Introduction and questions

[WhiteyBlaque]

Hi, I'm Jimm. I'm 17, live in the UK and recently (yesterday) received a copy of STW:WE. I'm hooked on it at the moment :D I've got a problem though:

At the beginning of a campaign a few turns in, emissairies arrive asking for an audience (to ally). I click "Yes" to grant the audience and it takes me to the throne room. The sliding doors open, then the game freezes and I have to reboot my computer just to close it.

I've had a good look around and can't seem to find an answer anywhere. I've downloaded the v1.02 (or thereabouts) patch and installed it but the game still crashes. Is there a fix for it at all?

Thanks :)

[Tamur]

hi Jimm,

Hmm, haven't heard of this one. I assume the computer you're using meets minimum specs, updated drivers (especially important for the graphics card) ...? With STW, I wouldn't think that would be the problem, but you never know.

Tamur

[Duke of Gloucester]

IIRC you can install STW without the Throne Room option. After a while, the throne room gets irritating because you want to get on with the battle, so uninstalling and re-installing the game without the throne room will get round the problem if not solving it.

Enjoy. Its a great game.

[WhiteyBlaque]

Thanks for the tip. I turned off the Throne Room option and all was going well until my son came of age. After the message disappeared from my screen it froze and once again I've lost my progress.

My computer meets the specs required for the game as far as I know:

384mb ram
1ghz amd duron
128mb g4 ti4200 graphics card


Any ideas?

[CherryDanish]

Hopefully I can help. Did you install the correct DX version that came with the CD (having a newer version isn't bad, older versions are)? If you are unsure what version of DirectX you have, go to START - RUN - "DXDIAG.EXE".

The last line of the system tab indicates your DX version, the notes section at the bottom of the DirectX files tab indicates if any problems were found. If all of this checks out to DX9.0 (I THINK thats the right version for MTW, I'm at work ATM so I can't quickly verify without browsing the activision site) then go to the NVidia site and get the latest catalyst drivers for your video card, install them, reboot, try the game again. If the versions are older, get the correct version from the CD, or download from the MS site and then reinstall both your sound card drivers and your video card drivers (in that order).

[WhiteyBlaque]

Cherry: I've got dx 9.0b installed at the moment. I'm assuming it's OK because it's (i think) the latest version out.

I downloaded the latest drivers for my video card as well, but it's still crashing in the throne room when I grant an audience there (Haven't replayed up to my son coming of age yet).



Ps. The game I'm playing (or trying to play) is STW:WE, not MTW :)

[HicRic]

I know it's a pain in the backside, but re-installing the game could sort it out. The movie file might have corrupted in the transfer from CD to hard disk.

Try running one of the game movies outside of Shogun and seeing what happens (go into the STW directory, then 'movies', then open one of them). See if the movie runs fine (I know it won't be the Throne room movie, but it's worth having a look anyway).

If worst comes to worst, in the game menu, turn off the Throne Room.

[WhiteyBlaque]

I've tried a reinstall already, HicRic, but it didn't help. I've turned the Throne Room off and as I said above that got me around the allying area but it crashed again when the window saying my son has come of age appeared.

I just played a couple of movies and they're fine. Short of changing the game up or getting a refund I don't know what to do :( The problem has only happened to me on Full Campaign. Custom Battle is fine - I haven't tried other options yet.

Thanks for everyone's help in any case :)

[Puzz3D]

Not sure if this is it, but make sure Windows Media Player is your default player for audio. Also, programs such as WinDVD or Xing can cause problems. Turning down hardware acceleration might help. Decoding errors playing a sound can lock-up your machine or make the game crash. Here is the thread for that discussion, but I notice that the guy who had crashes after the heir comes of age message never posted back that he had solved the problem:

The Definitive Solution To End Of Year Crashing On Shogun

[WhiteyBlaque]

I've got Winamp 2.91 set as my default mp3 player. I've set WMP as my default wav player and also tried converting the wav files that thread suggests to mp3 then back again. It didn't work.

The crashes don't occur when I get a harvest message, they've only happened directly after the throne room doors slide open and when the heir coming of age window pops up.

Thanks for the help so far guys.

[WhiteyBlaque]

I think I forgot to mention I'm running Windows XP home.