Crashing during battles./Help&Tipps

[masterjedi343]

Alright I thought this was just a campaign issue so i started a new one but it keeps happening. The Union attacked me near Virgina and I denied the first battle opportunity because it would have been a huge scale battle but the 2nd time i attacked the enemy and about halfway through the battle, it crashes to desktop. It happened last game too and i played the same battle over again and it took me at least 2 hours to replay it over and over and it would never finish. Now I turned down my graphics down to low to compensate for the big battles as I had literally over 2k men to battle the Union. That's fine with me as I never zoom in too much anyway. But is there anyway to fix this? It's frustrating beyond all belief and each time I get close to winning...boom crash.

SO...advice? I even closed out Firefox etc the last time i tried. Still crashed.

EDIT BY MASTER:

Try this out guys a guide that might help you If after that you still have questions or issues feel free to post but try the tipps there first !
Thanks Guys : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...uot-workaround

[Murat ÖZCAN]

I have the same problem,please someone solve that problem If I don't misremember,I saw a comment which says it is because of steam. They don't know what causes that. If someone knows further about this issue,please inform us.

[masterjedi343]

The mod is alot of fun but it's unplayable with the crashes at every battle so some help would be welcomed.

[stephsen]

same Problem , love this mod but the battle crashs get on my nerv ...we need help !!!

[masterjedi343]

Was hopin there would have been a solution by now lol. But glad to see I am not the only person who has the problem though.

[masterjedi343]

Okay a friend who also has the mod said to do this;
Make sure to launch it from the mod launcher not Empire itself. This may fix the whole issue but I am not sure.
Don't touch any of the settings(?) including sound. Not sure why but he said it messes with it somehow. if its too loud turn it down from volume mixer
don't move a bunch of units around at once

[[NC]Master]

Allright guys since this here is a real issue and many people should have this problem i try to give some Advice/Help to you.
Now note that i am not a expert and i can not guarantee that those Tipps might work.

I have two theories why crashing occurs.

A: A out of memory Issue
B some missing files or info in the mod which leads to CTD

Theorie A:
Now i am a 32bit User which would normaly allow me to use only up to 2Gig of RAM for a application. (Got around it so i can use all of my RAM installed now)
But this theories is that i think this crashes occurs to mostly 32bit users of course i have no prove so i would be very interested to know some of your system specs.
Thre are two things which seem to get on your system really hard harder than any other Mod for this game does.

Smoke & Units


When zoomed in and concentrated on only a small group of units my FPS(right corner) is fine without Fraps it would be around 40 which is good!
Now:

Here we have more units (still zoomed in) + Smoke effects you can see how drastic the fps drop is in this picture (normaly around 28 which is not good!)

Now the first thing to DO! is to lower the Unit details to medium or so. You will notice that the beauty of the units suffer but it is not much. (not easy to see because so dark)



So now to the next Tipps:

DISABLE Anisotropic Filtering AND Antialiasing both effects crush on your performance in this Mod very hard i mean like 50%. So if you haven't already disabled them do so!

Disable all additional effects and if the performance is good you may activate some of them and test a little bit. But i would not recommend to activate volument effects (or however this is called)It messes up with the smoke.

Now for the smoke issue i recommend you to use one of THESE http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...MOD-Smoke-Mods
FOLLOW instructions and you should be fine!

Don't touch any of the settings

now this seams to me like a really bad idea because without lowering the settings you will have a hard time to get around this issue even 1%

Make sure to launch it from the mod launcher not Empire itself. This may fix the whole issue but I am not sure.

This is not something which has to do with this crash issue because you allways ALLWAYS should start the Mod over the launcher otherwise you are doing something wrong!

If I don't misremember,I saw a comment which says it is because of steam. They don't know what causes that. If someone knows further about this issue,please inform us.

I also heard of that however i think it probably is related to a other crash issue but i could be wrong.

That's fine with me as I never zoom in too much anyway. But is there anyway to fix this? It's frustrating beyond all belief and each time I get close to winning...boom crash.

Now here is where my 2nd theories comes in i have no Idea what may cause it or why it crashes without any notable performance impact lagging or anything. This is therefore a theories against my first one (maybe both cases can be the case and there can be 2 different sorts of crash i don't know) However i have lowered the crashing issue dramatically by doing the stuff above. However sometimes it still happens to me like every 10 battle or so. Unfortunately 32 Bit users will have a hard time to ever solve this issue by their own. What needs to come in are the Modders.
@Modders
Seriously i still think there is a LOD issue it can't be that the units eats so much resources when i play normal ETW i am always over 60 FPS with this mod however i sometimes fall under 30 this is a issue that should be solved primarily

[Murat ÖZCAN]

A fact of me... I have Windows 7 64 bit,so this crash looks so strange.

[masterjedi343]

Where do I put the smoke? There is no submod or smoke folder.

[[NC]Master]

well you need of course the ZOR 3.5 !

NOW don't tell me you don't have ZOR installed because if you don't than its no wounder you have so manny crashes xd

If you have installed it you find the folder under Empire Total War/ACW/SubMods/Smoke!

[masterjedi343]

I don't know what ZOR is. I'll google it and get it

[masterjedi343]

Where does the ZOR unzip to?

[masterjedi343]

alright so I got all the ZOR stuff and Subs Power and it still crashes during battle. Just did it again.

[masterjedi343]

alright so I got all the ZOR stuff and Subs Power and it still crashes during battle. Just did it again.

[masterjedi343]

Ugh sorry for double post, there's no delete post button lol

[Savathor]

Spaaaaaaam ... xD

Seriously though, I think like 70-80% of this community has issues with crashes from time to time. Particularly in battles which lasts for too long, and have way too many units in them. There also seems to be an issue with zooming in and out, that sometimes lead to crashes. Aside from lowering your graphic settings, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it. At least from my experience. I've tried just about every single workaround and ''solution'' that has been provided on these forums (and more), and I still have crashes. I think it's just one of those cases where you have to accept that this game has a engine that doesn't appreciate being modded. That being said, the ACW team has done an exceptional job of modding this game regardless.

[General Gordon]

Using version 3.4 of this mod (was unable to download 3.5 from any of the links). Win 7 64 bits and also frustrating crashes during many battles.
Otherwise I love you guys who did this mod (I really enjoy being able to play the campaign part, not just battles like in the NTW mod), thanks.

[[NC]Master]

This thread only makes scence if you can at öeast try what you experience and what systems your running the Mod with I am esspassialy interessted to know about amount of RAM and if using 32 or 64bit..

Thanks hope i could help out at least a bit and i know that this issue acures to most of the people thats why i made a sticky. I believe the problem has mainly to do with the missing LOD files for the units!

By the Way here is a other usefull post which should help you out. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...uot-workaround

[masterjedi343]

Well I appreciate all the help folks. Glad to see this is stickied now since a lot of people seem to have this problem. To the modders: GREAT mod. I love it so much and it so a lot of fun. Hopefully one day there will be a complete fix for the crashing issue.

[General Gordon]

Ok, I am playing version 3.41 and have now reached a crucial stage in my solitaire campaign.
It's 1863 and have a pretty large battle at Richmond defending as the Confederate so I cannot automatically resolve the battle as I have done in some instances to not risk crashing. I've played the battle two times and it crashes; most large battles usually do.
Is there some sort of log file I could reproduce here, together with my specs, so as to obtain some feedback, perhaps help others too with this persistent problem?

Thanks.

Some specs of my system are: Windows 7, 4 GB RAM, 64 bits, Core 2 Duo 2.93 GHZ windows experience index 5.9 , Display adapter is Geforce 9600 GT
I am playing with all graphics low or turned off.