Most annoying CTD!

[Africanvs]

I hope this is an appropriate place for this thread. I was fighting a battle for my AAR. I had just taken Tarsos from the AS and thus shared a border with the Ptolies for the first time in my campaign (they had Antiocheia).

Sure enough once I got my army back to Mak for retraining, they blockaded the port of Tarsos and quickly followed that up by sending three stacks at me. The first stack besieged Tarsos, and after a few turns they assaulted. Playing on huge I had a good 3/4 stack in the city of levy phalagites and kretan archers (3000 men total). They had a mixed stack of 20 units (4000 men).

They attacked me with something like 8 rams. I managed to burn two of them down with flaming arrows, but I knew I couldn't stop them so I set up all my phalangites to defend the narrow streets and protect the square. At this point my laptop is chugging trying to deal with the 7000 men on the field. The battle was so epic I couldn't resist the f10 key to try to cature some screens for the AAR. (I use fraps).

As soon as I punched that key I knew I was in trouble. It was just too much for my notebook to handle and BOOM, CTD. Haha! I was afraid it would happen but I jut couldn't help but try. I've had more annoying CTDs than this, but I wanna hear your most annoying CTD stories! Try to keep them 1.2 related if possible, bugs don't count. I'm talking massive (your computer just can't handle it) battles!

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

haha That's happened to me too. The effort to take a screenshot maxed things out and crashed the game. I stopped taking pictures when the battles lagged after that. (Though I haven't had any lag in RTW/EB since I bought a new computer a year ago.)

[DaciaJC]

Yes, I've experienced that as well. It doesn't seem to be so much the lag from the number of units (I play on large) as from the rapidity with which I take my screenies: *screenshot* < 2 seconds later *screenshot*, and so on. It only happened to me twice, though (in the same battle, no less), and so I'm not greatly bothered by it.

I believe I speak for most when I say that the most annoying CTDs are those that occur after heroic victories involving several stacks (after clicking out of the battle summary screen).

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

What kind of person would an EB-player be if it wasn't for the innate sadness and deep resignation, caused by CTDs occuring only after the most epic of battles, that makes him the complete character he is. I'm a poet sometimes...

I use a program called "FSScreen". It was developed for Flight Simulator, but it works perfectly with EB. I ritually start it everytime before I start EB. It does not cause any lag because it's incredibly small. You can save 1000 .bmps by pressing "Print Screen", you don't have to worry about AA as well. Only thing you have to do is, before you reach the 1000-limit, you have to bring your screens to a different folder, for the program starts to overwrite the first screeny once the limit is reached.

Dunno if it's accesable to you, if you're interested, PM me.

[Africanvs]

I don't have the problem with CTD after huge battles anymore. There is a thread somewhere in the forums that talks about it. It recommended doing two key things to prevent it. 1) Never save right before a battle, and 2) After a battle, wait 15-30 seconds before closing the post-battle stats. Since doing these things, it hasn't happened to me once. When I was saving before every battle and not waiting the 30 secs, it would happen all the damn time. It drove me away from EB at one point for a while because it was so frustrating.

As for FSScreen, I saw you mention it in another post but I have always liked fraps. I find it takes really awesome screenshots and unless my computer simply can't handle the number of men on the field, I never have problems. I think I will check out FSScreen anyway though, I mean why not? It might be better. Your screens always look good afterall.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I apply a little bit of tweaking to my pictures in my AAR as well, just a little sharpening before resizing...

Does Fraps affect your framerate very much?

[Africanvs]

Does Fraps affect your framerate very much?

I will notice an occasional drop in framerate for a couple seconds on larger battles, but I have my graphics on the highest settings wth huge units, so I'm already pushing it a bit. On smaller battles, even with high settings and huge, no noticeable loss for me.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Ah, I see.

[miotas]

what do you guys use to edit and resize images?

[Africanvs]

what do you guys use to edit and resize images?

I crop and resize my images with paint; it works great. For all of my major picture editing I use photoshop.

[miotas]

fair enough, haven't got photoshop so i'll use paint, i just thought there might be some free wonder programme that everyone but me knows about.

cheers

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I crop with Paint too. Resizing and converting I do with the wonderful Irfanview. If I have major editting to do, I use GIMP.

[Apázlinemjó]

Gimp, Paint, Picasa.

[miotas]

damnit, im such an idiot, i all ready knew about picasa thanks everyone

[jnabb22]

my least faviorite ctd happens pretty much evertime I start eb. I used to have eb on our pc till we sold
It. So I put it on my laptop and it's not that great of one so I always have to keep unit size on small and everything else on low. That sucks because I love huge battles. So every time I but unit size higher than small I can't do nothing because the game gets way to slow.