Mods with Steam Version Crashes

The Steam version of MTW is quite prone to crashes for some people. I am sadly among that number. I have found that by re validating the local MTW files on the my computer EVERY TIME before I play I can greatly reduce the crashes. Problem is this will replace any modded files with original vanilla files. The crash problem and fix was true before I modded any files. Now this is annoying but no big problem when I just mod Crusader units and buildings and Start Pos. It's easy to keep copies of the modded files and put them back in the game from a central location via shortcuts. But last night I got it in to my head to make a new unit. Read up on the process and you have to mess around with a lt of files to do that. So the only way I could see to do this was make a clean copy of the entire MTW folder that had just had just been re validated do all my mods there and swap it out every time i play. Takes 11 minutes on my computer to move this folder. Real boring. Has anyone else dealt with this problem or similar and come up with a better answer?

Why do you want to swap the whole directory? Just run the Medieval_TW.exe in the modded folder. Works as good as from the steam install folder.

Because as a predicate to being able to play the game with out it crashing all the time is have to have a CLEAN copy of the MTW game. Something about just running the game for a few hours corrupts some critical (and unknown) files on my computer which then apparently causes crashes. The only fix for this is to validate and replace corrupted files in the MTW folder. Unfortunately the Steam tool that does this reads a modded file as a corrupted file! So I need to replace any modded files I want to use after I have done the validation process.

So my idea is to validate the MTW files so I know I have a clean copy of the game. Copy that MTW folder, do any modding I want to do there. Then NEVER play with that copy so that the files that corrupt and cause the crashes don't corrupt. Always play with a copy of that copy which will have to be a new copy every time. After I have written this all out it really looks like a good idea to just buy an old computer running XP so I can play and mod my disk version of the game like I used to. Problem is how long can I do that before I can't get XP machines any more and no running an emulator has not worked in the past?

System is not a problem (Win10 is an exception). I can run vanilla MTW and all mods without any problems on my win7-64bit. For MTW the most important part of your pc is video card. AMD/Radeon is the safest choice. Any other brand can cause problems. Of course buying old laptop with XP is probably cheaper than buying new AMD video card.

Hi

Sort of related to this conversation...

A while ago I suggested that we have a thread in which MTW players could disclose what they have in their MTW boxes. No take up, unfortunately.

This configuration is rock solid for me:

- GA-7VM400M motherboard
- on-board sound
- AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU running at 333 MHz FSB = reported speed of ~ 1750 MHz
- 2 GB RAM
- Radeon 9800XT, 256MB, AGP
- 4.11 Cats
- XP Pro & SP3
- Windows desktop, strategy and battle maps = 1024 x 768 (16-bit colour)

This machine is sufficiently quick to play MTW satisfactorily, as far as I am concerned. But I'm regularly on the lookout for upgrade options, hence have recently paid for - but not yet taken delivery of - a secondhand Radeon X1950 GT 256MB GDDR3 AGP, which is two development generations beyond the 9800XT.

Also the machine is exclusively for MTW: no networking, no antivirus, etc. Every CPU cycle is precious.

If anybody reads this and is thinking about assembling a MTW-vintage machine, I recommend you stay away from NVIDIA nForce™2 Ultra 400 chipset motherboards.

Best regards
VictorGB

Sapere aude
Horace

The first config I used to play MTW on was:
- QDI Titanium IB+ motherboard
- Pentium MMX 233MHz (first OC'ed to 266MHz but it refused to run that fast after some time)
- 16MB 3Dfx VooDoo3 2000
- 128MB RAM (later 256mb)
- Win98 SE
- up to 1024x768 but usually 800x600 map, 640x480 battle.
- about 5-10 fps in 1v1 battle, you can imagine bigger battles. Felt like turn based game even during battles.

Actual config:
- ASUS P5Q-E mb.
- Intel Xeon E5450 3.0GHz (4 cores)
- 3GB Radeon HD 7950, PCI-E
- 8GB RAM
- Win 7 64bit
- 1440x900 (1200x900 in MTW)

Both configs are rock solid. :yes: Zero crashes guaranteed.

Stazi,you give interesting and useful information. MTW and STW always ran with no troubles or rare troubles for me under 98se and XP so it is not surprising that I draw the conclusion that Windows 7 or the Steam version have something to do with the problem. Had one Windows 7 computer that would run STW disk version for a while then stopped after a couple of years I assumed it had something to do with a windows update. I have never been able to get MTW disk version to install on a Windows 7 machine click on the install .exe and nothing. I have been working with Sega support to see if they could come up with anything that would help with crashes on the Steam version. Last thing they had me try was setting up an alternate user account on my computer which they presume will not load all the crap on start up that my regular account does. Both accounts load my anti virus bu the alternate does not load Skype. So interesting thing the account that does not load Skype does not crash when I start up MTW. Without validating the MTW files. So I will play a few days and see if I can get it to crash on starting a battle played a few hours today and it did not maybe this was the problem. Or one of the problems since doing all of the following things each incrementally lowered crashes.

1] Changed game screen resolution to 1024x768 this had the biggest single impact

2] Always Validate the files in the MTW folder before starting. This reduced crashes to a tolerable level up to 8 hours of operation. But sometimes less than 2 before needing to re validate files

3] Start game in alternate user account with no Skype running and no validation of files. Started game like 15 consecutive times trying to get it to crash on start up and it wouldn't. Played a couple of hours no crashes on battle starts or saves.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stazi

The first config I used to play MTW on was:
- QDI Titanium IB+ motherboard
- Pentium MMX 233MHz (first OC'ed to 266MHz but it refused to run that fast after some time)
- 16MB 3Dfx VooDoo3 2000
- 128MB RAM (later 256mb)
- Win98 SE
- up to 1024x768 but usually 800x600 map, 640x480 battle.
- about 5-10 fps in 1v1 battle, you can imagine bigger battles. Felt like turn based game even during battles.

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Those were the days...

about 5-10 fps in 1v1 battle

So you never had to use the Pause keystroke. :laugh4:

I still have a VooDoo card in the - even more ancient - machine that I keep in order to play Red Baron.

Best regards
VictorGB

Sapere aude
Horace