Still going strong

[gollum]

MTW still goes strong around here it seems - the amount of topics is higher than the equivalent one in the Collosseum and the level of participation generally higher. In this pace i doubt that the Citadel will ever surpass the main hall in overall topics/posts as long as MTW remains runable.

It speaks volumes of the good design and appeal of the game in terms of gameplay, atmosphere and replayability.

I hope that CA sees this and infuses the game with new life lease as at the moment running the game with new hardware is a nightmare many face, instead of milking every last drop of profit that can be made through it without caring about it and its many dedicated fans in the long term.

!it burnsus!

[caravel]

Business is business. But alas you're right in part. CA are making a big mistake in not fixing MTW. If they would just re-release a fixed version that runs on all new hardware, I would gladly go out and pay good money for it.

Additionally if they were to remove more of the hardcoded limits in this hypothetical new version, I wouldn't mind paying the same price that one would pay for a new game.

[gollum]

If they would just re-release a fixed version that runs on all new hardware, I would gladly go out and pay good money for it.

Additionally if they were to remove more of the hardcoded limits in this hypothetical new version, I wouldn't mind paying the same price that one would pay for a new game.

That makes two of us.

!it burnsus!

[oz_wwjd]

same here,MTW was one of my best games,but I've had to stop playing it due to numerous problems with my new Nvidia 8600 card. Damn nvidia to hell,I can't see why it's not fixed by now..

[HopAlongBunny]

Look at it this way; I downgraded my video card to play MTW...

[caravel]

Personally I'm prepared to do the following to get this game running:

1) Buy yet another graphics card.

2) Build another PC specifically to run MTW.

Option two is what I'm going for, but if I find out about any decent PCIe cards that will run MTW without issue I may consider option one.

[gaijinalways]

I hear you guys. One of the reasons some gamers choose to go to a game system is it eliminates pretty much all the compatibility problems. I am just afraid it would turn me into a single man as my wife might leave me if I get one and spend night and day on it.

I just recently started playing MTW after maybe a year off from games (busy and I had some problems with my pc, wouldn't seem to run lot of things, for some reason).

MTW is still far and away one of the best strategy games I've played. I liked Warcraft, Civ, and loved Capitalism I (a great biz sim, which my copy seems to have gone missing, sigh need to buy a replacement), but MTW and Thief (a solo sneaker game) are two of my all time favorites.

[gollum]

Originally posted by gaijinalways
I am just afraid it would turn me into a single man as my wife might leave me if I get one and spend night and day on it.

take care of your wife Mr Gaijin - there are some things that while not always pleasurable are irreplaceable.

!it burnsus!

[HopAlongBunny]

... but MTW and Thief (a solo sneaker game) are two of my all time favorites.

Thief! Atmosphere was everything in that one; kill'em all leaving a trail of blood all over the planet? Never! Get through the entire game unseen, untouched and unknown? Yesss! Precioussss!!!*

edit:*with apologies to gollum

[gollum]

originally posted by HopeAlongBunny
Yesss! Precioussss!!!

With all due respect Mr Bunny, this is my line

EDIT
j/k btw

!it burnsus!

[Durango]

Hello mainhallers!

MTW is my primary reason for registering here, since I intend to do a bit of modding work up ahead

What makes MTW so great? Well, first of all, it belongs to that special "golden era" of PC games that I and many others grew up with. The period of 1997-2002, give or take, saw a surge of innovative, intelligent and polished games across many genres, and not only strategy games. Shogun, of course, but also classics such as Age of Empires II, Deus Ex, Diablo, Total Annihilation, and many others. Those were the days when the consoles had their own place and PC exclusives had theirs. You could always find excelllent and mature products that were often published by smaller companies or even the game studios themselves. These days, we have the big, behemoth and profit obsessed companies such as EA, Microsoft and SEGA whom are generally not looking for new, bold concepts but to cater to the broader consumer groups.

MTW was, and is, the grand achievement of The Creative Assembly. Still going strong, and in my mind never growing old. Empire? Can't help that I love the timeperiod. Ideally, this title should have been released a decade earlier for a much better chance to reach its potential.... and so RTW and its bastard spawn could be erased from gaming history.

Honestly, I could see myself playing MTW for an indefinite period of time. Here we are, 7 years later playing a game that is older than The Rolling Stones put together in the modern world of gaming. But what else is there, really? While there are other strategy titles out there of course, I haven't experienced any so far with the kind of "solidness" and balance that MTW offers with its turnbased/real time hybrid system. As far as independent productions go, the games are often made by a very small group of people with so little resources that the games often lack a certain quality about them... and in cases such as the Take Command series and Histwar: Les Grognards, they focus too much on historical accuracy that they forget about variety and a dynamic, replayable campaign. If they even have a campaign.

I'm just thankful that STW and MTW exist, and that I have kept an additional computer from exactly the time period in which those timeless classics were made. It handles them flawlessly. Now, if only i could find a copy of Shogun somewhere...

Cheers for MTW1!

[Geezer57]

Personally I'm prepared to do the following to get this game running:
1) Buy yet another graphics card.
2) Build another PC specifically to run MTW.
Option two is what I'm going for, but if I find out about any decent PCIe cards that will run MTW without issue I may consider option one.

I'm using an older Radeon x850XT similar to this one: X850 XT PE 256MB PCI-E, current price is between $50-$60 on FleaBay. Coupled with the Radeon Omega Drivers 2.6.53 (Catalyst 5.7) from their archive , this GPU matches MTW and its mods perfectly. With an older AMD Athlon 64 dual-core, plenty of power for this classic game, even at the highest settings.

[drone]

I have an old machine available if I get a new one that can't run MTW. I do wish that CA would release a fixed version (or get GoG to do it), so I wouldn't be limited to ATI cards when searching for a new boxen. I fully intend on playing MTW for years to come.

The Colosseum was my main forum when I joined (right after the RTW release), but I haven't been there in a couple of years. I basically gave up on RTW after 1 campaign (the saved game problem killed the game for me), and I never purchased BI (which supposedly fixed it). There were just too many problems and (as a software designer myself) some shockingly bad CM/QA hiccups that should never have happened. After messing around with the 1.2 patch, I just gave up, fired up good old Medieval again, and started posting here. I'm guessing most Org members moved on to M2TW and abandoned vanilla RTW/BI to the modders.

[caravel]

I'm using an older Radeon x850XT similar to this one: X850 XT PE 256MB PCI-E, current price is between $50-$60 on FleaBay. Coupled with the Radeon Omega Drivers 2.6.53 (Catalyst 5.7) from their archive , this GPU matches MTW and its mods perfectly. With an older AMD Athlon 64 dual-core, plenty of power for this classic game, even at the highest settings.

I have an HD 3650 but with any drivers the load screen lags horribly. There is a delay of about 4 minutes. I've tried everything to solve it but have to admit defeat. I feel like tossing this card in the bin. I can revert to onboard graphics and slice about 1 1/2 minutes off that, but it's not worth it. I will probably get an X800 or X850, as you suggest. I was looking on ebay last night, so I'll ebay this card first and then have a look.

-Edit: Those are the exact drivers I've used in the past on a 9800 and 9000.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Drone
The Colosseum was my main forum when I joined (right after the RTW release), but I haven't been there in a couple of years. I basically gave up on RTW after 1 campaign (the saved game problem killed the game for me), and I never purchased BI (which supposedly fixed it). There were just too many problems and (as a software designer myself) some shockingly bad CM/QA hiccups that should never have happened. After messing around with the 1.2 patch, I just gave up, fired up good old Medieval again, and started posting here. I'm guessing most Org members moved on to M2TW and abandoned vanilla RTW/BI to the modders.

EB has the greatest number of viewers among other TW specific sub-forums of the org. But yes you are right most people jumped over to M2. I am glad to hear that another developer finds the state of RTW shocking - i too think the same but without being one. Somehow MTW never really died - the extra added depth it has on the campaign on top of the excellent battle engine guaranteed that its following never tapers off to nothingness - i d say actually that i ve seen a constant stream of players coming over to it even after RTW and M2 were realesed.

!it burnsus!

[seireikhaan]

I feel fortunate that my laptop(purchased 6 months ago) can run MTW without a flaw. Thank goodness for ATI. I've never been happier, I can run the game with no problems, something that couldn't have been stated for my old junker.

[Geezer57]

I feel fortunate that my laptop(purchased 6 months ago) can run MTW without a flaw. Thank goodness for ATI.

Which GPU chipset, please? It might help others when they're choosing a purchase.

[LittleGrizzly]

I have the cursed Nvidia 8XXX series!

I absolutely love shogun... and to a slightly lesser extent.. MTW, to be honest it wasn't just the instability and other problems that really put me off rtw, im fairly paitent i could have lived with the problems (i didn't have too many) but with RTW they completely destroyed the battles, STW battles were amazing, MTW battles almost as good... then RTW where i barely even enjoy the battles...

Damn my Nvidia card!!!

Is it possible to get a 2nd 3d card in the same pc as my super but useless to TW one ?

Or would i be better off waiting a little bit until an old pc which can run shogun and mtw is very cheap...

Thinking on it im pretty sure my first pc a 166 mhz could run it... so surely i could something like that for like 20-30 pound ? i would only need a tower as i could just make the effort to swop everything else over instead...

[drone]

Which GPU chipset, please? It might help others when they're choosing a purchase.

Yes, please. I'm looking at a Mobility HD 4850 laptop, it would be nice to know if there are going to be any issues.

[caravel]

The idea system to run STW/MTW is something with around a 1GHz CPU, about 512MB to 1GB of memory and the all important ATI 9xxx or early X series Radeon. For the latter I would not go above the X850 series, or whatever the Catalyst 5.7 drivers support. For the Radeon 9800 I had the very best results with Catalyst 4.8. In both cases I used not the ATI drivers but the Omega equivalents. As to Nvidia I can't really give much advice. The only card I had was a 7300GT. Even that had serious issues, i.e. the slow loading bar problem again. I have heard rumour that the Geforce 6xxx series are the best with MTW though.

[drone]

So when my new uber lappy arrives, I'm trading it to my girl for her X800 powered laptop?

[caravel]

So when my new uber lappy arrives, I'm trading it to my girl for her X800 powered laptop?

Well either that or you keep the uber laptop and "migrate" to RTW/M2TW.

On a more serious note, I'm sure I've seen reports of Radeon HD 4xxx series cards working with MTW. Don't quote me on it though.

[seireikhaan]

Which GPU chipset, please? It might help others when they're choosing a purchase.

ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics card(fairly midlevel card, think between 8600 GS and 8600 GT for Nvidia comparison). Core 2 duo T8300, 2.40 GHZ processor. Vista home premium OS.

Is that what you were asking for?

[caravel]

ATI Radeon HD 2600

Hmmm... do you get in problems with the campaign/battle loading bar delaying for a few minutes before starting to move?? What driver version are you using?

[seireikhaan]

Hmmm... do you get in problems with the campaign/battle loading bar delaying for a few minutes before starting to move?? What driver version are you using?

I've not had a single issue regarding the campaigns/ load screens.

How do I check the driver version?

[caravel]

Click start -> run then enter "devmgmt.msc"

Click the "+" sign next to display adaptors then right click on the "Radeon HD 2600 Series" device.

From the pop up menu select "properties"

Click the driver tab and you will see the driver provider, date and version info near to the top.

[seireikhaan]

Version 8.452.0.0.

Thanks for the quick lesson.

[caravel]

That one falls between Catalyst 8.1 (8.451.0.0) and 8.2 (8.453.0.0). I've not tried those two releases as my card is not supported by them. I may try downloading 8.1 and messing with the .inf file to force it to install.

Before I'll do that I'll try 9.1 - the latest - though I doubt that will be of any use.

[Fagar]

After years of playing MTW and I still love it.
So much so that I still have my old PC, still running XP that I maintain solely for my MTW play.
I am not prepared to mess with it because I am not willing to risk all my MTW files.
I went and bought an upgraded PC for everything else and keep my old one dedicated to MTW only.