The M2TW hardware thread: please post all hardware queries here

The Citadel seems to be getting clogged up with hardware threads right now.

Please remember, we have the apothecary forum to deal with technical support issues. Do not post technical support queries in this thread.

There is also a hardware/software forum to discuss wider issues, like which graphics card to upgrade to. Members should post general hardware queries there.

Junior members cannot post in the hardware/software forum, however, so I am creating this stickied thread that they can post non-technical support hardware questions in.

I will merge any further hardware threads into this thread.

If juniors would like to start a thread in the hardware/software forum, they could still post in the Citadel and PM me to move it over. That way, their thread will get moved into the hardware/software forum, but unfortunately they will not be able to post any further in it.

Note: a very nice website to tell if your computer is good enough for M2TW is:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AK_SG

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srl

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First query of the thread (I'm having to quote it, otherwise it would be the first post in this thread):

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrsCabbage

Hiya Everyone :beam:

I will have Medieval II arrive soon, but I don't want to ruin it, by playing it with my current graphics card.

After getting lost in a world of Rome : Total War I visited these forums, I realised how much more awe inspiring the battles would have been if I had more than the 20ish people in an army!

My PC is as below

AMD XP 2600+
2 x 512MB of DDR memory
ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB DDR 8x AGP
Asus A7N8X-X SKT A Nforce2 AGP X8 Sound USB 2.0 Motherboard
PSU Q-TEC ADT-350 (+12V - 30A)
Seagate ST380011A Barracuda 80GB 7200RPM ATA/100 2MB Cache
Windows 2000 Install

3dMark03 stays pretty much 640 no matter how I tweak settings :wall:

I have spent the last 3 evenings reading up on the new technology (and don't things change so fast) and have decided the best way to get my PC Medieval II happy is to upgrade the graphics card.

It has to be AGP and I can't bring myself to pay more than £100 as it will only be for this game - my christmas present to myself will be taking a few days work and playing this game all day :2thumbsup:

I have been looking at the X1000 series from ATI

Here are 2 examples

£82 - Sapphire Radeon X1650 PRO 256MB GDDR3 VGA TVO DVI-I AGP
£72 - Gigabyte Radeon X1600 Pro 256MB DDR2, PCI-E, DVI, HDTV Out, Retail with Silent Heatpipe II AGP

One of these has no fan (I think) and that might be important - my current PC is very quiet and I don't know how loud fans are on graphics cards...

I would be very grateful for any input anyone can give me to help me decide the best way to go with this. I have till Tuesday to research until I will then make an order for a new card. I have to go to work now so please don't think I am being rude if I don't respond until this evening.

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And first reply:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PaulTa

Well the second card is PCI-E, so you're stuck with the 1650.

I wouldn't say stuck though, necessarily, since it has DDR3 RAM instead of DDR2.

I'll get back to you in the morning since it's 2:30 in the morning in WA, US, but I believe that there are nVidia 6800's out that are AGP. They'd be the better option, in my opinion, since nVidia has better support, better bang for your Euro, and depending on the company a lifetime warranty.

Are you in England?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by sapi

Good idea - if this went on any longer i was going to scream, but starting a new thread seems like a much more constructive idea :P

@PaulTa, i thought the same thing, but it does have AGP at the end, so it's probably both

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Thread posted at the hardware/software forum:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76444

To be honest I just put those 2 graphic cards as examples. I am really after advice on wether cards like these will give me a full experience or not? Or if there are better ones etc...

Sorry I posted in the wrong forum area. I was wondering if you could post my post in the hardware software area for me, please. It doesn't seem to have had much response where it is currently. Apologises to those who have posted.

Moderator edit: Ok, done:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76444

I have a question about the amount of free hard disk drive which is needed for this game. Is it really 11GB??? Because when I asked my friend who already has it how much does it weights he said it's around 7 GB. So what is the real size??? It surely doesn't need 4 GB of artificial memory(in polish it's plik wymiany lub stronicowania, in english I'm not sure).

I may be wrong, but I think the extra four gigabytes is for temporary files when installing the game. You have to have that much free to set everything up, but in the end it will only use seven gigs on your drive (unless you unpack your datapacks, in which case it will be considerably larger).

Thanks for help. Do you know if there are any possibilities during instalation- can you choose from medium, small, full instalations or sth like that?

Nope. It's been years since I've seen that sort of option on a game, you have to install everything.

That sucks. I have a small 40 GB disk divided into to parts and on the part where the system is I can make at most 10 GB free space :/ It's not only my computer.

Well, if there is a bright side to your situation, it's that hard drives aren't really that expensive these days (although if it's an old computer you'll need to buy a converter and if it's a laptop you're in trouble)

Uh, I'm not sure if my question is about hardware, but I've just installed the game, and when I tried to open it it says "Unable to Locate Component-- This application has failed to start because d3dx9_30.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

Well, I've re-installed the programme twice, but the problem persists. Can someone tell me what is wrong, and how to remedy it?

Thanks in advance, and sorry if I posted in the wrong place.

You need to install the latest version of directx from here.

There's a windows validation process to go through but it's not much hassle, and then you can download the installer. The initial installer is around 500kb and the file itself 14mb, so it shouldn't be too much trouble.

Oh, and welcome to the org ~:wave:

Okay, the problem is solved now, but now when I try to start the game, I get a window: "This program requires graphic card with pixel shader 1.1 or better." What does that mean? Does that mean I have to get a better graphics card? How does that work anyhow?

It sounds like your graphics card is too old to play m2tw (or any other modern game for that matter).

What card are you running? (this determines your upgrade options)

I dunno. The only other game which had a problem with my graphic card was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I'm not sure if this is related, but Rome: Total War plays just fine with unit scale set at the default 'large'.

How do I check my graphics card properties?

Trust me mate - if your gfx card can't run pixel shader 1.1 it's way too old to play the game anyway.

So.... how do I check my graphic card properties?

click start, run and type in dxdiag.

Click on the 'display' tab in the window that appears and tell us what you see.

I am probably posting in the wrong spot, but I would like to know where to check my gfx card properties cuz I get a pop-up saying the pixel shader 1.1 thing.

but i think it might my gfx card doesnt have enough ram or whatev it is.

If you get a popup saying it doesn't support pixel shader 1.1, it means that your graphics card doesn't support pixel shader 1.1. Fancy that.

As i said before, if you can't support an architecture that has been in graphics cards for genarations (i can't pinpoint the exact cards that introduced it but it sure has been around for a while) then your graphics card has no chance of running m2tw or any other recent game at a playable frame rate.

If you still don't believe me, follow the instructions in my above post to find the name of your graphics card via dxdiag

Name: Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Chip Type: Intel(R) 82852/82855 Graphics Controller
DAC Type: Internal
Approx. Total Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Display Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor


Is that it?

Yeh, that sounds like it.

Unfortunately, it also sounds like an inbuilt graphics chip. These are included for vista compatibility but they're not intended for gaming.

What system/motherboard (whichever you know) are you running? This determines if you can upgrade, and what to.

Oh dear.

How do I check which system/motherboard I'm running? I'm using Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, if that's what you were asking.

Hang on....are you running a tablet pc?

They really aren't designed for gaming at all....

Yeah, I am. I used to use it for school, but not anymore.

Short of buying a new PC, is there anything that I could do?

You may be able to upgrade a tablet, I'm really not sure if they upgrade like notebooks do, but it would a lot harder than just pulling cards out of a motherboard on a PC. I don't know what the going rate is on notebook components, but I'd imagine they're higher than you find on desktop parts; you'd be spending quite a bit of cash just on a graphics card before you could play the game, and you might still have to upgrade your memory or processor. In short: Good luck.

I don't think that you have many options with a tablet :(

Oh...... damn. Looks like I wasted my cash. I won't have any money to upgrade anything, let alone buy a new laptop, with my tight budget. Took me one month to save up enough to buy M2TW.

And yeah, my memory sucks like hell, only 40GB.

yeh - tablets aren't intended for anything but work - they don't have the memory, disc space, video or cpu for games

I have Praetorians, Deus Ex, Empire Earth, Condition Zero, Jedi Academy and RTW on my computer simultaneuosly....... it works okay...... I guess.

And my post got edited..... I hope I didn't get a warn for that.

my laptop specs are below

Toshiba Satellite Pro A100
Intel Duo core T2500 @ 2.00GHz
1 GB DDRII @533 MHz RAM
nvidia geforce go 7300
Windows XP Pro

I am having troubles with battles even on "Low" settings the movement is very sluggish.

Any suggestions??

What resolution are you running at?

1280 x 760

With everything else being equal, is there a big in-game improvement from having 3gb dual-channel vs 2gb dual-channel ram? Does 1 more GB make any difference?

I also have a EVGA 7600 GS 256mb ddr2 PCIe with the passive heat sink because I wanted a quiet machine and I had a weak power supply. I have a dell so upgrading the PSU is not an option I think. Is this card decent enough for MTW2 with decent visual settings? I run it at 1440 X 900 on a 19" widescreen.

I also run the game on a WD Raptor 10K hard drive. I'm pretty sure that makes a difference.

The main reason for these questions is that I want to make sure I am running the game at the optimal level for my machine. I don't mind spending the money to upgrade if it would make a noticeable difference. Right now, my PC sometimes get bogged down but I don't know if it is my PC's hardware limitations or bugs in the games that are causing issues.

Sometimes, my mouse control on the campaign map is less than smooth. I play NORMAL size and battles are for the most part not too bad even with up to 4-6 stacks on screen. I think I have most of my video setting on low though.

MY Gaming PC
Intel Dual Core 2.8GHZ
3 GB Dual Channel Ram
eVGA 7600 GS 256mb ddr2 passive heat sink
WD 10K Raptor 74 GB 8mb cache


Any help and/or comments appreciated.
Especially with what are the recommended video settings for MTW2 with the 7600 gs.

I'm not 100% sure but I don't think the current build of Windows can properly utilize over 2GB of RAM. I'm not sure why exactly, but that's what my tech-savvy friends tell me. Vista is supposed to be able to harness more RAM. Your performance issues I think are more CPU and GPU related. I've got a 7900 GT with an Ahtlon 3200+ (which clocks at around 2.2 ghz) and can run the game at full specs, but I do take performance hits when I've got two full stacks on the screen. Turning off extras like Anti-Aliasing and, especially, vegetation detail will help tremendously.

@laconic - xp can utilise 3gb of ram if you turn the pagefile down

@chosun - how exactly did you get 3gb of dual channel ram? I wasn't aware of there being 1.5gb sticks...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sapi

@laconic - xp can utilise 3gb of ram if you turn the pagefile down

@chosun - how exactly did you get 3gb of dual channel ram? I wasn't aware of there being 1.5gb sticks...

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Can you elaborate on the pagefile please? Not having one or having a small one?
I am running XP Pro. I thought XP couldn't handle 4 gigs of ram, that's why I only bought 3 gigs.
I have 2 X 512mb and 2 X 1gb all by the same manufacturer and same type of memory. Is that wrong? Diagnostic says it's 3 gb of dual channel. Is that not possible?

XP can handle 4gbs of ram, so if you turn the pagefile (virtual memory) down to 0 you can theoretically have 4gb of physical ram - it's not reccomended though.

As to the dual channel question, most mobos only have one set of dual channel slots, but some modern ones have two (usually 1,3 and 2,4 but it varies) and that must be what you're running. My mistake.

Any thoughts on what would be the recommended video settings for my rig yet?

Thanks!

Your computer should be able to handle the lowest settings with no trouble. I'd just start there, check your performance, and bump things up to see how your computer handles it. Not really any science to it, just keep increasing your video settings until it slows down too much for your tastes.

laconic it is better to have all of your ram exactly the same in manufactur and size

@xdeathfire - that only applies if you want to run dual channel, and in that case you only need 2x whatever sticks the same (if your mobo supports 2 dual channel pairs of slots, you can use different matched pairs in each)

@Chosun - do what laconic suggested - performance is subjective so you have to go with what you're happy with

hey everyone,i have question,i will buy SAPPHIRE X1300PRO 256M/AGP tomorrow,& i wonder can i be able to play M2TW?Or not.

sorry for my english :) .........

It's not a great card but it should manage on low settings.

Someone with more knowledge then me should be able to give you the specifics.

Ok thanks SAPI, I got SAPPHIRE X1600PRO 256M/AGP ,because a super salesman who make a good offer.A New SAPPHIRE X1600PRO 256M/AGP for a 55 dollars.

I'm shopping around for a video card, mostly to improve MTW2 performance, and saw a good review of the Radeon X1650 PRO on tomshardware.com. Has anyone here got any experience with this card? It's a low-end card but I'm on a tight budget.

I'm also looking at the Geforce 7600 GS.

Thanks!

Not sure if this is the right thread for my question (its not a 'problem', more of a query)

Is it worth leaving BLOOM turned on in the game video options? I thought bloom was more of a light-source effect - like the sun, lamps, fires, stuff like that. As there's not much of this in the game (flaming arrows maybe), is it worth turning BLOOM off to get a big performance improvement?

Cheers

@zarker - yep, i've used the same reasoning and turned bloom off asap.

Compared to HDR it looks rubbish anyway.

In a game such as oblivion, it (hdr) makes a huge difference, as it does in games that have been built to support it (source engine games such as day of defeat: source and hl2:ep1 are prime examples); but in m2tw i just can't see the need.

Cheers SAPI :)

currently have a NVIDIA 6200 LE.
M2 runs pretty nice.
but plan to upgrade to 7600 GT which is even faster than a Xbox 360 gfx processor I believe.
so when i upgrade how will M2 play?
i want all options on
and at least Trillenear and AAX2
how well will that play?

It will definitely run much better but the actual benifit depends on your resoultion.

alright! i just run at 1024X768!
thanks.

Well, I just got a new Comp.

I have just got some kind of dual core from intel, maybe 2.4 or sommin.

I have also got a 7600GT.

But Unfortunatley only one Gig of DDR2.

I have yet to get my copy of M2TW back from my Brother, whom is using the new Alienware comp (waste of money, but he has it to burn ight now) and it runs like silk. I wondered if it would run ok on my own?

It should run fine - one gig of ram should be enough for most current games; the main reason that 2gb is reccomended is for smoother operation rather than a huge performance increase (in most games)

I dont really know about graphic cards, and Im wondering if Geforce 6500 512Mb is good enought for this game?

Personally i wouldn't go for it.

It's a rather old core and getting 512mb of ram on it would be a waste.

Hi i want to know if i will be able to play MTW 2 with these laptops, and if so which will be the better one to get? Thanks in advance.

Alienware Aurora m9700
AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile ML37 2.0GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology
1GB Dual Channel DDR SO-DIMM at 400MHz - 2 x 512MB
60GB 5400 RPM SATA with NCQ
8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
High-Definition Audio with surround sound

Dell XPS M1710
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2400 (2MB Cache/1.83GHz/667MHz FSB)
17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM
60GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD Audio

From what i can see the second is the better choice, but you'd best wait for more info from members who know more about laptops than me

I was asking because, i have a choice to get one of those two laptops for free and mostly wanted to know if those laptops could handle Medieval 2 Totalwar.
so any will do as long i get to play MTW2. lol

Thanks for the reply. :)

Building a PC from scratch with the aim being to be able to play M2 at really decent levels. The build list I have so far is:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Socket 775 1.86GHz

Sapphire Technology Radeon X1950PRO 256MB DDR3 PCIE Dual DVI TVO

Asustek S775 Intel 945G MATX Audio Lan Graphics Motherboard

Kingston ValueRAM 2x1G 240Pin DIMM PC2-4300 Non-ECC DDR2 CL4

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB S300 internal HDD

550W PSU Gold 12cm SATA PFC

Trust 5.1 Surround Soundcard SC-5100


Does this list “fall down” anywhere obvious? Perhaps in the choice of RAM??

(note: haven't bothered to include optical drive or case info...guessing they won't make much difference)

I'm not familiar with Intel components, but I'd be iffy about any motherboard that included onboard video these days. The motherboard is the one place I don't spare expense; a good motherboard will let you upgrade at will and provide much more stable performance in my experience.

You could opt for a lower wattage power supply if you want, unless you're planning on running two video cards. I probably wouldn't bother with a sound card as most onboard sound chips these days are good enough for what most people need; other than that I don't know anything about Trust sound cards, if I had to get one I would go with a Creative card. I had a bad experience with a Seagate drive so I keep away from them, but that's my personal bias. If you're going to go with a 7200 RPM hard drive you might consider cutting a corner somewhere else to get more space on it, as 80 GB will run out very fast these days.

My two cents, I'm not a technical master, so I'm sure someone else will have some more insight.

The HDD space isn't a real issue as i've been running with an 80Gb drive for the last 5 years - oh, and a Maxtor 320Gb backup USB external drive!

Interesting about the Motherboard, will look for an alternative without on-board (not needed anyway). Other pointers about what features are key to a motherboard?

I chose a soundcard purely to take just that little bit more processing load from the Intel. Besides its only £7!

PSU - perhaps a lower wattage...costs isn't really an issue so far as what I've listed is all less than £500 all in (i.e. including p&p and vat). The bigger gfx cards need lots of power.

No comments on the GFX card?

Pretty confident with the Intel choice as they run a good chunk faster than the AMD duo's.

For the motherboard I'd consider expansion slots, heat sinks, on-board devices (although these are pretty much standard now, like sound and LAN), support of RAM, and storage controllers. I'd also look at peer reviews if it's possible; if you're buying off the internet most sites have some sort of review function. I found this for the motherboard it looks like you're considering, note what they're saying about it supporting processors:

http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx...6&v=3#infoarea

Again, I'm used to AMD parts, so I don't know much about Intel boards. I just get a bad feeling about on-board video, to me such boards are geared more towards casual desktop users than gamers. Call it a knee-jerk reaction.

Graphics card seems fine. These are mainly my opinions, if you're satisfied with your loadout, then by all means, don't let me talk you out of it.

Thanks again for the info,

Well, a BIOS update is something I normally do before “assuming” a system will run anyway but I will be now looking for a compatible board without any on-board gfx chip….if I’m only, ever, going to run the system with a dedicated GFX card then its got to be a waste of money anyway!

BTW – everything I’ve listed is from dab.com anyway.

I used to be an AMD + Nvidia dedicated user but with the new Core2 Intel’s outstripping the relating AMD’s for performance and all the major issues Nvidia had with the 6000 series chipset…I’ve switched to Intel + ATi

Why are you going for the 1950 pro?

The new generation of nvidia cards are far, far better...

1) Price vs performance is exceptional (£118)
2) Nvidia’s recent “problems” with non-compliant drivers (which I had first hand experience of)

I could go for a next gen Nvidia but I’d be paying far more than the less than £120 mark.

hi i ran the system requirments test to see if i could run Medieval Total War 2
and it said i could not ~:doh: ~:doh:
but i also tried the system requriments test on rome total war and it said
i could not run it ~:doh: but i have rome tota war and it is running fine

What hardware are you running?

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Originally Posted by sapi

What hardware are you running?

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i am not intirely saw, i have just brought mtw2 so it sould be intresting to see if it works :computer:

If it doesn't, post up your specs (start > run > dxdiag should display them)

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Originally Posted by sapi

If it doesn't, post up your specs (start > run > dxdiag should display them)

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ok :computer:

should be coming tomorow

it is tomorow now and still have not got it :computer:

but i did the system requirments and it said this Video RAM: Required - 128 MB , You have - 96.0 MB is there any way of getting more video ram
or does it matter :grin: :confused:

With 96mb ram on your video card, i don't like your chances of success :thumbsdown:

gl though

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sapi

With 96mb ram on your video card, i don't like your chances of success :thumbsdown:

gl though

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ok ~:doh: but is there any way of getting more

No - video ram is built into the card (and is not really relevant)

What matters more is the card's core; and there aren't many modern cards with only 96mb of ram

helo i have quite a modern computer ! when i right click on my computer and select properties it says 512 mb of ram ( does that have anything to do with it )


p.s still have not got mtw2:computer:

https://i175.photobucket.com/albums/...picture006.jpg here you go

Okay.

I'm afraid that you're not going to be able to run m2tw on that computer, as you're using an inbuild graphics card (not good and the main problem), a celeron cpu (budget) and 512mb of ram. Is it a laptop?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sapi

Okay.

I'm afraid that you're not going to be able to run m2tw on that computer, as you're using an inbuild graphics card (not good and the main problem), a celeron cpu (budget) and 512mb of ram. Is it a laptop?

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no it is a windows xp ( computer ) ~:doh:

That's your operating system.

What i meant by my quesion was whether it's a desktop (a box on the floor connected to a monitor) or a laptop (computer, keyboard and screen in the same housing).

From your answer it's probably a desktop.

Could you please click start > run > dxdiag, click 'save all information', open the text file that you save and post it up here in [code] tags?

thanks
:bow: