Possible solution to recent problems with game start and freezing

[Gigantus]

There has been a flurry of reports recently about freezes. In most cases setting the executable(s) to admin run and windows 7 compatibility has solved the issue.

For those unfamiliar with the procedure, here are the steps:

1. locate the medieval2.exe file - it is in the root of the game installation, to locate it use a mod's or the game's desktop short cut by right clicking it and choosing 'open file location' - this should bring you close enough to the main directory
2. select the the medieval2.exe file (left click) and then right click it, choose 'properties' from the drop down menu.
3. click the 'compatibility' tab
4. tick mark the box 'run this program as an administrator'
5. tick mark the box 'Run this program in compatibility mode for:'
6. select 'windows 7' in the now active drop down window
7. Click 'Apply' and 'OK'
8. Repeat the procedure for the kingdoms.exe file (steam users do not have this file unless they have done a copy\rename action of the executable to play a mod)

Note: if your compatibility tab is not showing then check here if any of the articles will solve the issue of the missing tab.





Another Note: there has been a report that using compatibility slows down the turn times, no other issues have been reported.


Mo' notes: Input from the Steam forum suggests that in a persistent 'fatal graphics' crash case it worked if 'administrator' wasn't tick marked. Instead selecting the 'override' and 'full screen' option solved the problem.

Latest update: there is a possibility that this issue (presumed to have been caused by a windows update) has been addressed by Microsoft in one of the latest updates. If you experience a sudden change if you have applied this fix earlier then please reverse the action you have taken to see if improves.

[Frunk]

I'm taking the liberty of sticky-ing this.

[Degnan]

I try everything and still have lags. 3 years can't solve that crap

[Gigantus]

This is about FREEZE, not lag. Lag is your graphic set up or a mod with high resolution texture and high poly models.

[Degnan]

This is about FREEZE, not lag. Lag is your graphic set up or a mod with high resolution texture and high poly models.

Do you have working solution about lag? That's strangely but I didn't have lag on my old PC but on modern PC I have it.

[Gigantus]

Lag is a matter of polygons present and large scale textures used, the bottleneck is caused by the game, not the graphic card. While newer cards can handle the issue better then older it still is an issue. Some mods in their original release use models that can reduce the game to a crawl in battles.

One of earliest encounters was in siege battles, caused by the building textures, a workaround can be found here. Keeping special effects down already takes care of most lag, a reduction in unit size does the same.

[Degnan]

Lag is a matter of polygons present and large scale textures used, the bottleneck is caused by the game, not the graphic card. While newer cards can handle the issue better then older it still is an issue. Some mods in their original release use models that can reduce the game to a crawl in battles.

One of earliest encounters was in siege battles, caused by the building textures, a workaround can be found here. Keeping special effects down already takes care of most lag, a reduction in unit size does the same.

My specs:
i5-3570
Nvidia GTX 660 ti
8 Gb ram

I hoped this specs must be enough for this game. Even if play on max settings. I can't recognize main reason of lag and droping fps. The game not compatible with modern PC ?

[Gigantus]

I am not a technical guy - I am however sure that the problem lies with the game and not the card (provided it's not an onboard card). The game uses only one core for processing which creates a bottleneck. In fact processor speed below 2.6Ghz is a sure bet for lags at medium graphic settings.

[Slaytaninc]

I came to this via a Steam link, and I have to ask why I can't delete mods from my Steam installation.

[Gigantus]

Not exactly related to this problem - but I would assume it has to do with your access permission of that folder. What message are you getting when you try to delete the mod? And have you used the folder rename method to run the mod?

[fear_the_mongols]

I came to this via a Steam link, and I have to ask why I can't delete mods from my Steam installation.

Well there can be a couple of reasons.
The most common is you not executing it as an administrator. telling us what message you see when you cant delete it would be very helpfull because all we can do right now is guess.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn GT-I9515 met Tapatalk

[themzr]

This solution was immensely helpful in allowing me to play my SS (so thank you!)! I tested it after reinstalling 6.3 and now it works fine! However when attempting to patch the game to 6.4 I run into an Error 5: "Access is denied" It is unable to create a file in the m2/mods/ss6.3/data/campaign/early/text . Can anyone provide some support for me to fix this problem?

[themzr]

Not exactly related to this problem - but I would assume it has to do with your access permission of that folder. What message are you getting when you try to delete the mod? And have you used the folder rename method to run the mod?

When I try to delete folders in my m2 mods folder, I also still receive a folder access denied error. Even when I am logged in as an administrator the error pertains and thus cannot patch mods nor can I fully uninstall them.

[Gigantus]

Running this tutorial from step 3 may help. And then have a look at these search results.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Some advice have been provided tmodelsk in this entry.

Some alternative solutions - which smoetimes worked for me, on my system, or could work for you:

1. Power mode - change it to Maximum Performance. Windows 10 by default is set to balanced performance !!
2. Run game in Windows 7 compatibility mode, on my Windows 10 running without it slows down turn time
3. do not install many mods - I mean do not have many (more than 10?) subdirectories with mods in /mods/ directory. On my system it caused end turn slowdown - game somehow is 'indexing' all files on startup, even if then it will use only one mod. It was my discovery
4. After game start - Alt + Tab to desktop, run Task Manager and boots priority for medieval2.exe process .
   It has no impact on my system, but I know some games (mostly old single threaded ones) which gain performance boost after such trick.
5. Restarting game after some amount of turns (lets say ~ 20) also helps. But IMO doing it too often can sometimes influence (badly) campaign AI (other AI decision after restart, in favour of player, then before game restart).
6. Disable anti - virus when playing. On my system (Windows 10) - scanning system (ex automatic one lauched by Windows itself at night) while playing causes turn slowdown.
7. After launching the game check in Taks Manager if your system has enough free ram memory.

[Gigantus]

1. Same effect as reducing graphic effects, especially special effects and shadows.
2. This is one of the two steps described here.
3. The number of mods should not have any impact, indexing the files of the mod you play however does. Add this line in the [io] section of the CFG file:

[io]
disable_file_cache = 1

4. Might help, no further info
5. Some mods have a tendency to start showing weird graphics a short while before crashing (memory leak), this is the only way to prevent it.
6. While helpful it's certainly not advisable.
7. Closing unnecessary programs always helps.

[Jurand of Cracow]

In my experience: after the recent patch (1709) to the Windows 10 the number of CTDs dropped and the turn times shortened. It'd be interesting to know if the other players have similar feelings.

[Jaketh]

Dunno if the latest Windows 10 patch killed this but if you try running the medieval 2 exe in ANY compatibility mode it will not launch with a random error. Running it as Admin alone has no issues.

[Gigantus]

It's a windows system issue, check here on how to run the DISM tool in 'restorehealth' mode. This will most likely solve your issue.

[Veteraan]

After not having played any TATW mods for quite a while, well not playing anything MTW/Kingdoms stuff really, I was unpleasantly surprised by my computer freezing, crashing with the unknown error message and a fatal graphics error while playing a test campaign for DCI:LA. The graphics error was a new one for me, the unknown error I had on occasion, but happened much more frequent than I remembered. Also the turn times were almost double the time, they were before. The freezing I presumed was something not related to playing a mod.

Well, I first cleaned my PC, hard and software, but that didn't do much, until I noticed I missed the filter of my power supply unit, which is at the bottom of my case. Sure enough, it was full of dust and cleaning it solved my "freezing problem". The game problems remained though and I went searching for a solution. I found this thread on TWC that showed a possible solution, for the problems (sans the turn times) I was having. Changing the Kingdoms and Medieval exe files to be executed using Windows 7 compatibility settings. I checked those settings and discovered I had already done that, presumably quite some time ago as I did not even remember doing so.

Now I had no clue what to do about this. but finally decided to switch back to the "normal" Windows 10 settings for the two exe files. The result was dramatic, I played quite a few turns and a lot of battles with zero crashes. The turn times also improved significantly. Of course this is "anecdotal evidence", but I think it's still good to know.

No idea what happened, perhaps a Windows update changed something that influences this, or the meltdown patches. Or what happened to me is just a fluke.

I use the disk version of the game, Windows 10 Pro, a Gforce GTX 960 GPU, Intel Ivy bridge motherboard, 8 Gigabyte Ram DDR3 and a Intel core I5 3500 CPU.