Medieval Total War CTDs and Solutions

[yoyolll]

Just an update, this is for real. I've been playing for over a week now and no CTDs.

[Sticky]

Was having the same problems with MTW (crash on loading), while RTW and Shogun worked fine. My fix was to set the Nvidia control panel to "Clone" under "nView Display settings". Works fine now. The crash was happening when using the setting "Single Display".

I am using an antique GeForce4 MX 440... and ForceWare 93.71.

[roy_d_merkel]

quick question.

I have a Gateway Laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS card and Windows Vista 64.

I was having problems with Medieval Total War not running. When I applied the files from rapidshare.com/files/115211547/MTW_Gold_v2.01_CTD_Fix.zip.html as suggested in earlier posts the game runs. But I'm having problems with dreadful performance.

Has anyone come up with a solution for MTW's performance issues on modern computers with NVIDIA cards?

Thanks again, Roy.

[roy_d_merkel]

NM, someone already has some things to try burried deep in the bowels of this board...

[caravel]

Sorry I must have missed this post. Before you try anything else, run a custom or quick battle and just try playing the battle. Ensure that you can direct the units to move and attack correctly. If you can't then there is no point continuing.

[roy_d_merkel]

sorry, now I guess I was a smidge tardy....

I can battle and control my units correctly, but the perspective is alittle off - unit and background sizes are correct, but units tend to hover a few pixels above where they actually are, and to tell them to move to a point you have to tell them to move to a point in front of where you want them to be....

Right now though I'm trying to figure out how to fix my campaign map lagging problems.

I'm going to look at some of the forums first though since I noticed people address it in other posts buried deeper in the bowels of this forum...


Thanks again, Roy.

[tttc]

Hi, I created this account exclusively for this thread.

I've read through every post in this thread, and most links that people posted. However, my problem remains unsolved. Should I find the solution myself, I will definately post it here.

My problem seems unique, I couldn't find anybody with similiar problems - unless I misunderstood two or three of you. Everything works fine, except Battles. No matter what settings I have on the graphic card or MTW I still get the same results. The screen in Battles appear grey, and flickering very fast. The curser also leaves "traces" of itself wherever I move it. On top of that I'm unable to move the camera, select troops, or even access some kind of menu. The music plays just fine, though.

I tried taking screenshots of it, but they only had the loading screen on them, with the full, red bar. I'd guess that it is somehow stuck between the loading screen and the actual battle. At the absolute worst settings for the graphic card, I could see that the flickering was black lines moving across the screen very fast.

I'm tired of never being able to play Battles. I've completed campaign now by just using auto-calculate outcome, which is fine, but I miss the battles. On my old computer MTW ran just fine, but with this newer computer it doesn't. Here's the hardware on my current computer:

Motherboard: MSI K9AGM2, original BIOS
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-core @ 2.8GHz
Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT, 512 MB
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE
RAM: 2048 MB
Minotor: LG L222W, 21.6 inch

Everything is properly cooled (CPU cores are generally at 35-40 degrees celcius). I also have access to two older graphic cards, GeForce 7900 and 9600. But I doubt the 9600 will make a diffirence, and the 7900 is damaged, so I don't want to try that.

Since nobody else seems to have this problem, I draw two conclusions. Either it is a very rare problem, or everybody knows how to solve it. I hope it's the latter.

God I love MTW.

[caravel]

Everything works fine, except Battles. No matter what settings I have on the graphic card or MTW I still get the same results. The screen in Battles appear grey, and flickering very fast. The curser also leaves "traces" of itself wherever I move it.

I've not heard of this issue as yet. Updating drivers or indeed downgrading may fix it, but due to the other problems it won't be worthwhile.

On top of that I'm unable to move the camera, select troops, or even access some kind of menu. The music plays just fine, though.


Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT, 512 MB

This is a well known problem with the Nvidia 8xxx/9xxx series cards: 7 page thread at Nvidia forums dealing with the 8xxx/9xxx series and MTW

The problem as yet has no solution. If you really want to play the game and battles, you will need to get a different graphics card. Be aware though that even changing the graphics card is a minefield as even ATI cards can have certain issues.

(STW is also affected by this issue)

[Kaelik]

Okay. Hate this crap.

1)CTD, blah blah specs. Yes I've used every fix on here except:

2) I cannot disable AGP texture acceleration. There is no disable button. How do you disable it aside from this imaginary button in dxdiag?

3) I have a Vista machine. I have an ATI card. Why is it impossible to run a game like this? Why? Why? Has anyone had any experience at all of successfully running MTW on a vista computer with ATI card? What drivers were/are you using?

[caravel]

Okay. Hate this crap.

?

1)CTD, blah blah specs. Yes I've used every fix on here except:

Yes post your specs, or don't expect any help. Did you try the 'button fix'?

2) I cannot disable AGP texture acceleration. There is no disable button. How do you disable it aside from this imaginary button in dxdiag?

Perhaps you have a PCI Express graphics card/chip?

3) I have a Vista machine. I have an ATI card. Why is it impossible to run a game like this? Why? Why? Has anyone had any experience at all of successfully running MTW on a vista computer with ATI card? What drivers were/are you using?

Which ATI card do you have?

[Kaelik]

?

Expressing a sentiment about CTD.

Yes post your specs, or don't expect any help. Did you try the 'button fix'?

Yes, I tried the button fix. I said all of them, I mean all of them. Please don't ask me if I've tried a fix that is in this thread.

I don't need to post my specs to expect help, because the help I'm asking for has nothing to do with my specs.

Perhaps you have a PCI Express graphics card/chip?

Then why is "AGP Texture Acceleration" enabled? I'm sure I have a PCIe card, but I still need to know how to turn off AGP Texture Acceleration.

Which ATI card do you have?

Does it even matter? It's obviously post Vista, the issue is that no driver exists which is compatible. I have no idea why. Maybe Bill Gates was just really upset when the Mongols showed up. But I am not asking about what the problem is because I know what the problem is. I'm asking if anyone has had any experience running drivers for an ATI card on their Vista system that ran Total War.

[caravel]

I don't need to post my specs to expect help, because the help I'm asking for has nothing to do with my specs.

Well yes it does actually.

Then why is "AGP Texture Acceleration" enabled? I'm sure I have a PCIe card, but I still need to know how to turn off AGP Texture Acceleration.

It's enabled by default as PCI-e does the same kind of texture swapping as AGP did (it just does it a lot faster and a lot more efficiently). The short answer is that you can't disable it in DX10 - I've no idea why, ask M$.

If it makes you feel any better, I doubt that option will make any difference anyway. There have been no reports here of anyone needing to disable it so far and the game can be made to run on Vista + ATI without disabling it.

Vista is not your issue, old game + new graphics hardware/software is.

Now how about posting some specs and describing the crash exactly? i.e. precisely when it occurs etc?

[Kaelik]

Well, since you seem so intent on not answering my question, I suppose I will attempt to figure it out myself.

[caravel]

Since I did answer your question and since it's now clear that you're under the misapprehension that this is CA/Sega tech support I will merely leave you to it. Good luck with that.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/forum...Total-War.html

[MTWCTD]

i have some of the exact same problems as most of you...

when i start MTW it works fine in only quick battles but when i try to start campaign it reverts me to the resume game menu and the lower part of my screen flickers. then i ctd.

I am using a aspire one laptop with moblie intel 945 Express Chipset family (i do believe thats the graphis card)

i dont know much about computers but if someone would help me it would be greatly appreciated.

[Kaelik]

Since I did answer your question and since it's now clear that you're under the misapprehension that this is CA/Sega tech support I will merely leave you to it. Good luck with that.

No you didn't answer my question.

My question was "who has gotten MTW to work on Vista + ATi, and what drivers?" You answered neither question and continued to demand information that has no bearing on that question at all.

I'm not sure why you say that I think this sega tech support, I have never had to deal with Sega tech support because MTW had worked for me.

Now I am faced with a CTD in which every proposed fix in every combination does not work because the drivers I have are not compatible, as such, I am curious about what if any drivers are compatible.

[Saxon1974]

Has anyone found a working solution for the long load screen times?

My game when loading a campaign map or battle screen takes about 90 seconds to load with about 75 seconds not doing anything...and then once the load bar starts it goes very quickly.

I have an ATI Radeon 3600 vid card with 2 gig memory.

I cant quite take this long of a load time so I guess I wont be playing this game.

In desperation I tried installing on my wife's PC which has a lesser vid card and the install wouldn't even fire off....

[uk_john]

Has anyone found a working solution for the long load screen times?

My game when loading a campaign map or battle screen takes about 90 seconds to load with about 75 seconds not doing anything...and then once the load bar starts it goes very quickly.

I have an ATI Radeon 3600 vid card with 2 gig memory.

I cant quite take this long of a load time so I guess I wont be playing this game.

In desperation I tried installing on my wife's PC which has a lesser vid card and the install wouldn't even fire off....

I have the same problem, but it takes the loading bar 3-4 minutes to go to the strategic map or tactical map - it even takes that long if I just ESCape to save the game and then click on 'Return to Game'!

[Baron von Manteuffel]

I can't get it to work right either. I have Vista 64bit OS, ATI Radeon HD 4850, and have just about quit trying to get it to work. Battle map resolution is only 800x600 with bad lag. It sucks. Even though the game is old, I really miss playing it.

[Axalon]

I can't get it to work right either. I have Vista 64bit OS, ATI Radeon HD 4850, and have just about quit trying to get it to work. Battle map resolution is only 800x600 with bad lag. It sucks. Even though the game is old, I really miss playing it.

For god sake Baron!

Save yourself the grief and trouble and get an auxiliary PC! The solution involves some cash sure, but what the hell man. 2nd hand PC-stuff is not that expensive these days and it is a fool-proof solution as long as you get the right GFX-card and use win2K or XP 32bit as OS for the sake of drivers - you can't fail. 2K seems to be the best OS for MTW in my experience.

If you already got some old spare parts it is unlikely that it will cost you more then some 100 Euros in total, all inclusive (monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse you already got. If not, then it is cheap to get some basic PS2-mouses etc. anyhow). Get decent gamewise and play some MTW! You know you want too. Why bother with Vista at all since it will obviously only screw things up for you anyhow? Nah, time to settle this once and for all…


The totally “MTW-foolproof” ATI-cards are as follows:

Model (Motherboard standards)
-------------------------------------------------
X850 series (AGP/PCI-E)
X800 series (AGP/PCI-E)
Radeon 9800 XT (AGP)
Radeon 9800 Pro (AGP)
Radeon 9700 Pro (AGP)

These are the ones you really want for your auxiliary-MTW rig. However, any ATI Radeon 128MB/256Bit card prior to the release of the X850-series are likely to be safe as well I would imagine. Now, why should you accept Vistas nonsense and CA’s neglect? Use old Catalyst drivers and play the game as it was meant to be played (3-5 sec loading-times). Personally I use Radeon 9800 Pro cards, Catalyst 3.7 drivers (anything between 3.0-3.8 will do for those) and win2K.

I actually have a stash of 4 Radeon 9800 cards - just to be ridiculously safe indefinitely. At least get 2 cards to be totally sure that you can play MTW for an extremely long time to come - regardless what CA does. This way you can ignore them back indefinitely – and is that not a nice change?

Seriously, isn’t it time to stop this all this nonsense with Vista and all MTW-fuss? Get a dedicated auxiliary rig and get rid of the problem once and for all – a 100 euros later (all included probably) and this fuss will be dust….


- Cheers
-------------
If you can’t build a rig on your own – then hire somebody who can and who needs some cash.

[caravel]

On the subject of going down the "extra PC" route - you do not necessarily need anything but the PC tower itself if you get hold of one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KVM_switch

You can get hold of a cheap two way KVM switch for about £15 - 20 new. You then only need a cheap second hand PC with an Athlon XP/Pentium4 and Radeon 9xxx series or Nvidia 6xxx/7xxx series graphics card and about 512MB of RAM

Of the X series Radeons it's best to stick with the early "hundreds" series cards, like the X700 and X800, and not the thousands series (e.g. X1600 and X1950). The best drivers for the 9xxx series Radeons were always 2.6.53. They seem to give the best performance/stability trade off, though it's still a good idea to apply the button fix as well.

The KVM allows you to toggle between your main PC and the other PC using only a double tap on the scroll lock key (or similar). It eliminates the need for a second keyboard, monitor and mouse. The only snag is - avoid the USB KVMs, if possible use PS/2 k/b and mouse or use the PS/2 to USB adaptors. (The USB ones are ok, but every time you "switch" device detection occurs (USB hotplugging), which may/may not cause issues (in most cases it shouldn't).

[Squeak]

I just got MTW Gold Edition after playing Rome to death. Rome worked fairly well with occasional freezes.

MTW keeps crashing to desktop when I try to play quick battle or the campaign tutorial. I can play on the campaign map in campaign, I haven't gotten into a battle yet as I would like to do the tutorial. I've tested multiple video settings in game as well as compatibility modes.

I am using Daemon Tools as I'm playing on a laptop and can't be carrying CDs around. But I installed the game with the physical disc and have tried to play with it as well, so I don't think that that is the issue.

I'm a Dell Inspiron 1545 with the following stats:
Pentium Dual Core 2.00 GHz
4Gig Ram
Mobile Intel 45 Series Express Chipset (Version 8.15.10.1749)
Direct X 11

[Squeak]

Can't seem to find an edit button, but battles work in campaign mode.

[Baron von Manteuffel]

@ Axalon - Good to hear from you and I hope all is well. I think I'll take your advice and pick up a cheap used PC just for MTW. My Pentium 4 motherboard went bad and I always toyed with the idea of getting it repaired. It has Windows XP 32 bit, NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 128-MB AGP Graphics Card, dual hardrives, and 1 GB RAM. I guess a used PC would probably be cheaper than trying to find a Intel (Lexington 2) Pentium 4 - 2.53-GHz (533-MHz) R3 [Part #2517638] motherboard and the cost of the repair.

[caravel]

I would say that's a socket 478 board? You can get any such board on ebay from about £10 - 20. Any 478 board with an AGP 2.0/3.0 slot should do the job providing it supports your CPU. But if you're not experienced in building PC and reinstalling an OS, I would advise against it.

[Baron von Manteuffel]

Reinstalling the OS isn't a problem for me but the motherboard I have zero experience with. I know someone who does repair work and I'm going to let him look at it. Thank you for your help.

[solembum]

I remember playing this game in my friends' computer when I was 15 years old or so but I had to move away, but last month when I visited his house I saw his Copy of the game and I managed to Beg it off him(what can I do, I really wanted to finish the game) . now I got the game installed and I can play the battle tutorial, quick battle and historical battle but I cant play the campaign. I have the same problems as a lot of the other guys in this topic, every time I try to play the campaign it loads then it returns to menu with the bottom of the screen flashing and when I click anything the game crashes. does anyone of you know the fix to this problem? I really love this game and I want to at least finish it before I try MTW2. would really appreciate it if anyone can help me :).

here are my PC specs.

Motherboard: ASUS P5KPL-AM/PS
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93 GHz
VGA: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (Intel GMA3100) integrated is what is written in the motherboard box and Intel G33/G31 Express chipset family is is the one I get if I check the property of MyComputer. (I do know that it is 128 MB)
RAM: 3GB
OS: Windows XP sp2

[solembum]

I cant find the Edit button so Ill add this here.

I forgot to mention that I tried other resolutions and they also return me to menu but there is no flashing of my bottom screen(it only happens in 800x600) however I still cant play the campaign. pressing "resume" does nothing. hope this info can give more info about my problem.

[edyzmedieval]

MTW CTD's when going from 1204 to 1205, aka the achievement points you get coupled with the Era change destroys the game.

Playing as the English, on Expert. I'm leading the achievement board.

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHZ
nVidia GeForce Go 7900GS
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

[caravel]

MTW CTD's when going from 1204 to 1205, aka the achievement points you get coupled with the Era change destroys the game.

Nothing to do with hardware.

Modded?