.

[@sean8102]

Agree about Gamepass. I'm enjoying the single player campaign quite a bit in this, but I'd never spend $60 on it. Can't wait for Halo Infinite, and Forza Horizon 5.

[@cy9nvs]

I mean I pre-ordered it already, but still I feel like this shouldn't be a full price title. From a technical perspective it's not really a AAA game, same in terms of content.

[@skurasch]

You could just get game pass

[@KhromTX]

Refund and get it on GP. Definitely not worth $60.

[@cy9nvs]

@@skurasch Nah I rarely buy new games, not a fan of subscription models.

[@versaleyang]

A lot of the budget probably went into the making of the documentaries in the game and PR, so they jacked up the price of the game considerably. For an RTS game in 2021 that looks this old school, full price does seem a bit much. Might also be that they just want to push people who are interested in buying Microsoft games like flight sim 2020 and AoE4 to subscribe to xbox game pass.

[@Penpaper]

It looks like something that came out 15 years ago. I don’t expect a radical change but it’s too much the same for me

[@publicenemy5981]

Cannot wait! Specifically bought my PC for this game .

[@richardrasiah2815]

Same here friend! 😄

[@HermannTheGreat]

What PC did you buy?

[@TerraWare]

AOE 2 was the first ever online game I played as a teenager back in the day. Was in a clan our strategy was to rush by using the Franks. This and Diablo 2 in 4 player co-op. It was great.

[@DubElementMusic]

@@HermannTheGreat Probably a pentium3

[@Axel-vt8no]

Damn! You must be bummed as hell that they're delaying the release until April 18th.

[@-INFERNUS-]

Still hammering that single thread in 2021, yeah good job. I say if your developing a game that said game should scale up to at least 16 threads as evenly as possible on an 8 core CPU. Going into 2022 and yet it seems progress is going a few steps back. I have a 5950x and the boost clock get can up to 5.050ghz which is good at least. I get the feeling that in 5-10 years devs will still be using that one core of your CPU 🤣

[@RodniDemental]

I'm sorry, is possible that it's my fault.. I'm using the same computer since 2014 and the one before that lasted from 2008.. Maybe it's time to upgrade but almost everything I want to play still works on it.. And the laptop I'm on was a bargain 'refurbished' from someone else.. at least a few years ago so I don't even know how old it really is.

[@Nick930]

11:34 made me nauseous. Nearly 30 straight seconds of hell :P

[@ronniewhitedx]

When you're doing your comparisons you should do a side-by-side one of those with the previous games

[@cikame]

This game seems to be missing a "thing", i don't need to explain why Age 2 is great and Age 3 was a visual treat at the time with its graphics and physics, and while its gameplay changes weren't universally loved it had ideas. This seems like someone modded Age 2 into Age 3, that's maybe too reductive it does look nice and looks like it plays well, but it seems very safe and simple which is why i'm so shocked about those technical issues, if you're tasked with making a new AoE with this simple and scalable presentation it should probably be firing on all cylinders right?

[@majormononoke8958]

there are many changes though, maybe not that many, but i would love people actually mentioning them. Before saying not many... Like ruins staying at the base, that can be rebuild. Units on stone walls and the whole siege aspect having more of an impact. Units able to hide in woods. The new winning option, controlling 3 sacret places= player that has map controll. Priest and similar units getting a buff as a kind of hero unit. Base layout having a massive impact in connection to the buffs of buildings giving to nearby buildings/ units. Aging, while still be able to produce workers. Etc/

[@frapuz]

From what I'm seeing, the campaigns will be the main focus of this title. The last 4-5 new campaings in 2DE were really really good, if they can mix the same quality with the presentation style of 4, I can see it becoming a higely popular way to enjoy history. Multiplayer will be a 2DE thing for a very long time still

[@TheCasualSubculturist]

2021, AAA game can't utilize more than one thread... what the hell... This ain't sins of the solar empire.

[@megapro125]

it seems to be a trend with rts games. *cries in sins of the solar empire and stellaris late game performance

[@ekimoleksander6068]

The tone mapping or whatevery you did to get the HDR into SDR wasn't great.

[@geri4367]

Rts and manger games are the easiest ones to multithread, it's weird that the game is so single threaded

[@ValkenDnB]

Yeah makes it seem like it’s still on an older engine than what’s really shown or talked about.

[@Straktisie]

Multithreading destroys determinism which the multiplayer relies on.

[@tommarnk]

yeah, its like they forgot to flip the multi thread switch

[@ValkenDnB]

@@Straktisie what

[@tyguy3876]

Them manger games...

[@emeraldcelestial1058]

DOC U MEN TARIES

[@Nicholas_Steel]

The camera issue likely a result of the single threaded nature of the game. If stuff is being streamed dynamically as the camera moves that would be slow if it's all being handled by a single core.

[@liukang3545]

exactly, this game is severely bottlenecked

[@cnelsonlv99]

How do you "pan out" to get a wider view so I can see more of the battlefield? It seems like I can barely see anything on the screen, compared with past versions of the game.

[@Bryan-T]

A single threaded game in 2021.

[@offspringfan89]

Almost 2022 actually.

[@shovsoft]

What is going on with the grass shader at 14:00, looks like it is being updated in scheduled waves like the time scale is ramping up and down?

[@magoartico]

please test the performance mode! there are a lot of interesting technical elements outside max settings and high end hardware

[@Spitznock]

Who's this Documen Terry guy? Historic figure? I can't seem to find him in any of my history books.

[@nbaumg]

im real disappointed how safe they played it on the graphics. starcraft 2 looks better and that came out in 2010

[@panimala]

Great video! Bit disappointed with the art of AoE4 and surprised it doesnt run as well as it should

[@bepkororoti8019]

Tbh a game like this has no business to be that performance intensive... i9 10900K(!) + RTX3090(!!!) can't do 4k60 on max settings? Seriously?

[@bobbyharris2270]

Yeah it’s mainly due to just using single core sadly I really wish they had fix it because it shows in aoe de2 and 3 as well my 5700xt has no problem handling them cpu is the bottlenecks in the game due to the games configuration

[@richardm6985]

"if you don't want relic to make Age of supreme commander, of age of Warhammer, if you would rather they respect the history of the series - unlike larian with bg3 - you should be happy." I love this video, thanks Alex, I'm sure they'll patch it up!

[@Orisha1990]

This 3090 PC is not representative is the under statement of the year. Just like I liked console game reviews based on the base machines primarily with the premium ones extra, I'd like PC technical and game reviews do their thing primarily on current mid level hardware. Doesn't necessarily got to be a 1060 which is still the most popular GPU still, but whatever the current equivalent of that is, like the 2060 featured on this video, that bit was probably the most useful for the most people.

[@Sedifet]

My understanding was that RTS is single threaded by necessity. Starcraft 2 is also single threaded for the most part

[@arnauddurand127]

I am the only one annoyed by the amount of fog in this game? I am not sure how it is supposed to improve the visuals when the camera is zoomed out.

[@asdfjklo234]

I would have liked them to go with a more realistic overall design, grittier, this does feel a bit like playing with toys again.

[@Perjoss]

This is awesome, DF included a game review for AoE 4 within their 'tech review' for the game

[@AidenR19]

An RTS game reviewed by the man himself? "Fascinating" is what richard would say

[@griffgames9538]

Yes, essentially he would, in the here and now.

[@w0mblemania]

That popping in and out of the fog of war is driving me nuts. Also: the texture, shadow, position popping of the trees. I really hope they fix this.

[@gulanhem9495]

What do u mean pop in and out? What exactly is popping out? Visible parts of the terrain, enemy units, or what? I know many things visually are off with this game and visibility is bad despiter the cartoon graphics. When I played the stress test, I experienced it was hard to have a good sense of what's going on on the battlefield. But I have a hard time describing exactly what's wrong.

[@w0mblemania]

@@gulanhem9495 Firstly, the main problem is the non-animation of the fog-of-war. It just pops in and out constantly. The fog should be smoothly animated in to position, instead of popping between on/off states. Secondly, the trees are the next biggest problem. When the camera moves, the trees billboard between their faces very noticeably and they pop between their LODs. So, we see the trees change on us when the camera moves. Very distracting. It's super-surprising that these technical issues are in a game like this. Almost all games these days resolve these issues well before release. For a good example, see Dota 2. (FWIW, I don't play Dota. It just has well-done graphics.)

[@monkfishy6348]

*Sometimes*, games that are single-threaded, can be forced into a pseudo multi-threaded state, by going into TaskManager and right clicking the process under Details > Set Affinity and disabling the odd-numbered cores. Alt-tab back to the game, then back to TaskManager and re-enable those cores. I discovered this in Divinity Original Sin 2, which had the same issues you describe. A heavily single-threaded, isometric game, which struggled to reach max GPU load, and whose framerate would tank when moving the camera. This fixed it right up and greatly improved framerate and gpu usage in all scenarios.

[@nathang4682]

Thanks for all you and the rest of the DF team do, these types of problems are all things I would otherwise assume are my fault!

[@blackwidow7804]

I dont get it. How can a game released in 2021 use only 4 threads?

[@alperen194]

I love how much work and passion you guys put into your videos! I am a subscriber since 2013, and I always appreciate every single upload, your content taught me a lot of technical aspects of video games. I always learn something new, and it helped me to understand how games kinda work and how I can optimize or even find and fix issues in games, to improve my gaming experience. Thank You for nearly 9 awesome years!

[@jamreal18]

What happen to units fighting on top wall if it collapses?

[@fcukugimmeausername]

Given the performance and visuals it's pretty apparent this game spent considerable time being developed as a mobile game.

[@kavonstuart9803]

Don’t mobile games use more than one core now.

[@fcukugimmeausername]

@@kavonstuart9803 Ones that are rushed to PC probably don't. Lmao 😂

[@iamtheliquor809]

This all looks fantastic! I just wish the graphics were slightly better. Unit models especially.

[@colonelccccc]

+1

[@phrozac]

For the camera movement fps dips, if you're regularly getting 90 fps and above, would capping the fps to 60 get you a stable framerate/frametime?

[@lordrikudouzero9119]

I came here just to ask for a technical review of the new NSO Expansion Pack. Hopefully it’s on the way but there’s a lot of non technical reviews on it almost unanimously agreeing it’s quite imperfect (ranging from playable up to horrendous). Great work as always, thanks!

[@photonboy999]

*"texture terrain data..."* Dynamically loading in terrain textures that results in STUTTERS seems pretty stupid in 2021. The excuse implies that they can't simply buffer that data in fast memory. Really? Far more complex and more demanding games have been doing this for years. I'd far rather play a visually less impressive game that has perfect frame times than play AOE4 with stutters... smooth panning is arguably the most critical part of the experience... it almost makes me feel like they started off planning around SSD asset streaming for the new XBOX. That doesn't really make sense, but it just popped into my mind... seriously, how much Sys/Video memory do you need to store these types of textures? (I would think a system with at most 4GB of VRAM and 8GB of system memory should be fine to buffer everything the game has).

[@robertonome2448]

probably a lot more complicated than that, but yeah. an RTS game that stutters while scrolling (most likely the most used command in an RTS) is pretty stupid, no matter what

[@bridew]

How do you get the threads to show up in overlay please ? :O

[@neildeeley4177]

I cant turn the shadows off! I select OFF and game keeps them on ....

[@Decenium]

Could Relic PLEASE remaster and add to Dawn of War 1? imagine that with new textures and all the factions added

[@Camilothegodfather]

I agree. That'd be awesome.

[@HueyTheDoctor]

I'm old enough to remember playing the shareware version of the original AOE when I was a kid. Do I mean the demo? No, we didn't call them demos back then, it was the wild west and everything was still being figured out. Shareware, baby. Floppy disks. You kids don't even know.

[@brandonsmith8123]

Good for you

[@KindOldRaven]

Okay this looks decent, but that performance is atrocious for how it looks *imho*

[@adamsanchez222]

So Nvidia for the GPU but what CPU would you rather use? A 5600x or i5 11600k? I'll like be pairing it with 3060ti. Thanks for the help.

[@thanksbetotap]

Thanks a ton for covering this game, Alex. Hopefully the developer can iron out those issues.

[@eugkra33]

minimum system requirements are "Intel HD 520 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 11" They are targeting this game for the masses. What's weird, though is that an integrated Vega 11 GPU is like 3x as powerful as that Intel.

[@jsanity6095]

I'm getting around 90 FPS on 3440x1440 with a 3080 on max settings, that's alot lower than 4k 120 fps with a 3090??

[@jjforcebreaker]

R.I.P. Ensemble Studios. I've got mixed feelings about many aspects of IV. Engine capabilities and overall visual fidelity are kinda poor, especially for a full-priced game in 2021. Everyone should get 2DE and 3DE tho. Now it's prolly too late, but I'd love to see you Alex compare definitive editions to originals. They are pretty awesome now! All release issues have been ironed out, and more!

[@mihirchitnis905]

The artistic style for low complexity made this game devoid of any charm or personality, which the previous AOE games had in spades.

[@wii166]

11:30 in yup exactly the same as the beta i made videos about this myself was terrible i thought they might have fixed that before release

[@Turt3752]

Me, with an i5-7400 and 1060 3 GB, listening to this video say this game needs heavier options:

[@kiisseli1337]

Looks surprisingly simple, like a mobile game. But also traditional like first games. Quite good.

[@WutipongWongsakuldej]

Are the physics dynamic or static? Those destruction look like static animation to me.

[@SoloPlayerSama]

It's so weird, as time goes on it's almost like programmers are WORSE at creating a smooth experience for new releases. Well at least the ones that work at these companies, because typically the community will mod/tweak/fix these issues given some time. I really don't understand.

[@Tacgnol9001]

I think part of the issue is that devs used to have to optimise the hell out of games/engines to get them to run well on hardware of the day. Hardware is so strong thesedays that you can get away with skipping a lot of the optimisation that used to be essential for a smooth experience.

[@benmak1039]

Is there any chance you guys could do an in-depth video comparing all the currently available streaming options. I've noticed there's three main factors that account for a good experience, the cloud hardware, video compression and the input delay and i think it would be really interesting to compare all of these factors and see how they vary.

[@faraany3k]

Lived my childhood with this series and other RTS games. I am getting married next week and I dunno how I can manage to play such a game now with all the time commitment. I have a 2060 so with mentioned technical issues give me a reason to hold off playing this game for sometime.

[@avavii]

Tech review starts at 5:48.

[@Nebelkorona]

That camera move FPS dip is insane.

[@icksbocks]

They STILL haven't fixed the camera panning completely tanking performance? That was a prtoblem in the first closed beta months ago. What have they been doing since then wtf? The techical state seems to be just as pathetic as back then...

[@RMJ1984]

Big companies don't actually listen to your feedback. They use alpha / beta to gage interesting and ramp up hype. None of the issues you faced in the beta will have been fixed on release. Yet people are still preordering like good sheep, rewarding this behavior.

[@cs3705]

Oh man, I've been obsessed with AOE2 for years now. I can't wait to try this one. It looks better than 3 so far.

[@ijustsawthat]

I am glad that AoE can run in any potato PC. RTS genre usually do not target high end PCs, so it's not an issue, but I get that they can go further for people who have a better rig.

[@shivakrishna1743]

what is the software he is using to track cpu cores utilisation

[@HumanManufactured]

we still playing AOE2 right?

[@RetroniOS]

WOW. Just WOW. DF analysed the graphics of an RTS but didn't find time to do the same with one of the best games of the year. And I don't mean Peppa the Pig.

[@PintsofGuinness]

huh

[@mrkleven3278]

What game?

[@lordxboss5700]

Ya what game they looked at Halo and Forza already and they're still just early looks and they look incredible 🤷‍♂️ what game are you talking about

[@DaveVoyles]

Diablo 2

[@lordxboss5700]

@@DaveVoyles I'm sure that's coming

[@nigelsharp4664]

Illuminating analysis as always from DF. Had no idea about the documentary aspect of the campaigns - sounds nice.

[@at_oussama]

Unfortunately, the saturation in colours and the way this game handles itself makes most people still go back to AoE II. But I'm glad it's reviewed well, which means nothing really, but it's just there.

[@jesseshaver2262]

hope they can port it to console. I'd love to play it.

[@Chyllbacca]

I should think the Series consoles could run this easily, with mouse and keyboard support. I’m sad they haven’t really addressed it yet

[@rattiom]

I think the single core utilization was to allow the game to run on older pcs, as a lot of aoes pre-existing fanbase use older systems. It sucks but I think that's why

[@DarkP1]

back in the day, just moving a villager to gather food or hunt some deer was so exciting to do, lol

[@JGRICH61]

Never forget Relic, the studio that abandoned the Dawn of War franchise and could not save part III

[@killerfugu2659]

That camera fps drop "bug" or whatever it is was also in the beta, was really hoping it would be fixed by now.