The M2TW hardware thread: please post all hardware queries here

[Rhyfelwyr]

New development here. I have 2 1GB RAM sticks in my PC. I took the one in slot 2 out, tried playing with just the slot 1 RAM. Still crashes. So I put the slot 2 RAM back. Then, I tried swapping the two RAM sticks around. This left M2TW crashing as normal, but also gave me blue screens when doing things like browsing the internet, even starting the PC up once.

The reason I am doing this with the RAM is that I heard blue screens tended to be caused by faulty RAM. So, my last plan is to remove the RAM that was originally in slot 1 (now in slot 2), and put the RAM currently in slot 2 into slot 1. This may prove that the RAM beginning in slot 1 was faulty. I will try and see...

Having removed the RAM that was originally in Slot 1 completely, and having put the RAM originally from Slot 2 into Slot 1, the game has run now for a few days with no crashes. So bizarelly this seems to have fixed the problem. All that trouble over a dodgy RAM stick.

I think I'll have to contact Overclockers UK and get a replacement 1GB RAM

[lorduzi]

Hi,

I observe severe decrease in game performance when in siege battle. It seems to be linked directly with city panorama: when the camera sees only units its movement is smooth but as soon as I catch any piece of a wall in the field of view framerate drops to few frames per second.

My rig is:
Athlon XP 3200
1 GB RAM 400 Mhz
NVidia GeForce 6800 GS 256 MB

My settings are 1280x1024, AAx2, AFx4 (both forced on driver not set in game), everything maxed out.

Does anyone observe similar effect?

Thanks in advance, best regards

Marek

[rezizter]

Greetings everyone. I have been a mad keen TW fan since Shogun and have finally ordered a computer capable of playing MTR:2. the best thing is, work are paying!!! I have ordered a dell notebook with following specs:

Dell Inspiron 1520
Intel Core 2 Duo (Santa Rosa) T7300 processor ( 2.0 GHz, 4MB Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
3GB Dual-channel 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT with 256MB GDDR2 dedicated graphic memory
SATA performance hard drive

Can anyone give me some idea of what type of settings I should be able to play on? Cheers in advance

[Shahed]

lorduzi check FactionHeir's signature (EDIT: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1502871) he's got some wall texture reductions, also check the downloads at twcenter, they have a mod there as well to improve siege battles, forgot what it's called (I know that does'nt really help but it's there whatever it's called).

rezizter I'm guessing that with that rig you can max everything and you'll be fine.

Ok.. my turn..
I just bought a VAIO, mainly as a work machine BUT !!!! ofc ...

-3 GiG DDR2 (gonna make it 4).
-8400 GT 128 Dedicated 387 shared.
-Core 2 Duo 1.8 (forgot the rest of the specs)

What do you guys think ? Medium or would I be able to do high settings ?

[Pchoi]

Ok.. my turn..
I just bought a VAIO, mainly as a work machine BUT !!!! ofc ...

-3 GiG DDR2 (gonna make it 4).
-8400 GT 128 Dedicated 387 shared.
-Core 2 Duo 1.8 (forgot the rest of the specs)

What do you guys think ? Medium or would I be able to do high settings ?[/QUOTE]
The CPU and Memory are great, but the 8400GT, from the reviews I have read: It is not extremely efficient in handling 3D games... So my guess is that you won't be able to max all the graphic settings out and still have a good frame rate (like 25 f/s minimum at all times).

Then again, the reviews might be wrong, you'll need to try it for yourself to be certain.

[Moose85]

Hi all ,

I've been wanting to play M2TW ever since it came out but my crappy old DELL couldn't handle it.
Now I finally have enough money to buy a new systeem and i wonder if it will be able to run the game at decent settings.

Samsung HD 200GB SATA-2 7200rpm 8MB
Motherboard Intel Asus P5KPL
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2,33/1333/4MB)
VGA EVGA Geforce 8600GT 256MB PCI-E
2x 1024 MB DDR2-RAM PC5400/DDR667

Any comments would be helpfull.

[Galain_Ironhide]

Hi all ,

I've been wanting to play M2TW ever since it came out but my crappy old DELL couldn't handle it.
Now I finally have enough money to buy a new systeem and i wonder if it will be able to run the game at decent settings.

Samsung HD 200GB SATA-2 7200rpm 8MB
Motherboard Intel Asus P5KPL
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2,33/1333/4MB)
VGA EVGA Geforce 8600GT 256MB PCI-E
2x 1024 MB DDR2-RAM PC5400/DDR667

Any comments would be helpfull.

Hi Moose85,

It sounds like it should be able to handle the load that M2TW gives a computer.

To give you an idea, just recently I purchased myself a computer also just to handle M2TW and also what ever else I can throw at it.

Forgive me but I am not a computer whiz but this is what my system is:
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor LGA775 2.4ghz
FoxConn LGA775 Motherboard
4GB (4096mb) DDR2-RAM
Seagate SATA2 320GB Hard Drive
16x DVD-Dual DVD+/-RW DVD Burner
NVIDIA 8800GTS 640MB Overclocked Graphics Card (to my knowledge the NVIDIA 8800 series cards are the best)

The Computer guy who I had build this for me said this was overkill for most current games, but I wanted something that wasnt going to be outdated as soon as it left the shop. All up the tower cost me around $3000 Aussie Dollars.
(Much to my woman's digust, she thought it may have been better spent on our wedding! A mans got to have his toys I reckon)

Also I found this on a website: (actiontrip.com)

Medieval II: Total War Review (PC)

publisher Sega
developer Creative Assembly
genre Strategy
ESRB rating T
homepage www.totalwar.com/

release date Nov 13, 06 (released)
minimum requirements:
PIV 1500, 512MB RAM, 11GB HDD, 128MB video card

Hope this Helps! Good Luck

[Koval]

Anyway... i'm buying a new computer and I really can't make the decision over whether to go Quad Core with a Q6600 or just stick with a E6850
From what i've read, the E6850 will give me better performance now, but the quad core will be more of an investment for future games.
So, basically i'm stumped. Especially considering that they cost exactly the same, although i'm leaning more towards the Q6600. Any suggestions?

How does M2TW run on a Q6600?

[Lord Dazed & Confused]

My old 6800gt agp card has just died and I'm thinking of replacing it with an ATI x1950 pro or if I can get one an Nvidia 7950gt, I'm guessing that either card will be a marked improvement on the 6800gt.
If any one has either of these two cards I would be interested to know how well they perform with M2TW especially if you have a similar CPU and RAM. The rest of my system spec's are an AMD64 3.2 with 2GB of RAM.

Thanks in advance

LDC

[vindalonda]

Hi,
Dont know wether this is the right place or not but here goes! After reloading mtw2 after a long absence i was surprised to encounter a message saying "mtw2 has experienced an unspecified error and will now exit", i have never had any problems before and since the game has installed flawlessly and gets to the start up screen i am baffled ? Is this a graphic card problem? i have also had a message with another game "city life" which tells me it "cannot find a direct 3d device". I have a radeon gcube x700 (256mb) with updated drivers etc. and have had many a happy hour on mtw2 till now???
Any help greatly appreciated,

Cheers.

[Tillan]

Hi everybody, new here, and dont even currently have M2TW installed, but since i know my way around the inside of a computer (I am a computer network admin by trade), i thought i would offer any advice i can, but sorry if im answering things that I dont need to.

Having removed the RAM that was originally in Slot 1 completely, and having put the RAM originally from Slot 2 into Slot 1, the game has run now for a few days with no crashes. So bizarelly this seems to have fixed the problem. All that trouble over a dodgy RAM stick.

RAM is a right pain to diagnose, many many times Ive been stumped by RAM issues, glad you got it fixed!

Ok.. my turn..
I just bought a VAIO, mainly as a work machine BUT !!!! ofc ...

-3 GiG DDR2 (gonna make it 4).
-8400 GT 128 Dedicated 387 shared.
-Core 2 Duo 1.8 (forgot the rest of the specs)

What do you guys think ? Medium or would I be able to do high settings ?

As Pchoi said, the rig should be fine, I also think the Geforce 8400 should be fine for the more advanced settings. The 8000 series is the newest Nvidea range, with the 8800 being the ultimate. The 8400 should be roughly equivilent to the best cards of the 7000 (7800 and later the 7900) series if history is anything to go by, which if memory serves me correctly would have been the ultimate cards when M2TW came out.
Incedently I wouldnt bother with that extra gig of RAM, I *think* that normal versions of windows can usually use roughly 3.5GB - its a limitation of "32 bit" operating systems, even Vista wont help you that much, but hopefully moving on to the future we will have 64bit operating systems become the norm. Even if im wrong and the limit is 4GB I dont think the extra GB will help you that much, unless you are running alot of memory hungry apps at the same time (Like maybe playing 2/3 game simultanously =p)

Anyway... i'm buying a new computer and I really can't make the decision over whether to go Quad Core with a Q6600 or just stick with a E6850
From what i've read, the E6850 will give me better performance now, but the quad core will be more of an investment for future games.
So, basically i'm stumped. Especially considering that they cost exactly the same, although i'm leaning more towards the Q6600. Any suggestions?

How does M2TW run on a Q6600?

Koval, go with the dual core all the way. They will give you better performence, and by the time quad cores match it AND game developers are making games for multi-core machines youll be wanting a upgrade anyways =p most apps cant use more then one core of a CPU, so having four is a bit of a waste unless your using some of the programs that can use them.

My old 6800gt agp card has just died and I'm thinking of replacing it with an ATI x1950 pro or if I can get one an Nvidia 7950gt, I'm guessing that either card will be a marked improvement on the 6800gt.
If any one has either of these two cards I would be interested to know how well they perform with M2TW especially if you have a similar CPU and RAM. The rest of my system spec's are an AMD64 3.2 with 2GB of RAM

You're right Lord, it will bring a marked improvement, but I cant help you with the comparrison (beyond what reviews have said) as ive never had an ATI card.

Hi,
Dont know wether this is the right place or not but here goes! After reloading mtw2 after a long absence i was surprised to encounter a message saying "mtw2 has experienced an unspecified error and will now exit", i have never had any problems before and since the game has installed flawlessly and gets to the start up screen i am baffled ? Is this a graphic card problem? i have also had a message with another game "city life" which tells me it "cannot find a direct 3d device". I have a radeon gcube x700 (256mb) with updated drivers etc. and have had many a happy hour on mtw2 till now???
Any help greatly appreciated,

Cheers.

Hi vindalonda, thats a very generlised error, and could mean almost anything. I wouldnt think its nessercarilly a problem with your hardware, and if youve played M2TW on it before then its deffinetly capable. If I were you I would get a tech savvie freind to help you out, or even run a repair of windows (if you know how to do that yourself)

[Worldbeing]

Hey
Just got M2TW after becoming totally hooked on Rome. But it's really slow (frame a second or less) even on the lowest settings.
Processor and memory are OK: Core 2 Duo, 2x 1.86GHz and 2GB RAM
I now suspect it's my excuse for a graphics card, the Intel GMA X3100.
Is it worth persevering with trying to run M2 on this machine?

[Barbarian]

It really is the graphics card, the rest is fine. GMA is not very suitable for games. If you can get a better one, from GForce or ATI, I suggest to do it.

[irishron2004]

I have manged to crash the graphics on the vanilla M2TW version 1.03 at end of turn with 90 regions controlled. I ran task manager on the last one to check memory usage. The chages in medieval2.exe were with the graphics. In the Russian steppes it was about 295,000kb. In the mountains and western Europe it went over 300,000kb. It was the only one I noticed changing.
At the end of the last turn, two of the symbols down thw left side were corrupted. I hit alt-tab to check memory usage and nothing that i had not seen before. I re-entered the game to finish the turn and the video corruption had gon through the campaign map, minimap, building queue, and the rest of the end of turn symbols. When I clicked on a couple of them, the info was corrupted.
I tested this machine with your analyzer in the first post and it passed everything. MY specs are:
cpu: AMD 64 2 core 4600
video: ATI x1950pro 256mb ddr3
memory: 3gb
OS: Win XP SP2, .Net2.0, dx9.0.c
Harddrive: 160gb
dvd: 20x
All drivers are up to date. Registry cleaner has been run. Hd defragged.
Now why can I not take every region without this happening? What is causing it? Is there a program to fix it?
I was always able to take the whole map in the original MTW, and all of the Mundus Magnus map in RTW, so why not M2TW unmodified?

[sapi]

This may sound like an odd question, but is it hot where you live?

[irishron2004]

This may sound like an odd question, but is it hot where you live?

Being central California, lows in the 30's and 40's whether it's raining or not, highs in the 50's. Typical winter weather.

[sapi]

Being central California, lows in the 30's and 40's whether it's raining or not, highs in the 50's. Typical winter weather.

Okay, that rules out overheating (I don't think we ever get down to your 'high' of 10 degrees over here )

Try uninstalling your current graphics drivers, then replacing them with the latest ones from the relevant manufacturer's website...

[irishron2004]

I forgot about centigrade. Mine are in farenheit. In fact, outside my bedroom window right now it is 39 degrees farenheit.

Did the driver thing when I put the new card in. In fact I went through this on Microsoft's vga drivers to get rid of anything that smelled, looked, or felt like nVidia before installing ATI's. I did not then nor do I now need the conflict. In fact after using both, O consider it a personal choice. I have had good luck with both.

Now, may I please bear upon you to let me in on what it would take to prove that this is a memory/resource issue? If your team there has a test that I can install and run on my machine I would love to prove me wrong and you right. That is all I am asking and I don't consider it the end of the programming world.

[sapi]

Well I really don't know about the memory issue; it could be unreleated (I certainly don't have a team here, I assure you, totally unofficial here )...

The only problems I've seen myself that commonly lead to graphics distortion are a) overheating and b) malfunctioning graphics drivers, though someone else might have some more ideas for you...

[irishron2004]

This is the reason I say memory.
One of people in another forum said to check for memory leaks using task manager. I did this for a couple turns before my campaign graphics crashed.
Every few regions of updating the building queues, I would check it. The only thing I saw change was the medieval2.exe itself.
After clicking the end -of-turn button, the symbols start dropping down the left side as programmed. I noticed two of them getting corrupted so I hit alt-tab to check task manager.
While I am checking the running processes, the harddrive starts to work and I notice the .exe memory jumps from 305meg to 307meg and the commitcharge jumps from 809meg to 813meg. I hit alt-tab to get back in the game and my screen is one layer of symbols. No more campaign map, no more minimap, no more building queue, no more rightside controls, no more faction button. The only way out is reboot the system.
Heat? This room hasn't even hit 70 degrees and it's 32 outside.
I would be willing to take this offline and either pm or email discuss this further just because I could do it in the same place with the same amount of factions and units whether high graphics setting or bare minimum. I am old enough to remember memory leaks in the first games written for cga.

[Archungel]

so i have a GeForce 7600, 3.2GHz processor pentium 4 and 2GB of RAM. i can play kingdoms main map fine and some battles at medium quality. but for some reason i cant play any battle with a settlement in it(even at low quality). it just has a unknown error and the game crashes/closes. do ya'll think its just a hardware problem. another thing is that i cant load v1.03 onto my main MTW2 game bc every time i do it it cant find some data file of some sort(one thats been been recorded to ave problems in other threads). my regular MTW2 vanilla never had a problem of any battle at high resolution. and i bought both at stores in america

[sapi]

so i have a GeForce 7600, 3.2GHz processor pentium 4 and 2GB of RAM. i can play kingdoms main map fine and some battles at medium quality. but for some reason i cant play any battle with a settlement in it(even at low quality). it just has a unknown error and the game crashes/closes. do ya'll think its just a hardware problem. another thing is that i cant load v1.03 onto my main MTW2 game bc every time i do it it cant find some data file of some sort(one thats been been recorded to ave problems in other threads). my regular MTW2 vanilla never had a problem of any battle at high resolution. and i bought both at stores in america

Did you run the unpacker, perchance? There were a few files that you had to delete if you did that to stop a crash in settlements; take a look at its readme for more information, if you did run it.

This is the reason I say memory.
One of people in another forum said to check for memory leaks using task manager. I did this for a couple turns before my campaign graphics crashed.
Every few regions of updating the building queues, I would check it. The only thing I saw change was the medieval2.exe itself.
After clicking the end -of-turn button, the symbols start dropping down the left side as programmed. I noticed two of them getting corrupted so I hit alt-tab to check task manager.
While I am checking the running processes, the harddrive starts to work and I notice the .exe memory jumps from 305meg to 307meg and the commitcharge jumps from 809meg to 813meg. I hit alt-tab to get back in the game and my screen is one layer of symbols. No more campaign map, no more minimap, no more building queue, no more rightside controls, no more faction button. The only way out is reboot the system.
I would be willing to take this offline and either pm or email discuss this further just because I could do it in the same place with the same amount of factions and units whether high graphics setting or bare minimum. I am old enough to remember memory leaks in the first games written for cga.

Personally, I doubt a memory link would be causing graphics distortion, and think that the constant alt-tabbing could be doing more harm than good.

Small jumps like those you're reporting wouldn't be a surprise to me at all as new graphics and scripts are loaded as the game progresses.

Is this problem happening at a set position (say, as you hit end turn on turn no. 123 as the English) or after a set amount of time (say, 10 minutes playing)?

Heat? This room hasn't even hit 70 degrees and it's 32 outside.

I'm in Australia - today's a very mild summer's day, at 26 or 27 degrees Celsius

[irishron2004]

Personally, I doubt a memory link would be causing graphics distortion, and think that the constant alt-tabbing could be doing more harm than good.

Small jumps like those you're reporting wouldn't be a surprise to me at all as new graphics and scripts are loaded as the game progresses.

Is this problem happening at a set position (say, as you hit end turn on turn no. 123 as the English) or after a set amount of time (say, 10 minutes playing)?


Maybe alt-tab was doing more bad than good but it was doing it before that. I was using the cheats CA built into the game to see if I could crash it and I have proven it. If windows is for multitasking as advertized then I should be able to play any mod of M2TW, alt-tab out, start any mod of RTW, alt-tab out, watch a movie on this thing, and then go back to M2TW with no degradation of resources. If not, it's what some people would call false advertizing.

Right now I have a campaign going without cheats and see where it breaks if it does. Hopefully I can go Edinburgh to Baghdad without crashing. I'll keep in touch.

My 32 degrees is 0 to you. My days of 26 celsius ran out in October and won't be be back until end of March or April. For something to get used to, our average high temperature in August is in the high 90's (about 36 to you.)

[Archungel]

so by reading a bunch of different things and fiddling around some more i think the problems of having my settlement battles crash on me is bc i cant install v1.03 on my computer. every time i do i get the message that data_2.pack is invalid. i updated my installshield to 11 and my isscript.msi to 11 and i still have installation problems. what else do i need to do to install v1.03 correctly?

[Archungel]

so i went and deleted everything in my commonfiiles/installshield/professional folder and made sure all my drivers, installshield, and isscript were updated. then uninstalled everything and reinstalled making sure to defragment and restart after every install and version update and it worked. no invalid data_2.pack files or anything

[irishron2004]

I'm back and the news ain't good. Please read this as my first post as you will note the changes as you read this.
I totally uninstalled Kingdoms, totally uninstalled M2TW, used registry cleaner, defragged, and rebooted.
Installed M2TW, version 1.02.0001.
No mods, no unpacking, Pure original vanilla.
Fired up the game this morning and turn 62 (year 1202 on 2 years per turn) and the end of turn graphics on a couple of the symbols were getting corrupted.
Got a place to send a couple of last savegames to see if it happens to you?


Edit:
Here is what I get and it's not heat or graphics drivers:
<a href="https://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=m2tw1202englishey1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://img510.imageshack.us/img510/882/m2tw1202englishey1.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
I just learned how to take screen shots.


Update:
Here is the next turn:

[Quickening]

Was just curious, my PCs specs are:

Processor:
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.1Ghz

Memory:
1024MB RAM

Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT (taken from X-Fire)


I can run it perfectly with Unit Detail and Effect detail turned down a notch. Ive just ordered another gig of RAM and just wondered if I should be able to play with everything on max or whether a new graphics card would the the thing to get for that.

[Joh]

@irishron2004

I am not very experienced at this but:

• are you overclocking anything in your PC, CPU or graphic card? This looks like the beginning of instability caused by it.
• are you sure it is not overheating due to malfunction of any of your fans and not room temperature?
• have you specified settings that your graphic card can handle, anti-aliasing or whatever options you have with M2TW video options?
• try using some older drivers, sometimes the latest ones are not the best ones. Actually, despite how much I hate to say this, you could try to check Microsoft preferred driver release for your graphics card. Somehow things seem to work better with that option

Anyway, it does seem a hardware problem, and not software despite sometimes Windows does not really know what the heck it is doing. My computer could not detect any device when connecting it to its USB ports, even though memory sticks were accessible if connected before start-up. Tried everything, but to no avail. Switch off the computer for a vacation week, and came back planning on a full re-install. Surprisingly enough the USB ports worked fine. That is just Windows.

[Lord Dazed & Confused]

@irishron2004

Is your X1950 a Sapphire?

What PSU are you using as the x1950 pro needs at least a 450 watt psu with 30Amps on the 12Volt rails and one of the sympton's of the x1950 not getting enough power is texture corruption.

LDC

[irishron2004]

I have 500 watt power supply with the horses needed. I made sure before spent this kind of upgrade money.