Long loading times

[The Unknown Guy]

Sometimes my laptop (2.4) runs a bit slow loading, but normally it´s fast. It happens usually when I´ve multitasked, apparently some residual stuff stays in.

I also find the game slower after many many turns have passed. "Thinking" (campaign map) time increases a lot, as more provinces are involved.

[Garnier]

Sometimes my laptop (2.4) runs a bit slow loading, but normally it´s fast. It happens usually when I´ve multitasked, apparently some residual stuff stays in.

I also find the game slower after many many turns have passed. "Thinking" (campaign map) time increases a lot, as more provinces are involved.

I'm talking about loading the campaign after a battle, and loading the battle during campaign. Not the AI turns, they go pretty fast.

[Garnier]

I just tested it on my brothers computer:

512mb RAM
pentium 1.8ghz
Radeon 9200

And the loading started instantly (loading took about 10 to 15 seconds)
See, its not like the loading takes a long time, the problem is that the loading bar doesnt start to turn red for 45 seconds. Once it starts it takes about 10 or 15 seconds to load.

[Geezer57]

Try adding an empty text file named skipcredits.txt to the Medieval - Total War folder. That will stop the intro movies from running, which often speeds things up quite a lot.

[caravel]

Are you referring to the loading of the campaign map after selecting a campaign, or the loading of a battle? Check your error.log file in the MTW installation folder. If that is full of errors post them here.

[Garnier]

I know this is a severe case of posting in an old thread, but it's precisely the same topic. I'm still having the problem I posted this thread about, on the same computer.

I actually didn't see Asai Nagamasa's last post here. I just was thinking about this again and looked in this thread and saw it.

The fact is, my error.log does have an error in it. I have the log back to September 2007 when I made this thread about it.

Here is the log from that time. The log is a lot longer than this but it's the same error all the way to the present date.

Errors for session started: Thu Sep 06 15:08:24 2007

C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(7115) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
Errors for session started: Thu Sep 06 15:20:00 2007

C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
Errors for session started: Sat Sep 08 09:22:43 2007

C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
Errors for session started: Sat Sep 08 18:17:46 2007

C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
Errors for session started: Mon Sep 10 10:09:33 2007

C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
Errors for session started: Mon Sep 10 10:19:34 2007

C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST
C:\Source\VikingsPatch\Crusaders_TW\main3d_1.cpp(1929) : DirectX call : DDERR_SURFACELOST

[caravel]

DDERR_SURFACELOST

This has something to do with alt tabbing and resolution switching. I've seen this in error.log in the past - on systems that did not exhibit the slow load screen problem.

I have the same problem with the loading bar, ultimately it stopped me playing this game as I've never found any solution (apart from pulling out my graphics card and reverting to using the crappy onboard).