CTD during and after battles

[zane_r]

ive had 3 unexplained CTS's now and im really not sure why.My set up is:
Windows 7 OS, (though running game in XP SP3 compatability mode)

i7 930 2.8 GHz processor
6GB DDR 3 memory
1.25 GB GTX 470 DDR5 video card

After the first CTD i checked this forum to see if anyone else was having the same problems, and came to the conclusion that it may have been because i was running the game on too high a settings. So i then changed the setting to as follows:

Battle map resolution: 1024x768
Strategic map resolution: 1920x1080
Unit Scale: Large
Terrain detail: medium
Unit detail: medium
Building detail: medium
Effects detail: medium
Grass Detail: medium
Vegetation: medium
Antialiasing off in game but x4 from nvidia control panel
Also i turned vegetail detail in the launcher to default

Since the change ive had 1 CTD during battle and 1 CTD directly after the battle results. Im aware the game can only utilise one of the 4 cores of my processor but i would have thought my computer could quite easily cope with the above settings. can anyone offer any suggestions?
Cheers

[Brusilov]

I was told a long time ago to make sure the the strategy and battlemap resolutions should be the same. If I change one I change them both.

CTDs in a battle are usually caused by asking to much of the card. The problem with your card is that the RTW engine (from 2004) isn't using it properly. Make sure the drivers are up-to-date. Some nvidia drivers work better than others - it depends upon your system.

If you continue to get CTDs drop the vegetation lower - it's a killer. Also consider changing the 'GRASS_DRAW_DISTANCE' lower than it is by default - it's in the preferences.txt file.

The CTD after the battle is a thing that happens way too often - I had one yesterday. The general advice is to wait at least 30 seconds before accepting the results. However, it may also be best to wait a bit longer - certainly make sure that there is no longer an I/O going on to the hard drive (this is one of the theories of what is causing the problem).

[tone]

No reason for this though.....my system is much worse and isn't causing CTDs.

I suggest though trying the lower vegetation setting in the launcher which makes the trees in forests just a bit sparser rather than dropping to low vegetation detail in the in-game video settings.

[zane_r]

I haven't had time to completely test my theory, but could it perhaps be because i have the game installed on a HDD that is not my OS drive?

During the battle does the game need to regularly access the HDD? Because if not, after a while the when the drive is inactive it goes to sleep. Then when the game needs to load something and the drive is alseep (so therefore not responding straight away), the game doesnt know what the problem is and crashes?

I think the default sleep time for drives in 20 minutes. i changed mine to 300 minutes and hopefully the problem will be fixed.
I can't think what else the problem would be because i really would not have thought my system would have any problem running the game on medium settings.

[PadrePio]

have you tried turning on unit shaders?

[zane_r]

Yeah I've always had unit shaders on because i had heard having them off could cause problems.

Since I changed the sleep time of my HDD i turned all the settings back up to high including those in the launcher, and ive played about 10 battles with these settings and so far no CTD's (touch wood). So hopefully the problem is now solved and might also help other people with the same problem.

[Brusilov]

Resolved & closed. Enjoy the game.