Medieval crash after battles

[Noctoz_AV]

Though this post is better suited in a nother section of the forum I have to post it here as I don't have post access there.

The problem I have is the following.
Everytime after a battle when going back to the strategical map my screen starts to flicker for a while and in about 50% of the time if goes on like this for a while and then it reboots my computer.
Sometimes if manages to actually load the map again but only after some time of black, flickering screen.
I have the same problem when going fomr the map to the menu but it crashes less often there.
From what I can figgure out I whould say the game is trying to change resolution or update frequenzy or something like that but I cant understand why.
I have been looking for a sollution for a while but found none so far.

My system specs:

Windows XP Professional with all aviable updates
DirectX 9
nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200
Detonator 41.09
AMD Athlon 1.2GHz
Asus A7M266 mobo
512MB RAM

[Noctoz_AV]

I should add to this that every other game runs fine on my comp and this includes almost every mayor game released during the recent 1-2 years.

[KukriKhan]

Hi Noctoz_AV, welcome to the.Org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Here's a link to the Apothocary (our tech forum) that explores Nvidia settings & MTW compatability.
http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....;t=2069 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=2;t=2069)

The only other thing I can think of that might pertain to your problem is SaveGames. There's room for 99 of them in MTW (including autosaves). Perhaps the game is trying to autosave your progress after battle, but there's no room remaining?

[Lord Melvish]

I had the same problem not a long time ago. The problem was not MTW but my RAM that was defective Also my Ge4 ti4200 was now well push into her slot so when the video mode was changing it tend to crash now and then. I would suggest you contact you vendor and have you RAM and Card checked.

Now that i've made the fix MTW is no longuer crashing

Hope that it help you
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Noctoz_AV]

I have no problems changing resolutions for any other game or application and my RAM works fine.

Also I can assure you the problem is not autosavnign as that works jsut fine.
I am a computer engineer. I write games myself so exclude all low level stuff cause I will most likely have tried that already.

[ChaosLord]

The flicker comes from the game changing resolution. It seems the menus resolution is always 800x600, so having the strategy map at 1024x768 will result in it having to change it. A similar thing would occur if the battle map resolution was higher/lower then the strategy map resolution. That said though, i've experienced flickers but never reboots. I'm using a GF4Ti4200 myself and running the 43.45s from nvidia. There are some newer then that, the 44.03 but I haven't tried them yet so I can't be sure they work fine. Anyway, heres a link to dl them if setting all resolutions the same doesn't work.

Drivers (http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=winxp-2k_archive)

Edit-Just for clarification, it only changes it when switching between say the strategy map and menu. Probably obvious but I just wanted to be sure.

[Gregoshi]

Noctoz, did you check out the Apothecary topic that Kukri directed you to? None of that stuff helped?

Also, have you installed the 1.1 patch for MTW?

One thing learned about the TW games: they are much more sensitive to system settings and drivers than most other games. So your statement that other games work just fine is not surprising.

[Kraellin]

noctoz,

i believe your mobo uses the via chipsets with the 4in1 drivers. if you go to the via site you can find a page there with the 4in1 driver sets listed. if you look down that list to the late 30's, early 40's, you'll find a set there that is the last one to update the agp drivers. get that one and install it. it did wonders for my win98 machine.

also, since you say you're computer savvy, you already know xp runs a ton of services in the background. a LOT of these are not only NOT needed by most folks, they are downright hogs. since xp is constantly looping and checking itself, each one of these services gets checked in every loop. it frankly causes crashes in other tasks at times, particularly high end games that require tons of resources. here's a link to a very good site someone posted in the apothecary recently, explaining all those services and various configurations for what to leave on automatic, manual and so on. http://www.blkviper.com/

those services can be killers to games. trust me, i know.

other than that, drivers, drivers, drivers, and newer isnt always better. one thing i note in your hardware is that you're using dx9 with a ti4200. we've found a few problems with dx9 and some cards that werent made with the dx9 specs. this can most likely be fixed with drivers, but you may have to wait till newer drivers come out for older cards that are running with dx9. still, this, or the via drivers are what i suspect are causing your crashes.

also, did you re-install yoru vid and sound drivers after installing dx9? this can sometimes cause glitches if not. fairly rare, from what i've seen, but sometimes.

K.

[KukriKhan]

Quote[/b] (Noctoz_AV @ May 23 2003,11:03)]I have no problems changing resolutions for any other game or application and my RAM works fine.

Also I can assure you the problem is not autosavnign as that works jsut fine.
I am a computer engineer. I write games myself so exclude all low level stuff cause I will most likely have tried that already.
woo-hoo A ringer then. Any games we might know? Always glad to welcome someone on-the-job. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Noctoz_AV]

Kraellin >>

My chips use the VIA 4in1 drivers yes but not for AGP bus.
It uses a special drivier from AMD.

I know about the services and I know they can interupt rendering and logic operations in games. Howerver they are not very likely to cause the kind of error I experience.
Never the less I have tried disabling most of the stuff runnig in the background but it do not help.

Concerning DX9... I used previous version earlier with the same result. I also have used older nVidia drivers.
Also directX is not really responsible for resolution changes and should not cause that kind of behaviour. What I whould say is causing it if I had to guess is that the game or something on my comp is doing a check when trying to change resolution that do not work properly and sometimes this operation causes some evil error that forces a reboot. But without looking at the actual source code doing that stuff there is no way I can tell.

KukriKhan >> Don't think so =) I'm still at university so I can't work with it for real. I have good contacts with several known developers though that I might give a try when I'm finished. Like Blizzard and Digital Illusions.

[KukriKhan]

Best of luck in that career, Noctoz_AV.

Since we haven't resolved your problem to your satisfaction yet, it occurs to me that since you're running WinXP, you never get the BSOD with an error message, just a reboot. Sometimes (not often, but sometimes) those messages can be instructive - at least letting you know what module, or program, or process is gumming up Windoze.

This place:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/auto_reboot_on_system_crash.htm
has detailed instructions for disabling XP's auto-reboot feature, so that you get a Blue Screen Of Death.

WARNING: Always backup your registry before making any changes (I'm sure you know that, already).

This won't solve your problem, but may give you (and us) more clues to work with.

[ChaosLord]

Noctoz, setting the resolution in options for the Battle and Strategy map to 800x600 didn't work? When I have the settings like that the game doesn't change resolutions(since all 3 are now 800x600 it no longer needs to) when switching from Menu to Strategy map or vice versa, same with battles. If doing that still didn't make it work and neither did updated graphics card drivers i've got no idea.

[Noctoz_AV]

I will try to disable restarting.
It should actually write that stuff the the eventlog anyway but it's worth a try.
You don't need to change registry for it though.
there is a setting under properties for my computer.

[The_Emperor]

I have a different crash problem going from the main Strategy map to the menu screen (you know when you press esc).

It doesn't happen all the time... Guess its just one of those things.

[KukriKhan]

Once you get the actual error message, if it's gobbledeguk, try this place:
http://www.gregorybraun.com/MSWinErr.html
to get a plain-language explanation of the error. Then, at least you'll know what component, program, or code is causing the crash, with some clue(s) for a fix or work-around.

[Noctoz_AV]

Hopefully =)

Those messages can sometimes be a bit misleading as the actual process that cause the crash just made that other process crash and so on. I have been tracking down bugs like that ALOT =) it happens alot when you write complex programs.

[Kraellin]

yeah, i took a look at your board and the manual. you're not using the 4in1's, not the via ones. you're using amd drivers. that's fine. but if there's an update for them, you might wanna look into that.

also, i noticed there are several bios patches for that board. might wanna read the specs on those as well, particularly if they're agp related.

i still believe this is likely just a driver issue, but with the bios patches out there, i dunno.

the ti4200 shld work ok with the 41.09's, from what i've seen of other posts. and i still recommend looking at the black viper site and checking out your services listings. there's a god-awful lot of junk on xp machines that really shldnt be there for gaming. i've cleared up many a crash by just turning more and more of this stuff off till the crash went away.

K.