Medieval Total War CTDs and Solutions

Thanks for taking the question caravel, much appreciated.

My specs are:
Dell Inspiron 9400
Intel Core Duo T7400 @2.16GHz
2GB SD DDR 433 MHz RAM
256MB NVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS
160GB SATA Fujitsu MHY2160BH
Windows XP Pro MCE 2005

Running an old graphics card driver (the same one that worked for MTW before I reinstalled): 84.29

Desktop details:
1440x900 widescreen
32 bit
Card settings: Anisotropic and AA are both set to force off

I haven't tried it with battles yet, but this is a save that worked perfectly fine previously and I backed it up before reinstalling (I didn't try it with another save yet, but I assume its the same). I load it up, get to the strat map fine, can end turn etc no problems. If I go to the menu screen (press ESC) I can edit settings fine too, but trying to get back into the game causes the crash.

Each time the screen changes, it goes black for a while before and after the loading bar comes up as if it was changing resolutions. I set both strat and battle to 1024x768.

I guess I could set my desktop to 1024x768, but I don't think this should be necessary (and I don't know if it'll work) since it all worked fine before I reinstalled.... really wonder what is causing the problem this time around.

Try forcing 2x AA and set the desktop colour depth to 16 bit. Also set the battle and campaign map resolutions to the same.

hi quy:) i have same problem - i can´t play new campaign because mtw crashed before strategic map is revealed....do you know any solution?? thanks..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by caravel

Try forcing 2x AA and set the desktop colour depth to 16 bit. Also set the battle and campaign map resolutions to the same.

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Hi caravel,

strat/battle are both at 1024x768, did you mean I should set my desktop to that too?
I forced 2xAA first and tried. Got a graphics artifact on the GA cup while it was flashing and when it stopped flashing, the artifact was covering it. Went to main and back -> no crash, artifact gone. Did so again -> crash as before.

Then added 16bit to the equation. Same results as above.
It is promising though that it took two entries this time to crash it though. Figure I should try 4x AA next?

[edit]
Ran a few more tests with 4x AA, application controlled AA, and then no AA.

4xAA and application controlled resulted in the same as above.
no AA strangely enough resulted in the artifact, no crash on first going back, no crash on second going back, but crashed on third. Now this is definitely off, because it was on no AA previously and it crashed the first time and had no artifact. Might this have anything to do with me not rebooting after changing each setting? I wouldn't think so though... Also, I have not changed anything on my system besides install some other old games.

i think the problm isthe drivers because my freind has same video card as me he has ati radeon 1200 like me but games works on his he has xp but i have vista and on mine it deosnt work why deosnt ati just make a patch to cover all ati products agaisnt:furious3: these issues

there are some solutions and i have been searching for one month now but no suceess must admit this game is quite old so it is not a suprise it deosnt work.

i have bought mtw2 but that runs very slow on my pc becuase of my card i might buy geforce 7700 becuase it is very cheap now :juggle2:

i think the best option is to play around with drivers and resolutions many people have fixed by doing this i would recommed people here to do research about what can be the best solution and report back here so we can help each other and alos to just to find th error report and bring it here so we know wat is the problem also e-mail sega o activison about this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

Hi caravel,

strat/battle are both at 1024x768, did you mean I should set my desktop to that too?
I forced 2xAA first and tried. Got a graphics artifact on the GA cup while it was flashing and when it stopped flashing, the artifact was covering it. Went to main and back -> no crash, artifact gone. Did so again -> crash as before.

Then added 16bit to the equation. Same results as above.
It is promising though that it took two entries this time to crash it though. Figure I should try 4x AA next?

[edit]
Ran a few more tests with 4x AA, application controlled AA, and then no AA.

4xAA and application controlled resulted in the same as above.
no AA strangely enough resulted in the artifact, no crash on first going back, no crash on second going back, but crashed on third. Now this is definitely off, because it was on no AA previously and it crashed the first time and had no artifact. Might this have anything to do with me not rebooting after changing each setting? I wouldn't think so though... Also, I have not changed anything on my system besides install some other old games.

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I used to get that artifact with the Radeon 9800 and the newer drivers. Can you find any older drivers than the ones you have? Also as far as resolutions go you should try setting everything to 1024*768 16 bit, including the desktop and keep trying higher levels of AA (not application controlled).

Hmmm no that's the oldest compatible driver for my card that is provided by Dell, and the ones from the notebook sites usually end up causing some troubles.

I'm just finding it odd that the problem is there now when it wasn't before. I'll try what you suggest when I get home though, but in all honesty, I have a feeling that it won't work....

Did you try Nvidia's own site?

Just to let know that I got same constant CTD problem after I had to repalce my graph card with a Nvidia VGA MX440.
- tried to change desktop resolution: no improvement :inquisitive:
- tried to install 44.03_win2kxp_international as recommanded on some website if fond: no improvement (can't remember where but that not something I would have made up since I know that I do not know s* when it comes to that kind of stuff) :furious3:
- tried 2xAnti-aliasing trick: no improvement :wall:
- tried to install Nvidia ForceWare v61.76: game on !!! :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

I have not used driver cleaner anywhere in the process (thought I would skip complex stuff if I could :dizzy2: ). First time I restared my PC got an awful image :thumbsdown: , restarted again and things were just like they used to be :beam: .

Don't know if it can be of any help to anyone …

Anyway many thanks for the great tips. You guys gave me something nice to do on Sunday !!! :beam: :beam: :beam:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by caravel

Did you try Nvidia's own site?

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Nvidia as other chip producers do not provide drivers for Go type graphic cards. Those are developed (edited) by the company you got your laptop from.

Reading what Jxrc posted is interesting. Maybe I should install the next newer driver or reinstall the current one, although it has not had any actual issues...

i have contacted sega support and they told me that many people with ati graphics are having the same problem as us and that they can't do anything becuase this game is too old.:furious3:

I'm sorry to hear that, I knew you were wasting your time but did not want to appear negative. Sometimes people have to try/learn things for themselves.

:bow:

I have the same ctd upon loading a new campaign program. I have tried updating my drivers and the 2x anti aliasing trick, and turning off AGP but nothing works. I've tried using different resolutions, widescreen, full screen, but nothing works. I can only go on the battles which seem to work.

I can't downgrade my drivers either because I have a 8800 gts which does not work with those drivers. Can anyone help me, or do I have to find an old PC to play on?

I'm sure you've read this thread already and seen that as yet there is no known solution to getting MTW working with 8xxx series Nvidia cards because of exactly what you've described above. There was one member that did get it working by selecting a specific resolution for the campaign map, battles and desktop. You may want to try this but I have suggested that to many others and no one else has reported any success.

:shrug:

I've installed my 7300GT and after getting it working finally (I'll post about that in the hardware/software forum as it's not entirely relevant to this thread and only relevant to those with infinite loop problems) have been messing around with a few settings trying to solve the battle map terrain synchronization problem (that is the problem that quite a few 8xxx series card owners have reported having with STW/MTW where you cannot get your armies to go where you want them to) that appeared as soon as I'd got it working. After a lot of messing around and downloading of an older driver (I used FW 91.47 as that's the oldest I could find and should be ok for all 7 series cards) I managed to eliminate the synchronization issue by using the following settings:

https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/...age1sf8.th.jpg

Using these settings also eliminated the need to force 2x/4x AA (in my case 4x AA as the former, commonly recommended method of forcing 2x AA wouldn't work and resulted in a crash on startup) and now the problem has gone away and the game works, albeit it is a bit laggy and loading screens take longer than they should, but it is working both in battles and on the campaign map.

Other settings:

AGP Texture Acceleration is still enabled in DirectX Diagnostics and I haven't enabled any compatibility mode settings for the game itself. I have tested with all of these and found no difference.

BIOS:

I have an AGP card so these settings will be irrelevant to those with PCI-E graphics cards. Fast Writes are on, AGP Read Synchronization is on and Aperture is at 128MB, AGP rate is 4x. It is best to try the Nvidia control panel settings first before messing with the BIOS.

i bought 7300gs and im still getting that problem but i think using your solution i will be able to fix it i will try today :idea2:

I've never had any problem with my older PC which has the GF7600 GT (AGP 256mb). Both STW/MI and MTW/VI run just fine. However, I do have lots of problem with my newer PC which has GF8600GTS (PCIe 256 MB). I can't control units in STW. MTW crashes sometimes and the lockup when quitting both games.

Here are the stats of my older PC (the one that works):

Windows XP w/SP2
P4 3.0 w/2GB of RAM
GF7600GT 256MB (AGP)
Video driver: 93.71 (6.14.0010.9371)
AA Setting: application control
Screen resolution: 1280x1024x32
Game resolution: same as screen
SB Audigy 2 ZS
Hardware sound acceleration: full

Both games run fine after installation (Edit: video card and driver installation). No tweak, no fix needed. Edit: previously, I had the GF6600GT 128 MB AGP with the 82.12 driver.

The video driver above (93.71) support almost all GF cards up to 7xxx series (if I read the inf file correctly).

Ah, the older driver.

I've been seriously thinking about a GF8800 myself when upgrading. I heard about the problem then and was thinking about how to solve it. I know from other NVIDIA cards I've had, that older drivers are sometimes better (for some games). Unfortunately older drivers don't work with GF8800, or do they?

Thanks for sharing the details caravel: hunting for the right graphic settings to get something to work can be a big pain.

I'm still trying to pin down the individual setting that causes it. At first I thought it was the "conformant texture clamp" being set to "hardware" but I've tested again and it work with that also (as you can see it's turned on in the screenshot).

The older drivers didn't really make much difference to the battle synchronization issue but I think they made a difference to it crashing on startup and needing 4x AA enabled as now it doesn't.

I was using 93.71 previously and it is those that were requiring the 4x AA.

i have finaaly got it working thank you guys for all your support i will never forget u guys

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Originally Posted by ehsan123

i have finaaly got it working thank you guys for all your support i will never forget u guys

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Great stuff! ~:cheers:

What did you have to do to get it working in the end?

:bow:

i changed the resoltion to 1024 * 768 and it loaded but im not a good player i always lose too mcu of that damn crusade:egypt:

hmmm i think your grapic card is not compatible with the application the game wants so it wont load this kind of problem happened to me too but it was fixed but changing a graphic card have you tried patches

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sigismund

any1 please?

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You've posted in the wrong thread. This thread is for the first MTW only. I will PM the moderator to get your posts split off to a new thread, but be certain to bump the thread once that's done.

:bow:

Sorry caravel... I panicked when it happened and I remembered this forum could help....... I'll be more careful next time...

And thanks for the advice ehsan123... I'm already downloading a patch....

Sigismund, your posts here about your M2TW problem have been moved to a new thread titled "M2TW CTD Error" in this section (Apothecary). If you want to change your thread title, please let me know.

:bow:

Hello to all!!!

Well, i come to you for a rason:

*My problem is, when a going to play a Common Batle o a Historical Batle, my pc charge all te bar, but then crashes to the deskop, how i doesnt do nothing

i see the diferents solutions, and i have to install new drivers, old driver, download all patches and the XL 3.0, the tyberius patch.....
....but i never play a war!, i win the campaign with the sicilians in the vainilla game, only simulate battles, and saw how my generals come with blood, when i drink a cola.....

can you help me folks?


PD: sorry for my english, i do the best that i can ^^



Polska

Your login suggests the native language so I will ask the only right question here.


Mogę spróbować pomóc. Opisz to jeszcze raz po polsku, a zobaczymy o co chodzi. ;):yes:

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Originally Posted by cegorach

Your login suggests the native language so I will ask the only right question here.


Mogę spróbować pomóc. Opisz to jeszcze raz po polsku, a zobaczymy o co chodzi. ;):yes:

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Iam Really sorry, but i speak spanish :oops: , my nick is for my grandpa ^^

so, can you translate this in english? :yes:


Bye ^^