How to fix MTW CTDs

[Justinian]

M:TW has a problem on newer graphics cards and systems. You will notice it CTDing randomly and there are several ways to fix this major issue:

1. If you play newer games then a way to fix the CTD issue is to force your Anti-Aliasing to 2x. (Thanks goes to Neb): To turn it on, right click your desktop and select properties. The far right tab is settings, and in the bottom right there is an advanced button that you want to click. On the new window that popped up, there is a tab that could be labelled a lot of things. Mine is "Geforce 6800 GT", but yours will be called whatever your card is (unless ATI has a different naming scheme and you have an ATI card).
   
   If you're using an Nvidia card, there will now be a list of things on the left side of that window. Select "Performance & Quality Settings". Now in the main window, there is a list of settings. Select "Antialiasing settings" and move the slider over to 2x. It sounds hard, but it's not. Just remember to change it back if you plan to play a modern game.
   
2. A quick fix, but one that will be aggravating in the long run as you will have to put your drivers back and forth, is to roll back your nVidia drivers to either 61.76 or 61.77. If you have an ATI card, some trial and error will be necessary to figure out which drivers will work, but it will probably be drivers from 2003/04.
   
3. With one of the above fixes you may still receive blue error screens. To fix this, turn off hardware mixing for sound (thanks Neb).

[jtreach]

Hey i have a problem everytime i run shogun: total war it is fine for about 20 minutes and then crashes instantly no blue screen or anything it just quits. I tried doing what you suggested above but it just crashed again.

[The White Knight]

A slight note on the first option: with the very newest NVidia Drivers you'll need to do the following (not if you choose to use the classic NVidia Control Panel).

Right click on desktop, Nvidia control panel, 3D-properties (the 1st option), Display (the 1st option), check "advanced 3D display options", use the link to the right of the option to go to the panel where you can force the drivers to use 2XAA etc...

Some of these options mentioned above might not be correct though, I roughly translated them since I use a Duch version. I hope it's not too confusing.

[StayingPower]

Hi guys,

I tried doing the anti aliasing fix as suggested (only I use an ATI card). I forced it down to 2X but I still get a crash two turns into a campaign.

Is there a way to turn down AA in the game (I could've sworn there was but I checked and couldn't find anything).

-SP

Edit: I fixed it, but the solution isn't a good one. It works fine without Viking Invasion but once that's added I get crashed. Guess that means no mods for me.

[El Chupanibre]

THis is soooo aggrivating..
My game keeps crashing to the desktop when I get to 1205. Any way to fix it?

[StayingPower]

Not that I know of. I had it going with VI plus MTW XL for ages and then it crashed the first time I tried to do a battle instead of auto solving it.

[Maxa]

I might have found a possible fix, atleast it worked for me. I have a GeForce 7600 GT and I bought the Gold Pack with Viking Invasion a couple of weeks ago and naturally it didn't work. I tried 2x AA, 4x AA and old drivers with no luck, it always crashed when about to enter main menu. Then just for the heck of it I thought I could try it with forced 8xS AA on, and it worked great! I still crash sometimes when trying to load a saved game, but it's not that frequent. Hope this helps.

EDIT: To be exact, it only worked for me when I set 8xS AA for Medieval Total War alone in the individual programs tab of Nvidia control panel, and I had to manually add MTWs .exe because it wasn't there. Setting it generally to x8 didn't work. And I dont think vertical sync and AF had any effect.

[Urien]

Is there some conflicts withs XP and MTW:VI? I did get a similar CTD to EL ChUp with the 1205 crash. I downloaded and installed 2.01 and started again. Even started a high era game. Worked fine. But alas on my last early game, it just crashed randomly at an end year (1120). I have a 1600 ATI card. Is that my problem?

I hear that XP struggles with older game. Too smart for its own good.

[Kaidonni]

May just be a random CTD. They happen sometimes . Don't bother trying to find out why. Just...save often.

Though, if it becomes an issue, there may be an underlying problem, such as system specs, so be prudent.

[Urien]

Thanks for your reply Kaidonni.
I have done some research since my last post and have found that it could possibly be the drivers for my video card. Apparently if I install an older driver ( one from about when MTW was released ) that could fix the problem. Has anyone got some feedback on this type of fix?
On my old computer ( Win 98, p3 866, gForce 2 ) I never had a problem running MTW and VI.
Im sure there is some conflict with XP, my new Radeon card and older games such as MTW and VI.
Any advice would be appreciated as I am a MTW tragic. I just love the game and Im not sure I can handle the wait for MTW2 without my daily MTW.VI battle.

[KPity]

I have a dell e1405 that CTD's back to desktop as soon as I try and start a campaign. Anyone know of any potential fixes as this is really troubling as this will be the computer I will take to college.

[Faenaris]

Kpity, we need a bit more specs. What is your graphics card? Its driver version?

Also, I ran MTW fine on catalyst 6.2 drivers. I recently installed 6.6 drivers and "BANG", MTW will randomly crash to desktop. Not fun!

[Lichking666]

Thanks man, it worked perfectly, it never crashes now :tongue002

[Partula]

I seem to have the same or similar problem. Just got a new Dell "Dual Core" with Ex P pro. Have tried every which way to get it to work (As advised in previous posts.), but it returns to Desktop when you select Country and try to move on to campaign map. Strangly enough Im not on the net and am doing this from work. So all I can say is the graphics is one of those intergrated thingies. Shogun does the same, but RTW works fine. But then I can load old Cossacks and it works fine but the newer Cossacks II wont go either. I suppose I should have more details of what driver etc but not having my comp in front of me all I can say is Ive tried them all and go nowhere. (Its been driving me mad for 2 months) Now Im the first to admit Im more into playing than actually tinkering with the gubbins thingy tabs switchs but Im prity sure through trial and much error Ive tried everything suggested so far on here. (I even bought a new version of Shogun in case it was a damaged disc) Any new ideas or advice anyone.. Try to keep it clean. :tacticalw

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

I get a crash everytime I get back from a battle.
It doesn't crash right away most of the time, I got time to quick-save but it is annoying.

Specs:

2.3 ghz Celeron
512mb ram
Radeon 9800pro 128mb with latest drivers.

[Frankymole]

EDIT: To be exact, it only worked for me when I set 8xS AA for Medieval Total War alone in the individual programs tab of Nvidia control panel, and I had to manually add MTWs .exe because it wasn't there. Setting it generally to x8 didn't work. And I dont think vertical sync and AF had any effect.

I can't see how to add a single application in the Nvidia control panel! It only has profiles for named applications - how does one look up MTW?

[Salvatorii]

every time i try to even install it on my pc i keep getting an error uring installation, saying that something is missing, anyone think it's related?

[Frankymole]

THis is soooo aggrivating..
My game keeps crashing to the desktop when I get to 1205. Any way to fix it?

Me too - any early game started with France as my nation/faction.

[MizuYuuki]

Specs: WinXP Professional + SP2, AMD 2400xp cpu, 1 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB

MTW/VI works for me with the Catalyst 4.6 video driver. I tried the Catalyst 6.7 and 6.8 drivers and the Omega versions of those, but they all caused very bad lag in multiplayer. I couldn't find anyway around that (2x anti-aliasing, etc.), so I went back to the Catalyst 4.6. I may try the Catalyst 6.2 that Faenaris mentions.

[jj_mclure]

i fixed my crashes by keeping the resolution on the campaign and battle map at no higher than 800*600. at 1024*768 it would crash infrequently. at 1152*864 it wouldn't even get to the campaign.

changing antialiasing to 2x does squat. it's a myth.