Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord efficiency – find out how to get the most effective settings

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord has lastly charged into early entry, albeit with fairly plenty of technical issues in tow if Sin’s early expertise is something to go by. I’ve but to change into mired in the identical loading time points and mission crashes as she has, so I’m afraid I can’t supply any fast fixes for these sadly, however what I can discuss is how the game runs extra usually, and find out how to make sense of its numerous graphics settings that will help you get the most effective expertise from Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, in addition to the most effective efficiency. Onwards!

We’ll doubtless have to attend till TaleWorlds Entertainment difficulty a patch earlier than Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s loading and crashing points get fastened, however in the meanwhile, right here’s find out how to get the game as easily as potential utilizing its Performance menu. Below, you’ll see precisely what the game seems to be like on its 5 graphics high quality settings, as effectively the place you possibly can minimize corners to attempt to enhance your body charge.

At time of writing, I must make a bit extra progress in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord earlier than I can actually take a look at how a lot of an affect your CPU has on the game, however I’ll be following this up with a extra detailed take a look at how PC efficiency is affected by Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s large military battles very quickly. As a consequence, this text will focus extra on the game’s graphics choices, however keep tuned for extra Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord efficiency evaluation over the approaching weeks.

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord PC necessities

Before we get began, let’s take a fast take a look at Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s PC necessities. As you possibly can see beneath, each the minimal and really helpful specs are fairly affordable for probably the most half, as you don’t want an costly graphics card to get the most effective from it, nor do you want a great deal of RAM.

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord minimal PC necessities:

CPU: Intel Core i3-8100 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
RAM: 6GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 (2GB) / AMD Radeon HD 7850
OS: Windows 7 (64-bit)

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord really helpful PC necessities:

CPU: Intel Core i5-9600Ok / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
RAM: 8GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (3GB) / AMD Radeon RX 580
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)

Indeed, you solely want the 3GB model of the favored Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 to run Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord easily, as even the very best high quality setting within the game solely wants round 3GB of reminiscence. As a consequence, you ought to be positive with the 4GB model of the AMD Radeon RX 580 as effectively fairly than the 8GB model.

Instead, the actual killer is probably going going to be that CPU requirement. Indeed, even Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s minimal PC requirement specifies at the least an Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200. These quad-core CPUs each got here out in 2017, which is . Contrast that with the age of their minimal graphics playing cards, which got here out in 2012, and that could possibly be fairly the sticking level for anybody who hasn’t upgraded their PC just lately.

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s really helpful CPU necessities are just about bang updated, too, specifying an Intel Core i5-9600K or an AMD Ryzen 5 3600X. Indeed, these CPUs solely got here out final 12 months and are so new, actually, that they’re at present sitting in my best gaming CPU listing. Why are Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s CPU necessities so excessive? Well, it’s all to do with the dimensions of the game’s armies, as you want a number of computational energy to get these tons of of character fashions transferring onscreen – a bit like Creative Assembly’s Total War games. As I discussed above, I must play a bit extra of the game earlier than I can actually take a look at how a lot of a distinction your CPU makes to those large battles, however watch this area.

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord – find out how to get the most effective settings

For now, let’s deal with Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s graphics efficiency and find out how to get the game working as easily as potential. I’ve been working the game on or barely beneath its really helpful PC spec, utilizing an Intel Core i5-8600Ok working at inventory speeds, 16GB of RAM and my 6GB Asus GeForce GTX 1060 OC 9Gbps version graphics card (which is identical GTX 1060 I exploit for all my efficiency exams), together with all the most recent Windows 10 and graphics drivers put in.

There are 5 high quality settings in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, starting from Very Low, Low, Medium, High and Very High. You can discover them within the Performance tab of the Options menu, and you may swap between them on the fly with out having to reload the game. Here’s what all of them seem like.

As you possibly can see, they’re all fairly totally different. Very Low successfully strips the game of all its vegetation, textures and fancy lighting results, supplying you with the naked minimal so as to get it working. Low, in the meantime, provides numerous bushes again into the image in addition to extra detailed terrain, however is sort of low on shadows.

Moving as much as Medium, alternatively, does provide you with these aforementioned shadows to assist in giving the world a bit extra depth, and smartens up the quantity of element on present as effectively. High polishes all that up a bit additional, whereas Very High has much more correct lighting and shadow results, and provides prettier-looking character, foliage and environmental particulars.

The look of the game modifications fairly drastically whenever you’re strolling by its cities and having nose to nose conversations with different characters as effectively. Here’s what the city scenes seem like:

And right here’s what characters seem like up shut, too:

In cities and villages, I wouldn’t say there’s a very big distinction between Medium and Very High, and the identical goes for character conversations as effectively. Yes, Medium doesn’t have fairly as a lot wafting grass as High or Very High, however bushes and mountains within the distance are comparatively comparable, as are particular person character particulars corresponding to clothes textures and facial hair.

Instead, it’s actually solely whenever you begin taking part in on Low that the game begins to look decidedly worse. In cities, the foliage will get stripped proper again to little greater than massive patches of dust, and the lighting begins to look a bit wonky as effectively. As for character conversations, it’s also possible to see previous service provider man’s beard rework from a fairly full chin of curls to a straggly, fairly sorry-looking patchwork. Even the poor man’s eyebrows shrink in measurement. And Very Low… effectively, that’s extra a horror present than anything.

The excellent news, although, is that even my GTX 1060 was in a position to produce a gentle 60fps out on the world map once I was taking part in on Very High at 1920×1080, and infrequently rose to highs of round 75fps. Riding on horseback by cities sometimes noticed that determine fall nearer to 50fps (dismounting and strolling round on foot pushed it again nearer to 55-60fps), however general the game nonetheless felt very easy and playable.

Naturally, dropping the standard all the way down to High pushed these body charges effectively over the 60fps mark, averaging round 75fps out on this planet with highs of 80fps. Towns and villages have been a lot the identical, too, flitting between 70-80fps relying on the complexity of the scene.

Take a more in-depth take a look at Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s settings menu, nevertheless, and also you’ll discover there are literally a stunning variety of similarities between High and Very High, which makes it simpler to pinpoint which settings are probably the most demanding. Both high quality modes have the identical Shader, Texture, Terrain, Water and Lighting Quality settings, for instance (High), they usually each produce other results corresponding to Interactive Grass, Sun Shafts, Subsurface Scattering, Tesselation and Bloom switched on additional down the menu choices, too, so that you’d really be doing your self a disservice by dropping these any additional.

Instead, it’s the opposite settings (those which are totally different) the place you’ll need to focus your consideration. Indeed, simply altering the Anti-Aliasing from Temporal SMAA x2 to common Temporal SMAA noticed my overworld body charge leap all the best way as much as 75-80fps on Very High, which is sort of the enhance for a single setting alteration. Compare that with the 5fps improve I noticed by simply altering Shadow Quality from Very High to High, and I believe you’ll agree that dropping your anti-aliasing settings ought to be your first port of name if you end up having efficiency points.

The second factor it’s best to do is alter the Environmental Detail. While this didn’t have a big impact once I was using the world over map, elevating my common body charge by about 5fps or so, I noticed it shoot up by 10-15fps once I entered a city or village on Very High, averaging round 70fps with Temporal SMAA x2 anti-aliasing enabled and roughly 83fps with common Temporal SMAA. Even higher, I didn’t actually discover any big drop in general image high quality, both.

Those have been the settings I discovered had the most important affect throughout my testing, however one other fast and simple approach to enhance your body charge is to benefit from Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord’s Resolution Scale characteristic. You’ll discover this within the Video tab fairly than the Performance menu in Settings (as proven above), and it allows you to run the game at a proportion of your desktop decision, corresponding to 90% or 83% of 1920×1080, for instance. The game is then upscaled to your chosen desktop decision, and may help take a little bit of the load off your GPU with out dropping down a full decision setting.

You can alter it in increments of 1 proper all the way down to 20%, too, which provides you a great deal of flexibility – though I’d advocate protecting it as excessive as potential the place you possibly can, as 20% of 1920×1080 means you’re technically solely working the game at a measly 384×216! 90%, alternatively, will upscale from a decision of 1728×972.

In reality, you most likely don’t even must go down so far as 90%, as I discovered that even sticking to 95% did wonders for my body charge. When I used to be using round in cities and villages, for instance, I noticed a gentle body charge of round 80fps on the default Very High high quality mode, which is just about the identical sort of enhance I obtained from dropping down the anti-aliasing one notch. As a consequence, for those who’re adamant about taking part in with the very best potential graphics settings however don’t fairly have the GPU energy to do it, then making use of the Resolution Scale on this approach could possibly be simply the ticket.

As I discussed above, I’ll be doing extra Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord testing over the approaching weeks to see how one can enhance the game’s siege battle efficiency, and the way totally different CPUs can have an effect on the pace of the game, however in the meanwhile the guidelines and methods I’ve outlined above ought to hopefully be sufficient that will help you get going with the early hours of the game and assist you maintain a gentle body charge in case your PC is getting on a bit.

And whilst you’re right here, remember to try our guides group’s prime 25 suggestions for Bannerlord newcomers of their Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord guide as effectively.