Help with weird crashes

[Opus]

I just got this mod, and it looks really cool. I downloaded V. 2.0 through the torrent, and installed patches 3, 4, and 5 and I am having trouble with some really weird crashing. I will be looking at unit descriptions on the campaign map, trying to get my bearings on what is what for this time period, and then I tried to click the building construction button (without closing the unit description). This make the game close. No error message, no 'not responding' stuff like that, it just closes. Should I just reinstall it or what?

Fantastic job, BTW. This looks really well put together.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

That's weird. Reinstall for now and it will hopefully go away. I am looking into potential causes.

[Córdova]

Something similar happens to me, but game freezes instead of being closed. I have installed the mod two times, in two different hard drives, with the same result. It usually happens if you click on several buildings in sequence. Otherwise, not. I usually do a quick save before clicking on any building and I can play the mod. Are you playing as Spain? I am, and now I can't find a post, but somewhere here I read it could be something with picture size of info cards, when Spanish faction was splitted from Habsburg.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

I have not been able to replicate this problem. It has not been reported before as far as I can remember. Are you playing the English or German version of the mod? Have you installed all the patches up to 5? When you say two different hard drives, do you mean two different computers? The mod should be installed in the Medieval 2 Total War/mods folder in Computer Programs (x86).

[Córdova]

The problem was reported here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...nit-info-cards I'm playing English version, patch 4, since I don't want to loose current save. Mod is installed in mods Medieval Total War II/mods/1648_2. Yesterday I loaded my current save as Spain and after clicking on many building cards, nothing happened. But today I have tried with a new save as Prussia and it has happened again. While one info card was opened, I clicked in other building and the game froze. I couldn't click on anything else and I have needed to restart computer. By two hard drives, I mean two hard drives in the same system. One of them is almost full and fragmented, while the second one was new, empty and nonfragmented when I installed the game and the mod there.

[Shasqua]

I get this whenever I look at too many unit or building descriptions. It was rough when I first downloaded the mod and looked at every building in the tree, which always caused an instant CTD.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

The problem was reported here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...nit-info-cards I'm playing English version, patch 4, since I don't want to loose current save. Mod is installed in mods Medieval Total War II/mods/1648_2. Yesterday I loaded my current save as Spain and after clicking on many building cards, nothing happened. But today I have tried with a new save as Prussia and it has happened again. While one info card was opened, I clicked in other building and the game froze. I couldn't click on anything else and I have needed to restart computer. By two hard drives, I mean two hard drives in the same system. One of them is almost full and fragmented, while the second one was new, empty and nonfragmented when I installed the game and the mod there.

Thanks for the log, sadly I could not find anything obvious and Gigantus seems to be out of touch. I had the impression you need to install in the medieval 2 total war directory in Program files (x86). I am not sure if the program will run as well when installed elsewhere but it might.

[Córdova]

´ Thanks to you and the rest of the team for this awesome mod. It's very immersive, I love the period, the units, the building tree, the music selected. Yesterday I was playing about an hour and half without any issue. If I find this problem again, I will post another log just in case it's possible to find something.
About the installation folder, both M2TW and the mod are installed indeed in Program files folder, just a folder with the same name in other drive than default. A first copy of M2TW is installed in Program files in default C drive. Besides Kingdoms, there it's also Stainless Steel and Bellum Crucis. The whole C drive is quite full, it has the minimum space to defragment it. At first, I installed 1648 there, and I had those issues I talk about. I removed the mod and installed it in Program files folder in other drive, an empty one. Copy paste M2TW to new place (so, a second copy), since I can't install two times the game and I installed, step by step and the 4 patches, the 1648 mod. Those issues continued, so I left the game in that folder and played about 50 turns as Spain with those problems. Now I have come back to the game, and making tests on Sunday with different factions it got frozen with Spain and Prussia, as I have reported before. But yesterday, no problem in an hour and half. Quite strange.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

It is probably not safe to assume that creating a folder called Program files on another hard disk will solve the storage problem. The game engine is programmed to save files in a certain place on your main disk, which is why it is recommended that mods are installed in the main Program Files folder. Having files saved in two separate Program Folders can render a mod unplayable.

The mod has many small scripts, including one with the leaders of AI factions staying in their hunting lodges, the supply script and the economy script, which may add to processing burden and may increase CPU utilisation and add to memory issues in some computers. Next time you have this problem, please control-alt-detete and check what your CPU and memory usage is. If it is much more than about 50%, it could be part of the problem.

Alternatively, or additionally, your problems may have something to do with your full disk. I would recommend buying a new pc with much more hard disk space for programs, and saving all other stuff such as movies, screenshots and documents in a separate hard disk. There seems to be a limit of how many games or mods can be played in a single computer. To give you an idea, I only have M2TW installed in a dedicated gaming computer with just five mods, no other games and only a few other programs. You also need a reasonable amount of free hard disk space for them to run without risk of data loss, about 10% or more. If you decide to buy a new computer make sure there is going to be enough space on the C drive to store all the mods you will want to store.

In the meantime, if you have performance problems when you check your CPU and memory and space, move the mods you are not playing to your new external hard disk. Then move them back into their location in the Programs File folder when you decide to play them.

[Córdova]

Program doesn't save games in two separate folders. As I see on my installation, each mod has it's own save folder. Besides, I have two installations of M2TW, just only one of them is on the registry. There is also only one save in only one folder, the one attached to each mod. Till now, saves from Stainless Steel are where they should be, those from Bellum Crucis are on their own folder and the same for 1648. Out of 4 mods I have installed, only 1648 has given me issues.

I will follow your advice about controlling memory usage. But the game just freezes, it doesn't allow me to do anything, neither ctrl-alt-delete. I just can shut down the power. However, I will try with Afterburner, displaying memory usage while I play.

About the full disk, that's why I decided to make a second installation of M2TW, on a empty hard drive. It's there where 1648 runs, not in the full disk. Of course, I start the game using the executable from the second installation. Besides, as I have said, there is enough space for defragmenting the disk, about 15% free space.

Meanwhile, neither yesterday nor today I have had those issues again. Since I have removed loading screens folder from 1648 mod. Yeah, quite odd, because what's the connection? The game froze when opening either a building or unit info card, not while loading screens. It could be a memory problem, but how? My system has 4GB RAM, Windows XP, 3.25GB at the end. Before starting the game, 600MB RAM are already in usage. Graphics card has 2GB of memory. And turns pass quite fast in 1648. Much faster than Bellum Crucis for instance, which also has a lot of scripts. But I will play with Afterbuner opened for not to discard anything. Thanks for your answer.

[Gigantus]

The log finishes with an extensive list of building pictures which confirms what is happening.
We had crashes when pictures in the ...\ui\northern_european\buildings\construction folder were not of the same size. Same happened with the small unit pictures.
That said I cannot find any pictures of non standard size. This kind of crash could be related to the crash when the symbols in the selection screen get selected too often.

Another crash would be if you go into the building browser and some text is missing, but that does seem applicable here. (The EDB checker has been of great help here).
The loading screen issue sounds familiar, too. I remember we battled with it as well, or was that in the RotK mod?

Summary: there isn't anything obvious that comes to my mind on how to tackle the issue.

As to second installations: this is feasible. Simply copy the whole M2TW installation into a second location. I do keep one installation in the root folder (C:\M2TW) to test issues for problems with path length and it works perfectly. Save files are always within the mods folder structure, so there shouldn't be any problem.
The only issue here would be installing updates that are based on registry entries (like mine) - there the installation path woudl have to be changed manually.

[Córdova]

Thanks, Gigantus, for your answer. Yes, the issue of the loading screens was addressed here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...quires-testing

and here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...and-CTD-issues

but neither using those new loading screens you provided, nor using screens from other mods, nor removing the whole folder has worked to avoid CTD when loading screens. The more strange is that, when I installed the mod in october, I didn't have CTDs because loading screens. Only when clicking in buildings or units info cards. Now these CTD's have been reduced to two times in about 10 hours of play. That's something. But now I have CTD's when loading screens. Usually I need to start the game several times till I can load my save because:

1. There is a chance of CTD when loading screen after Infracta's video.
2. There is change of a CTD when loading save.

If I have a battle, things get worse because there is a chance of CTD when starting the battle and since yesterday, a sure CTD after a battle. It's a field battle. In last week, I have needed to play siege battles at least two times. But I can't finish this open field battle.
What's the difference between october and now? I haven't updated the game to patch 5, I haven't updated graphics drivers, since I use Windows XP, so there is no drivers to update. Besides this is the only mod that gives me such problems.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

In my experience, loading screen crashes are not specific to 1648. I have assumed that the problem is not the loading screens. Every time there is a loading screen, the engine is loading something. When reading the previous reports on this problem, some of the players were struggling with memory issues or an old computer.

[Córdova]

I know it has been a while, but this information could be useful to other people with a similar problem. At the end, I've solved the issue that caused CTDs on my installation. It happened that I installed With fire and sword 2 on the same drive. Most files of this mod are installed in a proper mod folder. But some of them are installed in the original data folder. Though I didn't allow the installation program to overwrite any original file, those new files seemed to be enough to cause a CTD when playing 1648. After removing those new files, I have had 3 CTDs in 60 turns, all three before a battle. But that's ok for me.

I still don't know what caused CTD when clicking on buildings or units info cards, since this issue was previous to my installation of With fire and sword. Anyway, this issue has also disappeared too, no more CTDs because of this.