Credit where it is due

[Inigo Montoya]

Well, for those that might get tired with my previous post and not make it all the way to the end, here's the gyst:

Reinstalled WMP 6.4 (KukriKhan & Kraellin)
Installed nVidia 30.82 drivers (pdoan8)

Fired up M:TW and, to my complete surprise, heard This is an age of darkness...

WHOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO

Now someone just needs to tell me how to play the game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif



Also, thanks to Demon of Light for moving my problem to the Apothecary forum where it would catch the eyes of more tweakers.


I'm going to make a second post on this thread detailing the exact problem and system I have, along with everything I did to get the game running.

[Inigo Montoya]

... And here it is:

The original problem was a black screen & system lock shortly after the slate-colored title screen every time I tried to start M:TW (either patched or unpatched). This required a hard reboot every time, and was infinitely reproducable. The game was installed on another machine and successfully ran, so I knew the actual CD's were good.

System:
Intel CA810E mobo with on-board (crappy) audio and video - These were DISABLED IN BIOS
P3-733 MHz
320 MB 133 SDRAM
nVidia GeForce4 MX 440 (64MB PCI card)
SoundBlaster Live Platinum
Mitsumi (I think) 48X CD-ROM

OS, Software & Drivers:
Windows 98 SE (Build 1998)
Windows Media Player 6.4.07.1124 (last available version of 6.4, I think)
DirectX 9.0a (all tests in dxdiag passed)
nVidia Detonator driver (44.03 - most recent)
SB Live - emu10k1.vxd (this is NOT an emulation driver - SB16 Emulation is actually a separate set designed to allow the Live card to emulate an old SB-16 card when playing DOS games)

I make a specific note of the audio driver because Activision Tech Support was convinced that that was the problem, so I stripped my registry to prove that it wasn't.

First, I tried all the tweaks on my video and sound settings (from resolution & refresh rates to acceleration and anti-aliasing). Nothing worked (actually not true - really I first cussed at my computer and went back to playing No One Lives Forever 2 )

Then I got serious:

1. uninstalled SB Live and removed all references to Creative/SB/Soundblaster from registry (the mobo's on-board audio was AudioPCI 128 from Creative, and the drivers were still installed).
2. reinstalled SB Live and updated drivers
3. attempted to install DirectX 8.1 (this does not work, as I already had 9.0 and MS does not allow DX to roll back)
4. uninstalled nVidia drivers, at which point my machine completely crashed (still don't really know why)
5. reinstalled Windows, which had the advantage of forcing DirectX back to 6.1
6. used DX Buster to completely remove DirectX - had to delete a few remaining files and registry keys myself.

Now we get to the part that I think actually helped:

7. Installed nVidia 44.03 drivers
8. Installed DirectX 8.1 from M:TW disk
9. Ran dxdiag - DirectX 8 test failed.
10. Reinstalled nVidia drivers
11. Installed DirectX 8.1 final version from MS (passed all tests)
12. Played some other games to make sure everything still worked (it did)
13. Reinstalled Media Player 6.4 (still available from MS, but you have to search for it specifically)
14. Uninstalled nVidia 44.03 drivers and installed older 30.82 drivers

FINALLY IT'S ALIVE

I'm posting all of this because I know there are at least two other people out there who have systems very similar to mine (GeForce 4 MX440 w/ 44.03 drivers, older mobo, 256-400 RAM) and have the exact same problem I did. I'm going to tell both of them to try reinstalling WMP and rolling back to older drivers. This is entirely antithetical to the response from every Tech Support or (almost) every tweaker you would ever talk to, who would start with:

Make sure you have the most recent version of all of your drivers

I think the problem centered on WMP either having some codecs missing or corrupted - but I don't know what codecs MTW uses for the intro video, so I have no way to confirm this. Interestingly, the guys at Activision Tech Support (who were very nice, but not very imaginative) shot down my suggestion that this was the problem during the first hour-long phone call we had, so I quit even thinking about it. Thanks to KukriKhan and Kraellin for suggesting it

Eventually, I'm going to build back up to DX 9 and the 44.03 drivers, as there are a couple games on this machine that require them. Right now, I'll just live without Rallisport Challenge (Colin McRae is better IMO, anyway).

Now, if you will all excuse me, I'm going to return to my search for the six-fingered man.

[Urban Legend]

Thats a lot of work Happy for ye

[KukriKhan]

Your second (...and here it is...) post is the perfect request for assistance.

It states, concisely:
1) what the problem is
2) what your specs are
3) what you've tried so far, and results

If every tech question came in that format, our tech guys here could solve 99% of problems in 2 posts or less.

For actual gameplay help, see the Table of Contents thread in the Main Hall:
http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....;t=3823 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=3823)

Thanks for the summation.It will undoubtedly help someone else. And that's what we do here. Welcome aboard http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Kraellin]

glad ya got it going and you're welcome :)

amazing what it takes at times, but perhaps more amazing that all this stuff actually works, when ya stop and think about it.

one thing to note about your system that's likely going to cause you more problems in the future, you've got some 'old' stuff in there and some new. and whereas microsoft and nvidia and others do try and make new stuff backwards compatible, eventually the generation gap just overtakes a machine. win98se, 44.03 drivers, dx9, wmp 6.4... you've got a fairly wide gap there in generations of stuff. it might work for the next 20 years or it might all just hang on the next piece of software you get. this is one reason why the 30.82 drivers are recommended here at times. they were very good drivers for win98, winME and maybe even win2k, but as this stuff evolves it gets harder and harder to match all the generations up to each other and eventually, developers quit trying. microsoft has already pretty much quit supporting win98, and that usually means that third party folks like nvidia will quit trying also. it's just the evolution of the industry.

so, with your current set-up, even though you're managing to keep it useful and working so far, you're going to eventually hit the generation barrier and might be time to start thinking about an upgrade or new machine. myself, i keep a win98se machine as a second machine and a backup for those things that absolutely wont run under xp, but xp and its offshoots are where the industry is going.

also, kukri, or one of the other mods, if you could move both these threads (this one and his original post) to the apothecary, i'll merge them and post them in the solutions thread over there. this stuff makes good reference for others.

K.

[FesterShinetop]

Great, now it's time to buy a new computer http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[KukriKhan]

Moved to the Apothecary, along with the 'other' thread. Will leave the posts visible for a day or two, so [b]Inigo Montoya[/i] and others can find it & follow in the Apoth.