Hello there, I am currently using Windows 8 in my laptop, and I would like to play again the Total War Eras collection package I bought years ago.
Rome Total War Gold Edition and Alexander seem to work just fine, but both Shogun Total War Gold Edition, as well as Medieval Total War Gold Edition are impossible to play. Both immediately crash after intro credits.
I read that the graphic settings of both games are simply incompatible with Windows 8, and read in a number of websites (including this one), that using virtual machines could be a possible way to get to play them. I got a Windows XP SP3 iso image, and have been using that for my experiments.
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I download Oracle Virtualbox, and after some tweaking around, I got Shogun Total War to work. Granted, there are some minor flaws:
- Resolution for my laptop (1366 vs768) isn't available, so the best next thing I get is the old 1024x768, which leaves two black columns in both sides of my screen (not a real issue).
- Main menu and campaign map graphics are for the most part ok, yet they feel slightly slower.
- Battle graphics are ok for the most part, and game mechanics work just fine. Yet, scrolling around the map (whether with arrow keys or right clikc mouse), lags the game a bit. Nothing too hard to bear though.
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HOWEVER,
Medieval Total War Gold Edition doesn't work the same way apparently. I installed the game in guest (virtual) machine, just like I had with Shogun, and tried to open it.
Screen goes black after a few seconds, but reverts back to desktop with an error saying that Direct3d memory or acceleration settings are wrong. It doesn matter that I had installed the direct3d package, added with the Guest Additions of VirtualBox (done in safemode). It just won't work.
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After that, I downloaded VMWare player (free for non-commercial use), and installed Medieval Total War, see if I had better luck with it.
I sort of did. After installing the game, it opened just fine, and though a bit laggy, the main menu seemed to work fine, and even the campaign tutorial and campaign map are for the most part functional as well (though noticeably more laggy compared to Shogun on VirtualBox). I then proceeded to test the battle map settings and there it was hell.
Trees, units and practically any element designed on top of the map has a noticeable black box around it. Likewise, scrolling around the map is incredibly laggy (much more than STW on Virtualbox). Yet, none of this is as bad as the complete impossibility to interact with your units and order them around. While you can select them, you simply can't get them to move or change formations. SUffice is to say, battles are off the question here.
I was wondering if it was an MTW problem exclusively, and thus decided to install STW in the VMWare Player guest machine. Exact same results: Menu and map are for the most part alright, but battle graphics are broken in the exact same way (black boxes around units, trees and some parts of terrain; terrible scroll lag; no interaction with troops).
I concluded it was then a VMWare Player problem.
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After that, I decided to try the "upgraded" and professional version of VMWare: VMWare Workstation (version 10 and latest one).
I downloaded it from their website, and got a 25 number key to activate it.
Repeated the same process of creating a Windows XP SP3 machine (looks quick in the description, but you guys can't imagine how tedious it is to reinstall Windows over and over again), and added the VMWare Tools latest version.
After fixing some other issues with the machine (apparently there is a sound problem when your host OS is Win 7/ Win 8 and your guest is Win XP; which required me to install an audio fix from lilchips.com); I decided to experiment once again.
Results were ironically worse than what I had gotten with the free to use VMWare Player: After installing both STW and MTW, both games do open correctly and I can get to their main menu. Yet, the differences start to appear even there:
- Screen flickering (colours changing) can happen occasionally, unlike the stability I had had with both VirtualBoX (Shogun only) and VMWare Player.
- Battle map graphics are just as bad as VMWare Player: Black boxes around elements (troops, trees, occasionally castle walls); scroll lag is unbearably heavy; troops do not respond to any command.
- Unlike VMWare Player, campaign/strategic map is also broke. While you can access it, the moment it loads, screen and colour flickering go crazy. Even your mouse pointer starts to present issues as it starts to leave a graphic trail when you move it (dozens of mouse pointers at times). Getting out requires you to hit ESC and exit the game.
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Current Results:
Oracle Virtualbox:
STW: Bar some minor problems (ressolution, a slight increase in lag), Shogun Total War Gold Edition can be played here. Main menu, campaign map and battle maps are all functional.
MTW: In spite of installing the Direct3d component given in the Guest Additions, Medieval Total War Gold Edition won't even load the intro credits (even worse than my host Windows 8 OS). Direct3d errors as given as explanation.
VMWare Player:
STW: Main menu and campaign map work correctly, although lag is slightly worse than in VirtualBox.
Battle map has a number of problems that make fighting real time battles impossible.
MTW: Exact same situation as the aforementioned.
VMWare Workstation 10:
STW: Main menu works correctly, although colour flickering occurs occasionally. Both campaign map and battle map graphics have severe problems that make playing the game impossible.
Campaign map's colour are so heavily distorted, hardly anything is visible. Battle maps present black boxes around units, terrible scrolling lag, and units aren't responsive to commands.
MTW: Same situation as the above.
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Having described at length my findings. I come to you for aid and a number of questions.
1. Seeing as Oracle VirtualBox seems to have better responsiveness to the STW engine, is there anything I can do to get over the Direct3d problem that won't allow me to open MTW?
2. Is there any fix for the battle map severe issues presented in VMWare player? Similar question for WMWare Workstation 10?
3. If none of the virtualisation software programs I've tried can be used to properly play Medieval Total War GOld Edition; is there any other alternative or option I could look into?
4. Could the fact I'm using Windows XP SP3 be anyhow part of the problem? Should I try older virtualizations (Windows 98/ME/2000) ?
5. If virtual machines are simply not capable of playing Medieval Total War Gold Edition, what alternatives do I have? Is there any chance of finding a patch/configuration change/graphic card tweaking, that could allow me to open the game correctly in my host OS?
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