....and how to correct some these problems, as well as a guide to being able to play this mod without CTD's.
It has become apparent to me that in the last year or so, people have started having problems with RTW\BI\ALEX running on newer Operating Systems, in particular Windows8. But Windows7 offers some of its own bugs as well, so I'm going to try and address some of these problems. But first, a very general guide that should apply for all PC's.
1. Disable anti-virus programs while playing RTW, or at the very least, configure your AV program to ignore the RTW folders.
2. Do not ever use Autosave or Quicksave in RTW. They are bugged and result in CTD's. Instead, save often, and especially before and after big battles. Just name saves 'save1, save2, save3, etc'...it only takes a few seconds, and it will save you a lot of grief if a save file gets corrupted, because you can go back to a previous save and restore your campaign.
3. Make sure your PC is clean and dust free, and that all fans are working. One of the most common causes of CTD's is overheating. So a clean PC helps a lot.
4. RTW was not made to see more than 2GB of memory. However, this can be corrected. I cannot, however, explain how.
5. Don't max out settings if your PC can't handle it. RS2 uses high definition models for trees, bushes, and all units. It can really tax your PC to try and ramp up settings to a point where you start having issues. RTW doesn't know how to use more modern video cards...all it cares about is processor speed and memory (both video and PC Ram). The faster the better. I would recommend at least a 2GHZ processor (dual or quad), and a GB of video memory.
RTW doesn't see more than one processor, so you could have 8 of them and it would make no difference.
6. There is an option in the Launcher to set 'Affinity'...which is PC talk for telling RTW to use only one processor and not allow Windows to 'distribute' parts of it to more than one. It 'can' help some people, but it doesn't always result in better performance. So it's something you should test.
7. In preferrences.txt you will find a setting that says:
USE_TRIPLE_BUFFER:FALSE
Set this setting to 'TRUE'. RTW has a built in capability to do this, and it can add a good 10% to your performance..or more. What it does is allow the Video refresh routines to store three copies of pixels instead of two, resulting in faster refresh...especially on newer and bigger monitors. It does use more memory, so if your PC is memory starved, you may not want to do this.
8. RTW and all RTW related exe's have what's called 'memory leaks'.....which is a fancy way of sying that the program chews up more memory than should really be using, and loses track of it eventually. The longer you play (as in hours), the more memory RTW will chew up. At some point, it will get unstable and crash. So it's just a good practice to quit after an hour or so, and then resume playing. This clears memory and gives RTW a fresh start.
9. Windows8 is causing some issues for players due to a suspected incompatibility of RTW with DirectX11. It is apparently 'subtle', but the problem seems to get exponentially worse as campaigns progress. If you are having random or frequent crashes in Windows8, the solution 'appears' to be to extract the DirectX9.0c files from the RTW\BI CD's (do not try to install them!), and then copy them all into the RTW folder. This way, RTW seems to find what it wants first in its own folder. This is just a 'suspicion' right now, and appears to be the answer, but people are testing this, and it has solved their issues. Here is a download link for the files:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_directx/
10. There is growing evidence that RTW has issues with paths that are longer than 128 characters, and the result is random CTD's. So make your paths to RTW and RS2 as short as possible.
11. Never talk about Rome2 in front of RS2.6. Crashes are very likely to occur often as a result. (Just kidding.)