medieval - batttle works but campaign doesnt!

[megaduck]

hi everyone,
having expectantly received medieval in the post today, I have a problem. The battle tutorials work, but when I try to run the campaign tutorial, I keep being returned to the menu and the screen is flashing so I have to quit or the program will crash.
I know I have an old pc, PII 350, with a ATI rage pro graphics card (8mb I believe), but surely if the battle tutorials work so should the campaign tutorials?
Any help appreciated.
megaduck

[Lord of the Isles]

Sadly the answer is no. You should find the minimum specs for the game on the box and in the manual (you do have these, right?), and they include a better graphics card than you have (from memory you need a 32 Mb one and also 128 Mb memory). The good news is that your CPU should be ok with luck. I had a similar problem when I got the game with my Celeron 433 but extra memory (taking it to 192) and a cheap 32 Mb graphics card (Riva TNT 32) solved it and the game ran fine (a little lag in battles but no great problem).

To be extra sure, before you buy some new video card and find it has problems, check the list of validated cards that MTW has been run ok on. I think it is in the game README file but you can also find it at:

http://www.totalwar.com/community/medieval/eng/index.htm

[Gregoshi]

Hi megaduck, and welcome. I do hereby induct you into the official MTW 350 club. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Your problem is the graphics card. You need a 16mb graphics card to run MTW and IIR, the campaign map is where you run into trouble with the card. I have a Voodoo 3 (16mb) and am running the game just fine even though the Voodoo cards are not listed as supported. One other bit of encouraging news: the box says you need a minimum of a P III 750 to do multiplayer. Not true. I have played online 2v2 fine. I haven't tried any 3v3 or 4v4 yet.

[megaduck]

many thanks for your replies, and for pointing me in the right direction for a graphic card. Theres no real point in getting a top level card as my pc probably won't support it anyway, so I'll look out for a voodoo3 or tnt card.
megaduck

[Gregoshi]

You may have better luck finding a GeForce2 which I think you can get for a song and a dance nowadays. That is what I'd get for my 350 if I needed a little more umph. The problem with the Voodoo3 is that it is unsupported and has no official drivers for DirectX 8+. That is why I lean towards the GeForce2. Maybe someone with some experience with TNT2's or GeForces can give us some sound, er, graphics advise on this subject.

[megaduck]

yep, the GeForce2 looks good, I'm just a little unsure if it will suit my agp slot, as the geforce has 3 connect points and my agp slot only has 2, so maybe I'm safer to stick with voodoo which also has 2 connector points. (same is true with tnt2 I believe.

[nemaj]

The GeForce 2 will work fine for you. Go with that one. I know it has 3 connection points, but will fit and run on any agp slot fine.

[Mihai Viteazu]

Megaduck, I had the same problem as you with the campaigns, and even in battles I saw the soldiers and the trees in black rectangles. I had an onboard graphic card of 4 Mb Now I got a Geforce 2 MX400 with 64 Mb on an AGP 2X slot and all these problems are gone. Don`t worry about the 3 connection points problem, it works fine for me and I believe it will work fine for you too. BTW, I have a Celeron at 433 MHz and 160 Mb memory. I hope this helps.

[megaduck]

well finally after getting a geforce2 and reformatting and reinstalling a new hd the campaign works I thought at one time I'd never be able to use this game.
thanks for all your help

[Gregoshi]

I have to admire your persistence. I certainly hope you enjoy after all you went through. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[evilc]

My comp is the same as yours, the 350 club grows, but how big is the 33600-connection-and-no-repeat-no-online-problems clubs... (me) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif