A goodbye to MTWI for me...

[Kaidonni]

Yep, my brother has moved everything over to his new computer. I tried MTW Gold today, and it imploded into a blackhole. Twice. My bro is using more recent Nvidia graphics drivers, so MTW no longer works. I was expecting this to be the case, so it's not exactly gut-wrenching. But that means my days on MTWI are over...(and no, I can't convince my bro to switch back to older drivers :P).

I'll still visit these forums, but I doubt I can save MTW Gold now. The resolution fix didn't work. Can't opt for older drivers, like I said. Maybe CA can release a patch to solve some of these issues? Didn't think so...

Kinda sad, really. I'm probably going to dabble in MTWII for a while. Might even decide to try modding it, to get an XL-like campaign.

But, that said, it's goodnight MTW for me...

[I of the Storm]

That's sad. Well, when you say that your brother is using his new computer now, then it follows that there is an old computer (that was able to run MTW1), which is unused at the moment, doesn't it?
Couldn't you just use this one?

[Kaidonni]

Well, all the hard drives have been moved over, and it's just the old casing plus remaining components now...so, not really. And there's no room anywhere anyway.

[I of the Storm]

Oh well, bad luck then. I'm really sorry!

[Ironsword]

Farewell Kaidonni!

No more 5000 strong AI peasant armies invading across a bridge into your Halberdiers; no more mind bendingly random naval battles; no more sweating when the year 1230 rolls around; no more little sprites emerging from the woodland down into the enemies flanks to produce a mass rout...

...Unless you pick up a cheap PC and continue until your hearts content!!

[Wasp]

Perhaps consider buying a cheap laptop so it doesn't take too much space?

[DaVega]

Yeah I have a similary problem here.. I'm a student and i don't live at my parents house anymore, and MTW1 doesn't like my new laptop, because now i'm only able to play battles. Once I try to start a new game, and it starts to load the strategic map of the game, it CTD.. So i'm only able to play it once in a week.. sadly enough

[Kaidonni]

I haven't tried battles yet, so it is a possibility I could try to get online and play with everyone here in battles. The upside to this new computer is that I can finally cower in the Ant Lion tunnels in Half Life 2 Episode 2 in ultra-high graphics. LOL!

Funnily enough, never had hordes of 5,000 peasants face halberdiers. But I have done the second Norman invasion of England. Did it in 2006. The 1250s, vanilla MTW, playing as Sicily on Hard. The English had fubared their empire, and I deemed them unfit to rule over such green and pleasant lands. So, how does an amphibious assault on five provinces in a single turn sound?

Previously, in that campaign, the Eggies had re-emerged...AFTER I had captured Tripoli as a Crusade goal (was playing GA). So, two epic battles and a load of assassins later, they were dead. They kept coming back, but my assassins kept them down.

Heh, was also the same campaign the French had a super-empire with a king who had no heir. So they kind of died, bringing back the Italians, Spanish and possibly the English (been so long now).

My most favourite campaign was probably that one. But I've had fun since. Just recently, I suffered a most unbecoming fate as Bohemia in XL 3.0, on Expert. Hungary kinda, well...defeated me twice. The first time, I was defending Bohemia. The second time, it was meant to be a re-capture by me. Practically destroyed the campaign, as I only had Bavaria after that. In Early. VERY early.

That reminds me of my Venetian campaign on Hard in XL 3.0, got to around 1145/1146. First time I ever grew quite powerful since that age old Sicilian campaign. Mind you, I had to annilihate the Genoese first. Then the Serbians took the Papal States, and I just couldn't allow such blasphemy (what do you mean I shouldn't have kept it for myself?! ). Then Sicily tried their luck at fighting me. Owning only Corsica and Sardinia doesn't sound glamorous...but someone had to do it, and Sicily did exactly that. I did a bit of reloading (a whole bunch of turns) as I struggled with the urge to destroy the unbelieving Moors who had built a super empire, and were forever expanding. It was the campaign I also noticed the HRE's Holy Roman Empire goal...I owned all but Rome out of their targets. LOL. Reloaded a bit there...but, Urban Militia/Slavic Warriors on a high mountain in forests really do work against the Holy Roman Emperor. I then took Savoy, Burgundy and Tyrolia off of the HRE, leaving them with Switzerland. And ended the campaign there. Thought I was too powerful. Even with two-three full stacks.

That also reminds me. My Scottish campaign in XL 2.0/2.1 last Summer. Was heaps of fun. Drove the English out of Britain by 1098. LOL! Then, took Ireland and focused my efforts on the Norweigans, Swedish and Danes. I tell you, that Salt tradeable good in Saxony is terrific! 4,000-5,000 florins per turn from trading that alone! Then I had to mess everything up in the High era by trying to war with the French. Highland Clansmen and Scottish Spearmen, in the open, DO NOT do well versus Feudal Foot Knights, Feudal Knights, Norman Foot Knights and Norman Knights. They really don't. That very campaign also saw one heck of a cold war in Northern Europe. I had 3,000 or so men in Saxony, and the Sicilians had the same in Friesland and Franconia. Even the Polish joined in the fun. Meanwhile, the Kievans and Novgorods were playing their own private game of cold war.

Just a few of my memories...

[caravel]

Yep, my brother has moved everything over to his new computer. I tried MTW Gold today, and it imploded into a blackhole. Twice. My bro is using more recent Nvidia graphics drivers, so MTW no longer works. I was expecting this to be the case, so it's not exactly gut-wrenching. But that means my days on MTWI are over...(and no, I can't convince my bro to switch back to older drivers :P).

What problems are you having? You seem all too ready to give up. Can you post up the specs of the system and give details of when and where the crash occurs?

[bamff]

Yeah, man don't give up too quick....although having said that, if the problem IS the dreaded nVidia driver issue, then it possibly is one that cannot be overcome....but check it out first, just in case it is something else....

[Tratorix]

Sorry to hear that. But as people have said, don't give up yet. Remember, where there is life, there is hope.

[Kaidonni]

Now, seeing as how I've seen people post system specs before, I should know how they've gained access to them...LOL...but, can someone enlighten me to the exact path to take? I'm assuming it's that very, very long list people post...

Oh, and before I post any specs, the crash occured whenever I tried loading the campaign map. Tried the VI campaign in particular. Happened when I had the resolution set to 800x600 and when I changed it to 1280x1024 after reloading the game up. Never even saw the campaign map.

Sorry if it seems I'm all too ready to give up on this, just expected something like this to happen when my bro upgraded everything.

EDIT: In the Video settings of MTW, it reads that there is a Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT in use, no other choices available. Also experimented with a quick battle. That works. Well for the most part, except I can send units to certain places and can't order them to attack. The attack cursor doesn't appear when I hover the mouse over enemy units. Units also seem to...disappear and reappear when I move away at a distance. A bar rolls across them... Plus my units seem to go 'over' the unit cards when I move in close. They...stand on top of them, not disappear under them.

[RLucid]

If the graphics requirements aren't large (ie. basically 2D), perhaps trying a program like Virtual box would work? You can virtually install XP with/without networking, and it provides some basic graphics emulation card.

Just a suggestion for a work round if you're really regretting the move to the newer games.

[DaVega]

Oh, and before I post any specs, the crash occured whenever I tried loading the campaign map. Tried the VI campaign in particular. Happened when I had the resolution set to 800x600 and when I changed it to 1280x1024 after reloading the game up. Never even saw the campaign map.

Yeah that's exactly what's happening to me too

[Kamakazi]

Well, all the hard drives have been moved over, and it's just the old casing plus remaining components now...so, not really. And there's no room anywhere anyway.

you could go buy a cheap but good harddrive and use the old comp.... tis wut id do

[Fenixx]

Kaidonni,

Sorry to here of your issue. Reflecting on RLucid's suggestion, I, if I may, offer two other possibilities:
1) Alt. Hardware Profiles in OS (not sure of this).
OR
2) Dual boot (MS and others) (Have used this personally in many configs)
Both have adv. and disadv. but both are possibilities. Better to let other members chime in before attempting and of course, more help could be found in the hardware sub-forum perhaps.

[Gray Beard]

1. Try lowering the video resolution - Right click on desktop screen properties-settings

2. Right click on the game icon right click properties click compatibility select run in XP mode or Win 95 mode. Also you can adjust the resolution of this program here.

All of these might help

The next tip may not apply because you must remember that I live in China and the product section is different here. If you look around you might be able to find a video card that fits into a standard (non-video) expansion slot. A small shop that repairs computers is your best bet for one of these. Sometimes businesses have a computer that the video slot gets damaged for some reason and they do not want to replace the computer right away. So, there are, or at least there are here, some moderately good video cards still made that fit a non-video expansion slot. This would mean that you could have two distinct video systems loaded into the same computer. These cards will probably not be made by any manufacturer you recognize but they are not very expensive either. Are they going to give you huge frame rates? No, but they will probably run MTW. If you find one then you could simply choose the card you need through the video settings. Beware this could play havoc with your BIOS as well

[King Kurt]

Tonight could be a momentious night - the new computer has arrived and it is time to change over to it. i agonised about getting a machine with an old graphics card etc, but in the end felt that I had to get the best I could afford to future proof the machine as I intend to get a good life out of it. As I have not been able to play RTW/MTW2 on my old machine I know the periels of not having a modern machine.
So the new rig is a pair of 2.6 G processors (dual core), a NVidia 8000 series graphics card and 2 g of RAM, with Vista - so I expect it is goodbye to MTW on that machine. The good news is that the old machine is just moving into my son's bedroom, so I can still get to play occasionally - as well as encouraging him to indulge - but as he is 10 I can't see me getting as much game time as before - he is in bed by 8.30!! He would love to be kept up by his dad playing PC games in his bedroom, but I don't see his Mum being so accomodating!!!
So - a small tear in my eye as I set up the new machine tonight - only to be replaced by anticipation of all the new games I am going to buy.
So - a question to end with - what first - RTW (the RTW +BI + Alex package from Game) or MTW2??

[Kaidonni]

Oh, more news on my goodbye...the game didn't even load up yesterday. It tried to, then crashed. Or something. Never saw anything. At all. So that's the end of that (and I use XP, so...). Because it's one of the later Nvidia drivers, then I doubt there is a solution. Altering resolution probably won't work, and compatibility mode...erm...

I mean, the battlemap doesn't work properly anymore anyway. That whole cursor not turning into the attack cursor thingy.

Kurt>Hmmm...try the RTW package. Probably best. And there are some great mods out there for RTW, including Lusted's Terrae Expugnandae 5.0 + 5.1. I didn't like M2TW as much as RTW, to be honest. RTW has a sort of magic feeling about it for me. It's a novel dive into a 3D version of the TW games, and into ancient warfare.

[caravel]

*cough*

What problems are you having? You seem all too ready to give up. Can you post up the specs of the system and give details of when and where the crash occurs?

To be honest though it's clear that you've made up your mind. It seems to me that you are ready to move on and are just "politely excusing" yourself from the Main Hall. There is no need for that. You've got a new PC that can run RTW/M2TW well and are eager to get in there and test it out, putting all of the quality settings up to the max etc. I say just go ahead and get on with it. If you don't try it you'll never know. Then if the newer titles don't really float your boat you can always come back later and then the ins and outs of getting STW/MTW running on newer hardware can be discussed.

[Kaidonni]

Well, I have no idea how to post the system specs. I've seen those long lists people post, but...hehe...have no idea how to access them. If someone could tell me...

That said, I'm not too bothered at the moment. I can't make any modifications to my bro's computer, and it wouldn't go over well if I tried to use the old one for it, too. Plus with all the trouble his new one is having at the moment, I just can't mess around with games crashing and all that, could make things worse... I spend enough time on the computer as it is, and there really is no room for the old one currently, or me messing with it. Maybe when my bro leaves home (he did mention about leaving that one behind when he left home - but darn it, I'll need something that can play Half Life 2 Episode 3 when that comes out...guess I have a big headstart )

I'll still hang around the Main Hall. Who knows, maybe I'll take a stab at trying to get the game to work again one day. I like RTW, but, meh...that one is done and dusted. Tried it recently, didn't last too long. I never gave M2TW a chance, was always so fussy about starting conditions...maybe I should give it another try.

[edyzmedieval]

If you have Windows XP, just go to Run and type dxdiag.exe. It will load up and the different tabs have different information about your computer.

The new drivers always have backwards compatibility. Why shouldn't you run it?! Also, you might want to try using the backwards Windows compatibility mode. Running it in 98 or XP if you have Vista should be good.