Good Playing Practices
Through my own observations and knowledge as a software\hardware technician by profession, this thread will present a few tips for players to maintain as stable a game play experience as possible.
Good PC care practices:
1. Defragment your hard drives often. XP has a tendancy, like all Operating Systems, to fragment the hard disk with bits and pieces of files. This can lead to slow performance and, the worse it gets, to file corruption or simply mistakes in reading information...thus, CTD's in your game.
2. You should have a 'page file' when playing RTW that is at least 1.5x the amount of ram in your PC, but no more than 1 gigabyte. It should also be a 'static' page file...in otherwords, it is the same siz minimum and maximum. The reason for this is that Windows spends much less time 'maintaining' the page file if it is a static size...shrinking and expanding the file takes up cpu time, and can cause excessive delays if the file is very large. The reason the file should not be more than 1 gig is because that is all Windows can 'optimally' manage. The more you set it OVER this limit, the more you actually degrade performance rather than enhance it.
3. Run 'chkdsk' once a month. This can be done by clicking 'Start', then 'RUN'.
In the little window, type: chkdsk /f. This will open a black DOS window telling you the disk is locked, and would you like to run chkdsk the next time you restart. Click 'Y' for 'Yes' and 'enter'. The window disappears. Then restart your computer. As it's restarting, a blue window will appear and say chkdsk will run unless you click any key. Wait for the seconds to count down, and let chkdsk run. Be patient, it will take a while sometimes, especially on very large drives. At times, it will appear that it's doing nothing....but in fact it is fixing and rewriting files. DO NOT INTERUPT it or TURN OFF your PC. It will just run again and again until you let it finish.
Chkdsk examines the hard disk condition, the main boot record, the Index 'bitmap' where the location of all files on the disk are stored, and makes sure they are correct. If not, it fixes it. The OS will sometimes lose track of a file and it can be 'stranded' on the drive just taking up space...chkdsk will find and remove this junk.
4. Download and use AVG FREE antivirus. This software is great. You can get it free, beats the heck out of Symantec or any other AV software, and you don't even know it's there. ALL your games and software will run much better and faster with this AV software. 20-30% performance increase in RTW over using Symantec software.
Good RTW practices:
1. All the above help RTW and any mod run smoother and 'smarter'.
2. When you are done with an RTW session (or playing any game), reboot your computer to clear memory.
3. If you experience a CTD, reboot you computer...especially if you don't do #2 regularly. Many CTD's in RTW are actually caused by corrupt memory in ram, and not anything to do with the game or a mod. (I've had times when testing RS for an extended period where I tried to start RTW and it came up with an error that said I had to 'reinstall Directx'! This is a corrupt memory issue...) Of course, not all CTD's are caused by this, but if you've been playing a long time, have not rebooted your computer in days, or have been playing another game...reboot. You'll like the better results.
4. Make sure your video card has good ventilation. A hot\overworked video card will CTD the game in a heartbeat. Clean fans occasionally, and for video cards with mounted fans, check them often to make sure they are still working. They are usually cheap, get dirty, and quit working easily.
5. Keep a backup copy of your RTW directory if you have the space, and install your mods into them....not the original. This saves tremendous bother of having to reinstall RTW which can take an hour our more.
6. Keep RTW CD's 'mirror clean'. Finger prints, scratches, food particles, liquids, dust or any other crap you can get on them will destroy them quickly. Dust is more abrasive than you may think, and rubbing against the table top, the CD tray, or anything else creates tiny scratches that will only cause you trouble. CTD's can ALSO be caused by dirty, unreadable CD's
Can't think of anything else....Happy gaming.
-------------------UPDATE FOR VISTA USERS----------------
I would advise that people using Vista NOT install RTW into the default 'Program Files' folder.....or any game for that matter. Create a folder called 'Games' on your drive, and install all of you games in there. The reason is that Vista with UAC enabled regards the 'Program Files' folder as a 'security threat'....or that software IN that folder is often in danger of being altered or taken over by malicious software, spyware, etc. For this reason, Vista's UAC 'protects' this entire folder from what IT determines may be a threat. Unfortunately, I believe there are times that Vista regards changes to files in RTW, and\or even installing patches or mods, as a threat to RTW's software. It therefore 'virtualizes' these changes, installs the files incorrectly, and tries to make RTW 'think' they are installed when in fact they are not (as far as RTW is concerned).
Also, see here for further tips on PC configuration:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=255333
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Originally Posted by ayradon
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