The M2TW hardware thread: please post all hardware queries here

[econ21]

The Citadel seems to be getting clogged up with hardware threads right now.

Please remember, we have the apothecary forum to deal with technical support issues. Do not post technical support queries in this thread.

There is also a hardware/software forum to discuss wider issues, like which graphics card to upgrade to. Members should post general hardware queries there.

Junior members cannot post in the hardware/software forum, however, so I am creating this stickied thread that they can post non-technical support hardware questions in.

I will merge any further hardware threads into this thread.

If juniors would like to start a thread in the hardware/software forum, they could still post in the Citadel and PM me to move it over. That way, their thread will get moved into the hardware/software forum, but unfortunately they will not be able to post any further in it.

Note: a very nice website to tell if your computer is good enough for M2TW is:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srl

[econ21]

First query of the thread (I'm having to quote it, otherwise it would be the first post in this thread):

Hiya Everyone

I will have Medieval II arrive soon, but I don't want to ruin it, by playing it with my current graphics card.

After getting lost in a world of Rome : Total War I visited these forums, I realised how much more awe inspiring the battles would have been if I had more than the 20ish people in an army!

My PC is as below

AMD XP 2600+
2 x 512MB of DDR memory
ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB DDR 8x AGP
Asus A7N8X-X SKT A Nforce2 AGP X8 Sound USB 2.0 Motherboard
PSU Q-TEC ADT-350 (+12V - 30A)
Seagate ST380011A Barracuda 80GB 7200RPM ATA/100 2MB Cache
Windows 2000 Install

3dMark03 stays pretty much 640 no matter how I tweak settings

I have spent the last 3 evenings reading up on the new technology (and don't things change so fast) and have decided the best way to get my PC Medieval II happy is to upgrade the graphics card.

It has to be AGP and I can't bring myself to pay more than £100 as it will only be for this game - my christmas present to myself will be taking a few days work and playing this game all day

I have been looking at the X1000 series from ATI

Here are 2 examples

£82 - Sapphire Radeon X1650 PRO 256MB GDDR3 VGA TVO DVI-I AGP
£72 - Gigabyte Radeon X1600 Pro 256MB DDR2, PCI-E, DVI, HDTV Out, Retail with Silent Heatpipe II AGP

One of these has no fan (I think) and that might be important - my current PC is very quiet and I don't know how loud fans are on graphics cards...

I would be very grateful for any input anyone can give me to help me decide the best way to go with this. I have till Tuesday to research until I will then make an order for a new card. I have to go to work now so please don't think I am being rude if I don't respond until this evening.

And first reply:

Well the second card is PCI-E, so you're stuck with the 1650.

I wouldn't say stuck though, necessarily, since it has DDR3 RAM instead of DDR2.

I'll get back to you in the morning since it's 2:30 in the morning in WA, US, but I believe that there are nVidia 6800's out that are AGP. They'd be the better option, in my opinion, since nVidia has better support, better bang for your Euro, and depending on the company a lifetime warranty.

Are you in England?

Good idea - if this went on any longer i was going to scream, but starting a new thread seems like a much more constructive idea :P

@PaulTa, i thought the same thing, but it does have AGP at the end, so it's probably both

Thread posted at the hardware/software forum:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76444

[MrsCabbage]

To be honest I just put those 2 graphic cards as examples. I am really after advice on wether cards like these will give me a full experience or not? Or if there are better ones etc...

[MrsCabbage]

Sorry I posted in the wrong forum area. I was wondering if you could post my post in the hardware software area for me, please. It doesn't seem to have had much response where it is currently. Apologises to those who have posted.

Moderator edit: Ok, done:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76444

[Andriejj]

I have a question about the amount of free hard disk drive which is needed for this game. Is it really 11GB??? Because when I asked my friend who already has it how much does it weights he said it's around 7 GB. So what is the real size??? It surely doesn't need 4 GB of artificial memory(in polish it's plik wymiany lub stronicowania, in english I'm not sure).

[Laconic]

I may be wrong, but I think the extra four gigabytes is for temporary files when installing the game. You have to have that much free to set everything up, but in the end it will only use seven gigs on your drive (unless you unpack your datapacks, in which case it will be considerably larger).

[Andriejj]

Thanks for help. Do you know if there are any possibilities during instalation- can you choose from medium, small, full instalations or sth like that?

[Laconic]

Nope. It's been years since I've seen that sort of option on a game, you have to install everything.

[Andriejj]

That sucks. I have a small 40 GB disk divided into to parts and on the part where the system is I can make at most 10 GB free space :/ It's not only my computer.

[sapi]

Well, if there is a bright side to your situation, it's that hard drives aren't really that expensive these days (although if it's an old computer you'll need to buy a converter and if it's a laptop you're in trouble)

[Quirinus]

Uh, I'm not sure if my question is about hardware, but I've just installed the game, and when I tried to open it it says "Unable to Locate Component-- This application has failed to start because d3dx9_30.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

Well, I've re-installed the programme twice, but the problem persists. Can someone tell me what is wrong, and how to remedy it?

Thanks in advance, and sorry if I posted in the wrong place.

[sapi]

You need to install the latest version of directx from here.

There's a windows validation process to go through but it's not much hassle, and then you can download the installer. The initial installer is around 500kb and the file itself 14mb, so it shouldn't be too much trouble.

Oh, and welcome to the org

[Quirinus]

Okay, the problem is solved now, but now when I try to start the game, I get a window: "This program requires graphic card with pixel shader 1.1 or better." What does that mean? Does that mean I have to get a better graphics card? How does that work anyhow?

[sapi]

It sounds like your graphics card is too old to play m2tw (or any other modern game for that matter).

What card are you running? (this determines your upgrade options)

[Quirinus]

I dunno. The only other game which had a problem with my graphic card was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I'm not sure if this is related, but Rome: Total War plays just fine with unit scale set at the default 'large'.

How do I check my graphics card properties?

[sapi]

Trust me mate - if your gfx card can't run pixel shader 1.1 it's way too old to play the game anyway.

[Quirinus]

So.... how do I check my graphic card properties?

[sapi]

click start, run and type in dxdiag.

Click on the 'display' tab in the window that appears and tell us what you see.

[Roman_Man#3]

I am probably posting in the wrong spot, but I would like to know where to check my gfx card properties cuz I get a pop-up saying the pixel shader 1.1 thing.

but i think it might my gfx card doesnt have enough ram or whatev it is.

[sapi]

If you get a popup saying it doesn't support pixel shader 1.1, it means that your graphics card doesn't support pixel shader 1.1. Fancy that.

As i said before, if you can't support an architecture that has been in graphics cards for genarations (i can't pinpoint the exact cards that introduced it but it sure has been around for a while) then your graphics card has no chance of running m2tw or any other recent game at a playable frame rate.

If you still don't believe me, follow the instructions in my above post to find the name of your graphics card via dxdiag

[Quirinus]

Name: Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Chip Type: Intel(R) 82852/82855 Graphics Controller
DAC Type: Internal
Approx. Total Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Display Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor


Is that it?

[sapi]

Yeh, that sounds like it.

Unfortunately, it also sounds like an inbuilt graphics chip. These are included for vista compatibility but they're not intended for gaming.

What system/motherboard (whichever you know) are you running? This determines if you can upgrade, and what to.

[Quirinus]

Oh dear.

How do I check which system/motherboard I'm running? I'm using Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, if that's what you were asking.

[sapi]

Hang on....are you running a tablet pc?

They really aren't designed for gaming at all....

[Quirinus]

Yeah, I am. I used to use it for school, but not anymore.

Short of buying a new PC, is there anything that I could do?

[Laconic]

You may be able to upgrade a tablet, I'm really not sure if they upgrade like notebooks do, but it would a lot harder than just pulling cards out of a motherboard on a PC. I don't know what the going rate is on notebook components, but I'd imagine they're higher than you find on desktop parts; you'd be spending quite a bit of cash just on a graphics card before you could play the game, and you might still have to upgrade your memory or processor. In short: Good luck.

[sapi]

I don't think that you have many options with a tablet :(

[Quirinus]

Oh...... damn. Looks like I wasted my cash. I won't have any money to upgrade anything, let alone buy a new laptop, with my tight budget. Took me one month to save up enough to buy M2TW.

And yeah, my memory sucks like hell, only 40GB.

[sapi]

yeh - tablets aren't intended for anything but work - they don't have the memory, disc space, video or cpu for games

[Quirinus]

I have Praetorians, Deus Ex, Empire Earth, Condition Zero, Jedi Academy and RTW on my computer simultaneuosly....... it works okay...... I guess.

And my post got edited..... I hope I didn't get a warn for that.