Lusted, Can you tell me your PC build?

[BurritoX]

Hey Lusted,

Havign been a big fan of Shogun and MTW, and RTW as well, I finally got medieval 2, but I have been runnign into these constant completely random unexplained error CTDs. Ive, checked my whole system out, drivers, defragging, etc, with no luck. Something about CA's programming ever since after RTW patch 1.3 seems to be really problematic for any hardware except the exact comps they programmed on

Fortunately I wil be in the market for a new computer soon, and I want to build one than I know for CERTAIN wil be able to play MTW2 and your mod, SO can you please tell me your PC build? Cuz im gonna buy and put together an exact copy. I think the Key things are the motherboard, video card, processor, sound adaptor, and what drivers you are using. I figure you have 2 gigs of good memory a decent hard drive etc.

Id be much obliged, its pretty frustratign not gettign to play MTW for a few more months, but ill be damned if its not gonna work on my new comp...

Thanks a million

BurritoX

[BurritoX]

Heck, Id be open to ANYONE who can tell me a their PC build that can play MTW2 with the 1.2 patch and the LTC mod without any bugs or crashes

Thanks ahead of time for any advice -

BurritoX

[todorp]

Heck, Id be open to ANYONE who can tell me a their PC build that can play MTW2 with the 1.2 patch and the LTC mod without any bugs or crashes

Thanks ahead of time for any advice -

BurritoX

I used to have your problem and complained a lot, reinstalled Windows and all newest drivers. Nothing helped. BUT it turned to be my RAM fault not MTW2. I had the best of the best Corsair RAM . Does anyone want DDR1 400?

I replaced the RAM with a no name one and memtested it on the spot in the chinese shop. Since then I have no worries with MTW2 or any other game.

Download and run at least two processes of the Windows memtest.

[sdjenkyn]

better yet tell us your pc build.

[Lusted]

Right my current pc has the following specs:

Intel E6300 1.86ghz Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR2 667Mhz RAM
Geforce 7900GT 256mb
Asrock Core 2 Duo motherboard
Antec 500w PSU
WesternDigital 250gb HDD
Samsung 18x DVD-RW

At some point im going to upgrade with an all new motherboard, Intel E6600, Geforce 8800GT, and 4 or 8 GB of RAM.

[Space Voyager]

At some point im going to upgrade with an all new motherboard, Intel E6600, Geforce 8800GT, and 4 or 8 GB of RAM.

You lucky b... At some point I'll upgrade to what you have now. In a year or two that is. In a week or two I'm becoming a father so all the money will go (already went) down the drain, he he he!

[Germanicus75]

Lusted, you won't regret the 6600, that's what I'm using

[BurritoX]

Thanks lusted.

In case anyone has any great advice, my build that keeps crashign on me is essentially the Anandtech mid level recommendations of 2 years ago:

MSI KH8+ Neo K2 Platinum montherboard
Onboard sound (realtek ac97 sound)
Athalon 64FX 3500+ socket 939 (i think its the newer socket size)
1 gig of corsair ram
Geforce 7800GS

Man, I have run the update utilities for the motherboard, updated all the chipset drivers, I'm using the latest sound and nvidia drivers (even tried the tweaksrus drivers too). I did the whole defrag and run the registry cleaner suggested by the Total War moderators, and the game still randomly crashes.
(unexplained error). Its totally random but always on the campaign map. Cant find any assosication with end of turn or anything. I can do historical battles just fine. I even started up a game and just left it there on turn one and went out to dinner and when i came back it had crashed.

If anyone has any advice that actually works Id seriusly mail you a hundred bucks.

BurritoX

[blood_reaver]

Format your computer then. That should solve your problem. Unless its a hardware issue.

[BurritoX]

Why would that help? My computer never has any problems with any other game, and is rock hard stable. If it was due to hard drive problems, other intense and hard drive hungry-games liek oblivion, NWN2, etc woudl have problems. If it was due to bad hardware, then I woudlnt be able to play oblivion with all the effects maxed, or the MTW2 woudl crash during historical battles with a zillion troops, which is clearly the most hardware-hungry part of MTW2. If its problems with "AI" then games like EU3 or GalCiv2 woudl be unstable. but there not.

In fact the ONLY Games that have been unstable on this system have been MTW 2 and RTW but only AFTER the 1.5 patch. up through RTW 1.3 I played months and months on modded games without ever a problem, and then with the 1.5 patch, it never worked again longer than 10 minutes. I just wish I didnt love the total war series and modding so much (and yes, MTW2 is unstable even on completely clean installs without any mod residuals)

No clearly, some programming decision of one of the lead programmers at CA is a flawed decision that is only stable on his/her build, and if you are lucky several others. I dont know if has anything to do with athalons, nvidia AGP cards, or what, but thats what I suspect. Otherwise I woudl have had problems with other games. Hell I can even play Europa 1400 The Guild without ever crashing and thats one of the other buggyest poorly written games in history

Thanks for the suggestion, but if it was my hard drive I would have problems with other games.
Has anybody else had this problem with MTW2? and if so how did you fix it?

Burrito X

[eusKai]

Your hardware isn´t uncommon at all, there must be many more people with your specs (more or less). Do you know if people with similar specs have the same problem as you?

PS: Maybe you should check possible overheating problems and memory errors. Better use some tools for that, don´t trust playing other games and seeing they work. BTW, overheating can happen in strange ways, but if it happens in the campaign map, maybe it could be the processor overheating?

PSS: Test are done with the apropiate tools, really. Games are not meant for that

[BurritoX]

Do you have any recommendations for testing programs/equipment?

As for heat, I am paranoid abotu that, my case has 6 fans, I dont overclock, and I have my saftey set limits at 65C (much less than the 'default' 90) The only game that so far has set off my alarms at 65C was Dawn of War at max effects after playing for abtou 2 hours. You sound liek yo know what your talking about so if yo uhave any reccs for the names of cuch testing programs Id be quite appreciative. and liek I said, Ill mail you 100 bucks if you can give me any advice that end up working.

BurritoX

[eusKai]

Do you have any recommendations for testing programs/equipment?

As for heat, I am paranoid abotu that, my case has 6 fans, I dont overclock, and I have my saftey set limits at 65C (much less than the 'default' 90) The only game that so far has set off my alarms at 65C was Dawn of War at max effects after playing for abtou 2 hours. You sound liek yo know what your talking about so if yo uhave any reccs for the names of cuch testing programs Id be quite appreciative.
BurritoX

Try Everest 2007, is not what i used, but it´s supossed to be very good. And yes, i had a hell of heating problems with my gpu once. However, if that isyour problem, surely it wont be the GPU (would crash in custom battles more easily), but maybe it´s the cpu, while the ai and pathfinding runs in the campaign . Everest will allow you to try bad memory and other problems too.

Do you have any recommendations for testing programs/equipment?

Ill mail you 100 bucks if you can give me any advice that end up working.

BurritoX

That won´t be necessary, of course, even if it works, but i know how desesperating these problems can be

Good luck with your PC. By the way, if the problem is an incompatibility with your HW, maybe you can look for more people with your problem in MTW2 and see what you have in common?

Right my current pc has the following specs:

At some point im going to upgrade with an all new motherboard, Intel E6600, Geforce 8800GT, and 4 or 8 GB of RAM.

Really nice machine indeed. I will get my first job in a week, and when i´ve saved for some months i´ll see if i can get something better than i have (but maybe not so good as that, it´s so expensive...)

Just curiosity, why 8 GB RAM. Is it not too much? Could it have real uses?