Rome Total War and DX 9

So I came back from a vacation and decided to kick up an old game of RTW, to my suprise I'm greeted with an error message straight off the bat telling me that RTW has failed to find direct x 9 and that I should reinstall it. So I do find the old dx9 install off the microsoft site, install but still I get the error message. I try reinstalling the game, still the same message. I am running on Vista but it had worked previously for many many months without so much as a hiccup. Would updating my graphics card have anything to do with it because I did update them just before I left and did not play RTW after the update until tonight.

Vista being the brainlees wonder it is, some have had to resort uninstalling RTW, installing directx 9, and then reinstalling RTW for the game to find it.

I downloaded dx9 and installed it from Microsofts site, so shouldn't it already be there ? So I don't really follow how that would work unless you mean uninstalling and trying to install with the dx9 installer off the RTW disc ?

Yea even pulling the games own DX9 installer does nothing, it finds the newer versions and won't proceed, I'm at a loss

Number one is to forget naything you have heard about Windows. Vista is something you need to learn to understand.

Number two is uninstall Rome Total War, delete the Creative Assembly or Activision folder that your Rome Total War folder, in both Program Files and Virtual Store, is in, and run a registry cleaner to remove all traces.

Number two addendum and reason to learn vista is the fact the virtul store is hidden of which you have to unhide all hidden and system files and folders in file options and you have to have full administraive rights to your computer to accomplish it.

Number three is to download the latest diectx9 end run time file to your desktop and run it manually. If you don't diectx 10 that comes with Vista will kick you out and directx 9 will not be installed.

Number four is time to install Rome Total War and its patches.

Maybe I don't understand it but how does one manually run the directx9 install? I mean I downloaded the latest directx9 sdk from march 2009, extracted it to a folder and then ran the dxsetup file, it installed some files (.dll's). I know that when you extract the sdk, there also comes about 100 other .rared files that have various dates.

That did include evry version of directx 9 and in different language packs. If you ran it then they ought to show up.

I got Vista when it was frst released and when I tried installing RTW, I had a hard time and had to figure this out the hard way by trial and error. I tried different combinations and this seem to be the only way it wanted to work.

I had to install directx 9 the same way you did, manually from the desktop, then reboot so Vista could say "yes, it exists" and then finally install RTW and play. Is it a long way around pain? Blame Microsoft.

Yea I do blame them, I just thought it was weird that the game worked flawlessly for almost a year then that error popped up and that was the end of it. I might just try to install RTW on another, older PC if I can't get the DX issue fixed. Thanks again for your help irish, hopefully I can be up and running RTW soon.

------- double posts merged (Brusilov) - please add details to your previous post

hmm so no luck on my main pc, I tried installing it on my dads laptop that also runs vista albeit home edition and it worked fine, even though I can play, it lags pretty bad

I have Vista Home Basic and what I told you is from that experience. Your dad's is Home Premium and it works. Brusilov has Vista 64bit and it works. XP has always worked. Then I don't know. I would suggest searching Microsoft's Knowledge Base and they also have a good support forum. www.totalwar.org has a good support forum for RTW. Just about any gaming site should have someone with the answer.

Yes, I had a bit of fun getting RTW to work on my Vista 64 bit ultimate edition. I've forgotten the exact combination that I followed but I know a reboot was required quite a few times - also a lot of swearing.

lol I hear you guys, thanks again

No problems. I think at one stage I thought that I'd really messed up my install. It wasn't recognizing either DirectX9 or DirectX10 - I was playing Crysis around that time..... I honestly don't recall the sequence that I finally got the thing to work for me - but it did.