Napoleon BSOD - 32b OS/High RAM = limited address space.

**Sigurd** · 11-22-2010, 15:30

Before I take this outside .org, I felt it was prudent to ask if any hardware knowledgeable members could give advice.

I just got my new laptop and bought Empire Total War and Napoleon Total War in a one box set to test this baby out.

The installation of Empire went ok considering...
Running it was another matter = Blue Screen of Death with some obscure reference to memory, but listing a file belonging to my sound device.
Checking around the two most frequent advice are: Update driver or Reinstall Game.
Well - I have the latest driver for my system and when has reinstalling ever helped?
I went on to installing Napoleon just in case there was some fault with Empire, there have been some instances according to player reports that the game has crashed.
- Same problem... BSOD with reference to the sound device .sys file.

Well... I disabled the sound device (Conexant SmartAudio HD) and lo and behold the game worked fine. Checking Empire, it worked also.
Right... so there is definitely some issue with the sound card. But playing a game without sound is... well I am not going to play a soundless game of that magnitude.

The crux is... I was able yesterday to play a bit of Napoleon with sound. A one time fluke apparently after disabling the card and enabling it again and run Napoleon right after. I wanted to play Empire first so i saved the game and quit and tried to run Empire = BSOD. I have not been able to duplicate that one instance.

Any ideas?

Rig spec dxDiag(full):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**AggonyKing** · 11-22-2010, 17:49

Try rolling back drivers on the sound card to older ones. Might be a case of incompatible drivers or the game(s) not recognizing the card with those current drivers.

also it could be a faulty sound card but you will have to try more games with it to figure that out.

and my god, laptops are being made with i7 processors now X_X I need to get with the times >_>

**Tomisama** · 11-23-2010, 01:04

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...sound-problems

A place to start if you are not there already.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...computer-crash

**Sigurd** · 11-23-2010, 10:43

The thing is, the computer is more than capable to play this game.
And, I had a long session yesterday playing Empire with no glitches whatsoever.
The sound was good at 256 channels and 300 Mb buffering.

I don't understand the trouble of getting the game to actually run. I sat two hours yesterday tinkering with sound settings, turning drivers on and off without much results, then suddenly I got through to the game without a BSOD and sat more or less three hours with no trouble at all. The game when actually getting past the SEGA intro screen, is quite stable. No option change will crash the game.

Someone suggested this was a typical 2GB RAM cap problem in 32bit systems.

**Sigurd** · 11-29-2010, 12:13

Just an update for those of you following this.
Apparently there is a limit to how much virtual address space a 32bit OS can utilize. they say it is 2GB. On machines with 32bit OS it could generate problems if you have more than that in total physical memory. Memory hungry applications will try to grab as much as possible from this limit and having a heavy duty graphics card which also will compete for the same address space doesn't help your case.

My problem is apparently hardware fighting for a limited address space. My sound card, the Graphics card of 1GB and the game fights over the 2GB limit and there is a stale mate of which the OS decides it is better to BSODing than giving preference.
Sometimes they share brotherly and I am able to play the game with sound. Other times, which is the norm = BSOD.
The game runs fantastically when I get it to run. I played every night during this weekend - and I have to admit that the game is better than I expected.

Solution - try to expand the address space by editing the boot.ini file. I have not found a balance that works on this particular laptop.
The best solution is to install a 64bit OS - which I will as soon as my company migrates from XP to W7. (they do not have a setup supporting 64bit today - hence why I didn't get a 64bit XP)

**Tempiic** · 11-29-2010, 12:38

Not knowing your hardware, its managment software and your bios, would it be possible for you to limit the amount of ram your audio card can use to a smaller amount instead?

Also, now that you know what the problem is, maybe it is possible to find different drivers which may adress this memory allocation issue?

PS. Original XP64 are hard to find, and not that great compared to say vista32 vs vista64 or win7/32 vs win7/64.

**Sigurd** · 11-30-2010, 15:57

Originally Posted by Tempiic

Not knowing your hardware, its managment software and your bios, would it be possible for you to limit the amount of ram your audio card can use to a smaller amount instead?
Also, now that you know what the problem is, maybe it is possible to find different drivers which may adress this memory allocation issue?

I do not know which address space is the disputed area or how much the address spaces are in overlap. I believe it is not by much since I am able to run the game occasionally with no apparent flaws... My knowledge of this is not sufficient to understand why this is so.
The driver issue is something I have given up altogether. I didn't have the newest drivers when I tested this out first. I have the absolutely latest now with no apparent result. I do not have the time or inclination to go through any numbers of drivers to see if one will work.

PS. Original XP64 are hard to find, and not that great compared to say vista32 vs vista64 or win7/32 vs win7/64.

Companies which is Gold or Platinum certified Microsoft partners have no trouble finding Microsoft software. Every week will bring Microsoft software and upgrades on DVD's to your address. You need to hire personnel just to administrate the stuff they send you. Every new software product will find you whether you have ordered it or not.

Rephrased: In Gold certified companies, you don't find Microsoft software, Microsoft software finds you.

**Tempiic** · 01-11-2011, 14:48

Originally Posted by Sigurd

Rephrased: In Gold certified companies, you don't find Microsoft software, Microsoft software finds you.

Point taken. ;)

I assume you do not have sound related issues with other software / playing win med player at highest quality.

But have you considered/tried to reduce the sound quality in-game? Like by reducing the amount of channels. (Can't recall by heart what audio options NTW and ETW have exactly)

Also, maybe it is nothing, but have you tried using international english drivers for your audio instead of the norwegian version?

**Sigurd** · 09-30-2011, 00:35

Remember this?

I might have stumbled upon the solution should anyone have the same problem.
It was the limited address space on my computer that might have been at fault. Working with servers and 32bit Os, there is a "trick" that will enable 32bit systems to recognize more memory.
I transferred this to my laptop by enabling Physical Address Extension. Basically you just add the sufix /PAE on the operative systems entry in the boot.ini file and XP should recognize 4GB ram of the x amount that is installed. (Server 2003 32bit enterprise will recognize 32GB).

Testing the game by running it and then terminate it 5 times in a row did not generate a BSOD where before I could not make it run twice in a row.