OK down to business...Apothecary needed.

[ElGascon]

Colleagues in Arms,

Now that I'm here, I would be much obliged to anyone who can find it in their esteemed will to send this on to the Apothecaries.

I've played Shogun for a long while, no probs...not really. The usual, but I got over it (all resource related.) Loved it, still do. But I had to move on...

So, I finally get MTW, and I install, no prob, with patch...Got to the Campaign Setup Menu, selected the period, and faction, click continue...and the next thing I know, I'm back at the Campaign Menu...

This happens every time...I can do battles and the battle tutorials, but no Campaign related stuff. I'm pretty ok, for now; being able to tear into the enemy keeps me at a momentary sense of calm. (Not sure how long that's gonna last before I start tearing up my lawn with my tractor for kicks.)

So I do the usual, dxdiag, download updated drivers, and dump all unnecessary Microsoft-isms, etal. (OK, so its my work computer...excuse me, what's that? And does that make a difference to whatever happens in northern italy during the feudal wars...I think not. My priorities are very real...MTW, then life...for now.)

In the end I'm streamlined to the bone, but still can't get farther than the danged Campaign Menu loop-de-loop. (End, Day 2)

So I find the Forum, and read through it...and quickly realize YOU FOLKS ROCK (and does ERADO-SAN = NEO? ) One of the posts had similar symptoms, but other than resources no additional clues...until I find something about how S3 vid cards with 16mb's of RAM are worse than the black plague pus lesions.

So...

Here's my specs...someone confirm my madness...is it me or the machine.

System: IBM T23 (Model 26472Gu)
Intel Pentium III 1gHZ
Running MS-XP, latest SP
256 RAM
879MB Page File (Manually Maxxed)
DirectX 9.0b (4.09.0000.0902)
Video Card: s3 Graphics SuperSavage/IXC 1014
Chip Type: s3 SuperSavage/IX
DAC Type s3 Graphics SDAC
Vid Mem: 16mb
Display: 1024 x 768 32 bit (And less...)
s3 Driver: s3ssav.dll (6.13.0001.1290)
A couple of gb's of free hard drive space.

So, here's the deal...the first one to prove its me, I promise to conquer my first adversary in your name.

To the first that proves its my machine, however...I will light a candle at St. Anthony's of Padua in your name wishing you all the care, and luck in the world, then seek the proper psychiatric treatment for myself, enroll in a clinic, and join a monastery after a four year vow of celebacy. Maybe not in that order, or entirely...well, maybe only two or three of the four. No promises.

Its a no-lose proposition.

Many Thanks

El Gascon
Terrore della Mancha

[Kraellin]

Quote[/b] ]Tested Video Chipsets

The following list of video card chipsets have been tested and work with Medieval: Total War –Viking Invasion. For all these cards, you should ensure that you have the latest drivers available.

Matrox G550, nVidia® Riva TNT 2™ (nVidia 4109 drivers tested), nVidia GeForce 256™, nVidia GeForce 2™, nVidia GeForce 2 MX™, nVidia GeForce 3™, nVidia GeForce 4™, ATI® Radeon (7500 and 8500), Videologic Kyro 2™.

ok, i cant speak to your exact vid card, but in my experience, S3 sucks. that's the old Diamond card, iirc, and every diamond card i've ever had was buggy as hell, needing many patches, bios flashes and upgrades. i'll never buy another.

now, all that being said, including the quoted stuff from the readme file, this doesnt mean it cant work. first thing i'd do is start testing various drivers. we've seen this thing before with the campaign mode. basically, it seems to be a rejection of hardware/drivers. sometimes even the menu is ghosted and you cant even click on it.

first thing is, what o/s are you using?

have you run dxdiag?

did you run the video test in the game options menu and if so, what were the results?

have you ever flashed your bios?

do other games work ok for you? big games, heavy use games.

what updates does the manufacturer's website offer on that vid card?

remember, stw and mtw are at least one generation apart, if not two, as far as hardware. new drivers all around.

what type of motherboard? does it use via 4 in 1 drivers? if so, have you upgraded these recently, particularly since installing dx9?

have you tried installing your same vid drivers again, over the top of the existing ones?

have you tried un-installing your vid drivers and installing again?

did you feed the dog and water the pig?

did you clean your room and brush your teeth?

ok, those last two are optional.

K.

[ElGascon]

K, Cool, Quick Response, thanks

first thing is, what o/s are you using?
- XP

have you run dxdiag?
yup, got good grades.


did you run the video test in the game options menu and if so, what were the results?
Got the Medieval Splash screen for a few seconds then back to the Menu...alls well.

have you ever flashed your bios? I did once, back in highschool, and got suspended. (Nope never did...sorry couldn't resist.)

do other games work ok for you? big games, heavy use games.
All work, but nothing as big as MTW.

what updates does the manufacturer's website offer on that vid card?
None, its an IBM Laptop, maxed card.

what type of motherboard? does it use via 4 in 1 drivers? if so, have you upgraded these recently, particularly since installing dx9?
Don't know the motherboard...don't know what 4in1 means (I have a bunch of dirty thoughts though...but I don't think your asking about my personal life. Please expand on this. I have not updated anything since the Dx9 upgrade.

have you tried installing your same vid drivers again, over the top of the existing ones?
Nope...will do.

have you tried un-installing your vid drivers and installing again?
Nope...will do.

OKAY, now here's where I screwed up...

I watered my room, cleaned the dog, fed myself, and brushed the pig. Was I wrong?

Thanks I'll try the reinstalls, and post back.

[ElGascon]

Okay reloaded the s3 Driver over again, and...

((( waiting )))

Same -o-.

After two red-bar flashes, I got back to the In-Game Menu

I'll try the Uninstall (Try game with default xp drivers) Then reinstall (Try game again.)

Stay tuned... (I know this is exciting, right? (Heck its after midnight, and I'm through bashing Bulgarians. No offence intended to anyone.)

[ElGascon]

Okay, now the latest...

Tried to remove the S3 drivers...not all would let go of my machine. The core set of drivers apparently needs to stay. (PS, the machine said something about going into VGA mode...holy 1990's.)

So, I removed what I could, and restarted MTW. Setup a new campaign, and clicked continue...

Redbar...
Blackness
And another quick Redbar, and BACK to the Menu again.

Reinstalling Video Drivers for one more go

[ElGascon]

And now act three...The finale (for tonight.)

The station encourages our regular customers to stay tuned during the late evening shut down signal as we will return in the morning, and so why bother hitting Power Off.

I reinstalled the drivers...
Rebooted...I never quite noticed how pretty that little blue dashed line on the XP bootup screen looked.

Removed all unnecessary Tray Items....lowered processes that were unimportant...

And...launched MTW
Setup a Campaign...
Click Continue...
RedBar...
Blackness... (I'm getting to like this part, its meditative.)
AND...Quickie Redbar,
Back to Menu...

Good night, and I'll look forward to more news tomorrow.

Remember, I'm really just after sorting my life out. Is it me or the machine. I can deal with both...I can handle the truth...I am mature...my mommy says so.

Thanks for trying

[Kraellin]

from everything i can see, this is a vid card/driver issue. and, it doesnt help that it's a laptop. it could be a resolution issue. try adjusting monitor settings and resolutions. also try 16 bit if you're currently using 32 bit color. go to 800 x 600, as it tends to be the easiest. and yes, the best way to change drivers is still 640 x 480 vga drivers in safe mode. a lot of machines dont have to have this, but it's still the safest and best way.

oh, and btw, laptops are not supported...officially. we have some folks running around here somewhere that do use them and do work, but officially yer not gonna get much help, i'm thinkin.

i really gotta think it's that S3 card and the drivers, bubba. the crash back to menu, the black screens. oddly enough, the campaign map is touchier about this than the tactical battles.

and the other bad news, which yer prolly already aware of, laptops are MUCH more difficult to hardware upgrade...and therefore, also more expensive.

the rest of your system seems ok. you seem to know the stuff pretty well, tweaks, tips and so on, handy with changing things out and so on, so yer already familiar with the system. but as soon as i saw that S3 card, bells went off.

if you cant get drivers, it's shop time or trade in time, i'm thinkin.

K.

[khurjan]

it is actually the vid card issue simple as that i speak from experiance you needa bit more updated card mate

[Red Harvest]

Sorry to hear of your trouble. Two likely culprits here: Creative Assembly and your vid card. Unfortunately, CA software is only troublefree with two or three video cards...but nobody knows for sure what cards those are. If I ever get a card that it runs trouble free on I'll let you know I've had troubles with various CA titles on a GF2 GTS, a 3dfx Banshee, a Radeon ViVo, and an 8500... I've managed to get STW/MI, and MTW/VI working on each eventually. In essence, CA's initialization routines are notoriously buggy and the anti-piracy stuff can also cause problems.

Here is what I would try:
1. First verify your system is happy with DX7 and DX8 games by running 3DMark2000 and 3DMark2001SE (the downloads are availble if you do a search.) If it can't run the benchmarks to completion then your system will need some work. 3DMark2003 should not be necessary as it is primarily a DX9 shader benchmark and I doubt that MTW is using any of the newer stuff.
2. Get into the video options in the game and try manipulating PCI texture setting up or down. Also set both strategic and tactical maps to low resolution with low quality. Set your windows desktop to the same resolution.
3. Check your PC BIOS settings. You might want to adjust AGP aperture (assuming this chipset/card uses AGP.) I would not set it over 128 MB with the RAM you have (rule of thumb is never more than half of system RAM.)
4. Download a no CD crack, sometimes that helps, and it gets the game to quit updating your registry files every time you reboot (it is worth it for that feature alone.) I will get in trouble if I give you a URL, but you might try a Yahoo search looking for something arbitrary like: gamecopyworld

[Lord Of Storms]

I think Krae has it right and it is most likely vid card at 16 mb related, I have spoken to some people who came up with a workaround for smaller capacity vid cards, the main campmap is 30 megs and there is also a 9meg map(and some PC's lack the power to run the larger map) in the same folder,(Located in medieval total war/Textures/Campmap as Maptex and Maptex 2) what these chaps suggested, tried and it worked for some was this, rename the 30 meg map to something else so it is not recognized by the MTW program which should force it to choose the 9meg campmap, which by virtue of its smaller size might get you past that point where it seems to crash. Now I dont know if this will help,I am just passing on what I have heard, but what do you have to lose? so you rename a file give it a shot might work. LOS

[Red Harvest]

LOS,

That is an excellent workaround Hope it helps the fellow.

[ElGascon]

Truly an ingenius workaround

I looked first at the campmap directory off the MTW root, and found an 8.6mb file EPIC.BIF but no 30mb. When I searched about 10mb I found in the Textures/Campmap directory a 30+mb file.

Maptex2.tga @ 36mb changed to LouMaptex2.map
Maptex.tga @ 9mb

Tried the Campaign...got the Loop-dee-Loop to the Menu. Same results. (With changes to 800x600, etc...)

And now, I am preparing my statement prior to commencing my vow to you all.

[Lord Of Storms]

My sncere apologies, I left out the location of the campmap file I see you found it though, it would have truly been ingenious if had worked I will amend my post to include the file location. Hope you solve your troubles mate. LOS

[ElGascon]

No apology necessary LOS. I truly meant it Ingenious

For the most part the Resource based solutions are all tried and true. I think you presented me with a solution that bears a bit of merit as it incorporates something deeper than the resource angle.

Thanks again