Campaign Crashing... Details for Developers

[Emperor Xeal II]

I have tried basically anything this forum has suggested, and many of my own ideas for working around the campaign crashing bug. Now for me it will crash after I hit end turn... Everytime. The pieces move, I'll get thru some windows... maybe even play a battle or two, but before I can do anything for the next turn... it crashes to the desktop without warning. Now I won't go into the bazillion things I tried that didn't work. Instead, let me give the developers more detailed information about my system than anyone else has... hopefully that will help with the patch:

This computer is a homebuild... It has no spyware to speak of, I clear it out all the time and the startup folder is empty. I run Windows 98SE...

Athlon Tbird AYHJA 1.4 GHz
Aluminum heatsink with embedded copper plate & 40 CFM fan
512 MB DDR PC2100 (2x 256 MB DIMMs, Crucial brand, CL 2.5)
ECS K7S5A Motherboard w/integrated LAN (SiS 735 chipset)
MSI Geforce 3 TI-200 64 MB
Sound Blaster Live Platinum (not the 5.1 version, PCI Slot #2)
20 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM DiamondMax ATA-100
40 GB Maxtor 5400 RPM DiamondMax ATA-66
Sony 8x/4x/32x CD-RW
Hitachi GD-2000 2x DVD-ROM
Happapauge WinTV Tuner Card (PCI Slot #4)
DirectX 8.1b

I have disabled my sound card, removed it, etc.. and thus eliminated it as the source of the problem. I similarly disabled the TV Tuner... still no go there either. I tried 3 entirely different nvidia detonator drivers to no avail. I have manipulated the
AGP Aperture from basically every setting 32 to 512. No go. I even set my RAM timings far under the capability of the RAM, no go there. I changed resolutions, color depth, etc on the desktop. Nothing.

I did a lot more... even pushing my system to the point of instability with some whacked BIOS settings. Nothing worked. I tried many other suggestions from this forum.. to no avail. I am no fool when it comes to tweaking hardware and software... and yet this one stumps me (I even found a workaround for a bug in warcraft III regarding their divx movies in 1.01).

I figure that I am pretty much doomed here no matter what, the campaign will be unplayable. The battles are a real riot, and play very smoothly. Everything about the game is ROCK solid up until clicking end turn in the single player campaign.

Anyways to the developers, that's my system info, and a bit more detailed I think than anything else posted here. Hopefully that helps in solving the problem... I am impatient to begin the campaign heh... Thanx for your time, good luck with the bug.

[barocca]

Try this - unistall the geforce,
uninstall directX,

re-install the geforce with the latest drivers from Nvidia's webpage, http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

THEN, and this stumped me for ages - use the directX from mtw CD2 - if you have been unable to uninstall directX the version on the CD should overwrite it anyway,

Fixed all my crashes and lag! and allowed me to use the map editor - which had been disabled right up until i installed the version of DirectX that comes with the game!!

I know the version on the CD is not the absolute latest, but it is the version the game was tested with and certified for
:-)

B.

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Clan Doragon
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

[This message has been edited by barocca (edited 09-11-2002).]