Windows Vista/7 resolution problems (800x600 bug)

**caravel** · 06-28-2010, 11:48

Note this is an untested solution, use entirely at your own risk.

Originally Posted by Just Learnin

I had the same problem in both Vista and Win 7 of only having 800 x 600 in the Strategy map and 640 x 480 in the Battle map.

A fix I found that worked with a GTX 280, GTX 295 and an HD 4870 X2 is:

Got to All Programs open the Accessories folder click on Run type MSCONFIG in the pop up window and click OK. If Windows asks for permission click Continue. In the new pop up window select the Boot tab and click on the Advanced options... button and in the new little pop up window click the tiny box by Maximum memory: Whatever the number in the box here change it to 2560 then click OK. Click Apply on the remaining window then a small pop up asking you to restart PC should remain, click Yes. You should now be able to play both Shogun Total War and Medieval Total War with all resolutions available.

To revert your system to normal you have to uncheck the box in the Advanced options... , Maximum Memory: click OK then select the General tab and click the little round button beside Normal startup Load all device drivers and services then click Apply and then click Yes when asked to restart the system.

What you are doing here is only allowing the system to let the games software see an amount of RAM it is programmed to understand, or so I believe, thus preventing it from defaulting to minimum specs. If the number 2560 does not work for you in the Maximum memory box try 2048. I just found on my rigs 2560 was the highest amount I could go and still get all the resolutions.

I also found that with the HD 4870 X2 I had to disable AI in the ATI Catalyst Control center or I was getting a split screen effect.

Good Luck!

Original post: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...=1#post2487509

Many thanks to Just Learnin for this. Please test and post your results.

**Masaky** · 06-29-2010, 23:33

it worked with me, but instead of putting 2560, i suggest putting your computer maximum number, mine was 4650, you can see what your computer number is when you first open the box there will be a grayed out number in there, put that instead.

**Kas** · 09-03-2010, 10:27

I have Vista and a GTX 280...my max number is close to 4000, but still can't change the resolution. ah well.

**caravel** · 09-03-2010, 10:33

Try other values such as 2000. The change is reversible and won't cause any harm. I've actually tried as low as 128 under Windows XP, but I wouldn't recommend anything lower than about 1000 for Vista/7.

**Kas** · 09-03-2010, 10:36

Ok! I'll try...thanks!

**grandpa** · 10-11-2010, 17:26

your fix for the resolution is awesome. Thank you so much.Once again, the fine folks at the Org. come through again.

**Just Learnin** · 10-12-2010, 03:08

Originally Posted by grandpa

your fix for the resolution is awesome. Thank you so much.Once again, the fine folks at the Org. come through again.

Thanks, glad it worked for you!

**pdoan8** · 02-19-2011, 06:19

My system has 6GB of RAM and ATI Radeon HD 550V with 1 GB VRAM. STW/MTW only takes numbers from 2048 to 2560. It worked for STW/MTW, but doesn't help with other games. With 2.5GB of RAM enable, system will only have about 0.7 to 1 GB available. Luckily, the change and reboot is fast enough.

I probably have to go ahead with rebuild a dedicated system for old games. I recently bought a brand new socket 478 MB for only $40. I still have a couple P4s 2.8-3GB, some good ram, a few AGP video cards ranging from MX440 to 7800gt, plenty of HD and CD/DVD drives, even a floppy drive.

**drone** · 07-24-2012, 15:36

New member Sepheus has written a small DirectDraw wrapper that returns 2GB on system calls for memory size, download link and discussion can be found here. It's a cleaner fix that works for MTW, and might work for STW as well. Give it a try, and let us know how it goes.

**shilisha** · 08-23-2012, 09:14

That's great for me!
Thanks for sharing!

**Edorf74** · 11-27-2012, 01:24

I had this strange thing happening. I recently upgraded the ram on one of my laptops that was running STW Gold Edition. Upgraded from 4gb to 8gb, running
64-bit win 7 and an Ati card.

Until then I have used the msconfig memory fix to reduce system mem. When I started STW today with all the 8gb in system I could suddenly run the game in 1024x768 res.
I was really wondering what did this. I came to the conclusion that it was not any newly installed drivers that made this happen.
Went into msconfig again and reduced the ram to 4gb to check if the situation would be the same. Started the game and it could not run in 800x600.

So I have this: I actually got the resolution problem fixed by upgrading the ram to 8gb. The solution also applied to Medieval Total War that had the same issue.