I bet you haven't seen this before...seriously

**Darkside** · July 08, 2007, 12:53 PM

I really really hope someone can tell me what is going on here because I desperately need your help. Recently, I was in a car accident and I have been forced to sit at home for the last month doing absolutely nothing. So happy-go-lucky me thought, "Hey, maybe I can install RTW/RTR again since I have quite literally NOTHING to do." Before you read on, just know that this post is VERY comprehensive so unless you can genuinely help me and have experience with fixing RTW technical problems...just stop right now. BTW I'm sorry if I sound rude but I have been trying to get to the bottom of this problem for about a week now.

Alright here we go.

I tried installing RTW (the sega version...lol maybe that's the problem right there) with the intent of installing RTR platinum 1.9 on a computer that has never, repeat, NEVER EVER EVER had RTW on it before. Ever. Installation is fine, no problems at all. I then installed BI. Again, no problems. Downloaded the 1.6 patch, installed it, no problems there either.
I then downloaded RTR platinum_full install and installed it. RTR platinum created 2 icons on my desktop: one for running with RTW, one for running with BI.
I try to run with BI. Loads up, goes to the main menu. I want to play a campaign as the Romans on Hard/Hard. I select my options and proceed onwards. The loading bar screen pops up, and it loads, loads, loads...until it gets to the very tip top of the loading bar...then freezes. Nothing happens passed that point.
So, I uninstall RTW completely, delete the folders, make sure my registry is alright, delete the 1.6 patch I downloaded and the RTR platinum_full installer just to make sure I didn't have corrupted downloads or whatever, and download both of those all over again. I then try it again.
Installation again is fine (I have not had any errors come up when installing). Load up the game. This time I try a single battle, not a campaign. That actually loads all the way and I can play it. I exit out of that and try the campaign again...and again, the loading bar gets all the way to the very end, then stops and does nothing, just like last time.
So I uninstall again, and this time I think "I'm just gonna install RTW and not a mod and try it" just on a whim. I do not install BI. I load up RTW right after installing, and oddly enough, the copyright page that comes up, you know with all the "total war is a product of so-and-so copyright blah blah" is the BI one, not the RTW one. I find that odd. Another thing I find odd is that the game stops loading right there. Completely. Luckily I CTRL+ALT+DEL my way out of that one.
Now I'm really perplexed so I search this site and find no problem like it.
I then uninstall the game, reinstall it, and install BI this time, but again, no mod. Try to run it. Again the copyright page comes up, the BI one, and it still freezes right there.
Here is where it gets interesting...
Remember how when I installed RTR I actually got to the main menu? Well I just reinstalled a fresh copy of RTW and BI, then installed RTR platinum_full install yet again. And with RTR...I get to the main menu.

For whatever reason, without a mod it freezes, even on a clean install, right on the copyright page, and with RTR, I get to the main freaking menu. WTF?!?!?!?
Okay I'm almost done now. For trial and error's sake I uninstall everything, reinstall RTW without BI, and this time pick another mod, Roma Surrectum, which sounded really freaking cool I thought. I install that and try to run it. This mod also freezes on it's respective copyright page.

So here's my situation in case you skipped ahead:
1. RTW with/without BI and NO mod freezes on copyright page.
2. RTW with BI and RTR loads main menu but I can't play a campaign
3. Tried another mod, and this also freezes on copyright page.

To top it all off, this is the FOURTH copy I have purchased of Rome: Total War because my other copies somehow got screwed up some way or another. Actually, my first copy disc exploded, yeah, EXPLODED in my old computer's CD drive.

Can anyone give me any suggestions or help with this? I'm pretty much to the point where if you can, hell I'll throw in 50 bux I'm not even messing around with you. I'm very picky about the computer games I play and when I do play them, I only play 1 or 2 at a time. RTW with RTR is hands down the best game I have ever played on any console/platform in my life. CAN ANYBODY HELP ME FIGURE OUT WTF IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?!?

**Quinctius Cincinnatus** · July 08, 2007, 01:22 PM

I indeed haven't seen this before. What a remarquable story...
I read whole your monologue, and I came to only one conclusion: you have a very very very very rare error. As it is very rare, no solution exists for this, I think. Maybe there is a command you can insert that you can skip the bugging page.
One thing is clear: you didn't make a mistake, your pc did/rtw did.

You will need advise from experts, which you will find here around.
I wish you best of luck to restore this seemingly hopeless situation.
It seems like you are doomed not to play RTR...

Quinctius.

**AngryTitusPullo** · July 08, 2007, 01:28 PM

Just one question. Is your OS Vista or XP ? I have heard of problem people running mods (not vanilla games) on Vista.

**Darkside** · July 08, 2007, 01:49 PM

I'm running XP. Lol I just tried loading RTR and selecting another faction. Again the loading bar went to the very end then stopped. I waited ten minutes before I ALT+CTRL+DEL'd outta it. Ugh. You know I hvae about 10 computer games in front of me and it's a shame not any one of them is as good as RTR...I've been forced to play "Praetorians..."

**AngryTitusPullo** · July 08, 2007, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by Darkside

I'm running XP. Lol I just tried loading RTR and selecting another faction. Again the loading bar went to the very end then stopped. I waited ten minutes before I ALT+CTRL+DEL'd outta it. Ugh. You know I hvae about 10 computer games in front of me and it's a shame not any one of them is as good as RTR...I've been forced to play "Praetorians..."

That is strange indeed... If the game stuck at the end of the loading screen I think it means that the map.rwm was not generating fully. Maybe it's the problem of later version of RTW-BI ?

Since I just reformatted my pc I haven't installed RTRPE back yet, so maybe someone can post a map.rwm from an unmodded RTRPE 1.9 from their own game and you can try to put them in your data.wold/map/base folder.

**Darkside** · July 08, 2007, 02:01 PM

So then...If I reinstall and don't run that campaign batch file thingy or whatever, will that possibly fix my problem ya think?

And if someone knows what Lestat is talking about please upload it ASAP as I am eager to try any possible solution.

**AngryTitusPullo** · July 08, 2007, 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by Darkside

So then...If I reinstall and don't run that campaign batch file thingy or whatever, will that possibly fix my problem ya think?

And if someone knows what Lestat is talking about please upload it ASAP as I am eager to try any possible solution.

Nope. By not running the map reset, the existing map.rwm if you instal the normal mod, not the mod:switch version is from vanilla RTW and will not work. What you need is a working map.rwm from RTRPE itself (either mod:switch version or normal version).

**Darth Caesar** · July 08, 2007, 02:06 PM

I think I saw something similar on my friends computer. Something he did to make his computer play windows 95 games, I cant remember. But the same happened to him If I remember correctly. Does it bring to mind any thoughts. Im probably barking up the wrong tree but its just to help out

**Darkside** · July 08, 2007, 02:09 PM

Well...I haven't done anything like that. Haven't needed to. Thanks anyway.

**Darth Caesar** · July 08, 2007, 02:13 PM

yeah, just what you described seemed pretty similar to what he had. Anything different about your hardware or software, etc drivers or anything?. Never know, could be something like that

**Darkside** · July 08, 2007, 02:19 PM

Actually...I updated my video drivers after the first problem. It is a piece of **** nvidia fx 5200 256 mb, but itll do.

**Darkside** · July 08, 2007, 03:07 PM

Okay well I hope someone can give me one as I am deff anxious to try that out.

**dvk901** · July 11, 2007, 11:04 AM

When you installed RTW, were you prompted to install 'DirectShow'? RTW won't work without it. Also, you might check your version of Directx...it could be the game is freezing because it's having difficulties loading the last of the graphics necessary to display it. You should have Version 9.0c. If not, go to Microsoft and install it from there. Do you update your PC regularly? If you have the original version of Windows XP, but not service pack one, you can also have trouble with this game. Service Pack 2 is OK, but not necessary.

I seriously do not think this is an RTW problem, rather, something in your OS is amiss. BTW, I work on PC's for living, so I'm not just pulling stuff out of my rear.

**TheBard** · July 13, 2007, 05:08 PM

I'm not sure if maybe you already fixed your problem (or else gave up and stopped trying!), but I have had very similar problems with other games and it always was a result of problems with Direct X. Dvk901 seems to have provided quite a few possible solutions, and my guess is that one of those should fix the problem. I may be way off the mark, but is there a possibility that your graphics card can't play the opening sequence video? It sounded like you've played RTW in the past, so I doubt that is the issue. I would say you should update Windows XP to SP2 at least and see where that gets you. And then update Direct X to 9 at least (10 is out also, though it wouldn't be required). Good luck!

**CiusFortius** · July 16, 2007, 07:30 AM

I'd bet its the graphics card. I'd also reccomend updating DirectX and checking. A re-install of the mod/game is not required. I'd then roll back to a stable graphics driver. I had problems with RTW when using the latest nvidia drivers for my card as they were buggy. I checked up on some hardware/driver forums and for my card found out which of the old drivers lots of people swore by. Once I had uninstalled the newer driver, and loaded up the older one all my problems went away.

The fact that you can play custom battles, but not the campaign, and the fact that the copyright screen is before some videos points towards the drivers. Maybe uninstall any odd codecs you have and just install basic WMP, divx, and xvid packages instead.