MTW1 and STW Issues with 8000+ Graphic Card Series

[uk_john]

Based on seeing Empire Total War trailers and previews, I thought I would load up my Shogun Total War for another game. I found the mouse control on the tactical battles didn't work properly, so went to the web for a fix. I found that a known problem has existed for nearly a year for people with 8000+ series cards, with both Shogun and Medieval Total War being affected.

This mouse control problem, just because you have a higher end video card comes under the category of 'bug' as far as I, and many others, are concerned, and to have these problems ignored for so long is an insult. This is especially so when a publisher, GSC Gameworld, a company 1,000 times smaller than Creative/SEGA/NVidia can release a fix for their title 'Cossacks' that is very similar (the game wouldn't work with high end videocards)!

Until such time as I can once again play Shogun Total War and/or Medieval Total War, I will not be buying another Creative Assembly product. This includes Empire Total War. Show me you support your previous titles and i'll support you with your new titles.

[nodey]

Wrong forum.
Next.

[Harry Lime]

Moved to Total War: Eras Technical Help

[thatguy]

Oh its ooooon now.

[Brusilov]

I hope this was also posted on the total was forum......

[uk_john]

Brusilov - I tried, but in both cases the message gets moved to the technical help thread, where there is no help for the problems anyway (they have existed for a year!), and where it is hidden away. I would rather my message stayed in the Empire Total War thread where I wanted it.

[Brusilov]

Do you have an old desktop on which you could play these games?

I think I tried to install Shogun on my new desktop (it's got a 8800GTX card) and had a great deal of problems just installing it - but I managed it somehow.

I don't recall any problems on the battlefield. I will check it out next weekend (I am working away from home at the moment).

[uk_john]

If it was easy to play in my house, then I would complain.... So if I have an old desktop, set up ready to play at the drop of a hat, then fine. But that, like with so many people, is not a possibility. I tried it in the Microsoft Virtual PC, but that is not a strong enough PC emulator for this game as it's not too old.

In any event, Creative have made $100's from me as I have bought Shogun and the expansion and Medieval and the expansions and Rome and the expansions. Add tthis to all the other sales and they have made millions, and quite simply they should be at least telling us what they are doing about it, which they are not, or fixing it, which they are not!

So I repeat, if they cannot support me with my earlier Creative titles I have paid good money for, then I am not going to support them by giving them more money for new titles.

[Brusilov]

Must be my memory going.

I installed the 'Warlord Edition' from Sold Out Software (in the UK - it's a very good source of out of production games) today.

The install went OK. I could set the graphics higher than 1152x864 but then the menu started to flash. Not a good start.

I then went into the tutorials and the mouse doesn't work properly (well, I couldn't select a unit properly). I could use the mouse to move around the battlefield. However, units when viewed close would lose about half of the unit.

If I want to play Shogun I'll have to dig out my old desktop with it's ATI X800XT card (which may be too new anyway).

Bummer!

The one 'old' game that I continue to play is 'Grand Prix Legends' which was released in 1998 by Sierra. While the graphics would be a bit dated now the community (with assistance from Sierra/Papyrus) have released patches which makes the graphics perfect for high end PCs and graphics cards. It's a motor racing simulation and it's very hard but rewarding experience.

[uk_john]

Are you the same Brusilov on the Ironworks forums? If yes, thanks again! Your problems are exactly what everybody with 8000 series cards get, so going to an old PC is the only option. I contacted SEGA support and today I got a reply - typical reply of course....

"Thank you for contacting SEGA Europe.

Shogun and Medieval were released years ago before the 8000 Nvidia Series was available and as such was never tested specifically for those graphic cards. Unfortunately this means we cannot guarantee it will run without issues on those graphic cards.

We do not have any patch I am afraid to fix this issue.

Best regards,"

So unless an unofficial patch comes out, playing these game on any modern PC just is not going to happen! And of course, if you don't have an old PC you can dig up, then they are now dead games. Such a shame for such classic games!

Thank god for people who make things like DOSBox and the Virtual PC, that allow us to play the even older games! All we need is a Virtual PC that's a bit beefier in what it emulates so we can play more modern games like Shogun and MTW on it!

It does mean that buying MTW 2, Kingdoms and Empire Total War become problematical as they too may not work as soon as you upgrade to a card that didn't exist when they were released!

It also depends very much on the publisher too. Because as I said above, GSC Gameworld (of STALKER fame) had a similar problem with one of it's older games 'Cossacks' (wouldn't run with a high end graphic card) and decided it WOULD take the time to do a fix! They hacked a direct X dll file in order to get it to work - and yes, I did try it, but it only fixes Cossacks, it doesn't fix Shogun/MTW!!!

It's ultimately down to the developer/publisher, and obviously SEGA don't care, whereas GSC Gameworld do.

Such a shame, such a shame. And of course, as gamers upgrade their PC's, there will be fewer and fewer messages in those game threads on this site and other sites! Eventually then, these games will just disappear from history, because why have them on a future abandonware site, etc, if they don't work?!

[irishron]

Hey, does that mean I get a fix to play my twenty year old DOS games in Vista?

[uk_john]

Hey, does that mean I get a fix to play my twenty year old DOS games in Vista?

DOS games are okay, because there is a utility called DOSBox, which I believe works in Vista. The problem is going to be those Win95/Win98/early XP games that don't work in DOSBox. Shogun and Medieval Total War are Win98 games, not DOS games. So in the future, unless there is a more powerful Virtual PC emulator that emulates a D3D card and a 1.3ghxz CPU, no future PC will run Shogun and MTW, so they will just disappear. Of course Creative Assembly may decide they can do a quick fix, like GSC Gameworld did, but I wouldn't hold my breath, given that this problem has been known about for nearly a year now!

As we move into the future, the retro games for us, ie the DOS games, will change to be games that ran on Win98, like Shogun, and Half Life 1 and Far Cry, etc. So in 10 years time, maybe many of the PC games of 1997-2007 will just disappear because win98 games cannot be emulated in whatever comes after Vista, the 8000 series cards and the dual core cpu's in the future.

As I said above, our only hope is for a decent win98 emulator, unofficial patches/hacks and the hope that at least some games will run under win98 emulation on what comes after Vista (if what comes after Vista has any Win98 emulation at all!)

If you think you going to still be playing these Win98XP games in 10 years, I strongly recommend you save up (if you have to) and build/buy a retro PC with a 5200 video card or equivalent, a 1.3ghz or thereabouts cpu, win98SE/XP dual boot operating system and a Soundblaster Live sound card, along with a ps2 mouse and keyboard. If you don't then games like Shogun, Medieval Total War , the later Tomb Raiders, Vampire Bloodlines, System Shock 2, The Thief series, Baldur's Gate, Freelancer, Neverwinter Nights, etc, etc will all just disappear as they will not be playable on a modern 2018 PC as there is no emulator out there, similar to DOSBox, to run them!

As I say, due to DOSBox we can still play the old DOS games, and with the Virtual PC from Microsoft, you can play successfully win95 and early win98 games. But as to later Win98 games and early Win98/XP games, I don't think the future is looking rosy.

It could be, in 10+ years, that when someone talks about 'retro PC gaming' they still mean DOS games, because they are the only ones that can still be played on what PC's will be in 10 years!

[irishron]

The problem is, and I believe the last time it was supported was Win98, most of the early DOS games were on and played on floppy disks. When they exited they reverted back command.com and now will lock up your system. I haven't tried DOSbox in a few years and the one then was garbage.

[uk_john]

The problem is, and I believe the last time it was supported was Win98, most of the early DOS games were on and played on floppy disks. When they exited they reverted back command.com and now will lock up your system. I haven't tried DOSbox in a few years and the one then was garbage.

Well DOSBox is now at 0.72 and there are front ends for it now, like D-Fend Reloaded and D.O.G., that make using DOSBox all tabs and menus instead of DOSBox commands. The front end lets you set everything up, tell it where your CD-Rom drive is and where on the harddrive the game is, let's you set the graphics and sounds, etc then you just double click on the game title and the front end calls up DOSBox and sets all the commands up for you and runs the game!

I play lots of DOS Games and use both D-Fend Reloaded and D.O.G and it's a doddle to use now! I have about 25 DOS games all listed in either Front-End and I just double click the title to open DOSBox full screen at the right cycles rate and everything and I just play the game! I can download a DOS game and have it running in 3 minutes tops! I have spent around a week trying to get Shogun to work, with no joy! Who would have thought a DOS game would be set up quicker than a Win98 game! 10 years ago they would never have believed you!

[Brusilov]

Are you the same Brusilov on the Ironworks forums? If yes, thanks again! Your problems are exactly what everybody with 8000 series cards get, so going to an old PC is the only option. I contacted SEGA support and today I got a reply - typical reply of course....

"Thank you for contacting SEGA Europe.

Shogun and Medieval were released years ago before the 8000 Nvidia Series was available and as such was never tested specifically for those graphic cards. Unfortunately this means we cannot guarantee it will run without issues on those graphic cards.

We do not have any patch I am afraid to fix this issue.

No, there is another Brusilov out there. On some forums I find that the name has been taken. I started using the name when I bought Cossacks II Napoleonic Wars in Spring 2005 (a big disappointment).

The blurb is a bit insulting. Obviously a game cannot be tested for a card that is released years after the product launch.

You would have hoped that a gamer friendly company would try and support the game after it is 'obsolete'.

[uk_john]

Brusilov - sorry for confusing you with someone else, but you are both helpful!

Also I am now thinking of getting Cossacks now I cannot play Shogun or MTW, as i understand it is similar and at least a fix is available to make it work on our PC's!

[Brusilov]

Brusilov - sorry for confusing you with someone else, but you are both helpful!

Also I am now thinking of getting Cossacks now I cannot play Shogun or MTW, as i understand it is similar and at least a fix is available to make it work on our PC's!

No problems - that's what happens when two people choose similar names. I thought Brusilov (Alexei Alekseevich Brusilov (1853-1926) - http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/brusilov.htm ) was a fairly safe bet but obviously not.

Cossacks II is a mistake where the original Cossacks series was great fun. I do know that the graphics look a bit plain. Many hours were spent on that.

The 'American Conquest' series (the expansions were 'Fight Back' and 'Divided Nation') was better than Cossacks II.

Also the original 'Stronghold' was worth every penny - I played that to death. The second version of that was a mistake.

If you are looking for an old game and are in the UK - http://www.sold-out.co.uk/

This site has Stronghold but not the Cossacks or American Conquest series.

[ordoprinceps]

I have that problem with Rome Total War (my favorite) and my 8600 GT OC card. I have tried to get somebody to address it but the big boys don't seem to care.

[uk_john]

I have that problem with Rome Total War (my favorite) and my 8600 GT OC card. I have tried to get somebody to address it but the big boys don't seem to care.

Well I have Rome Total War on my hard drive, so I will dig it out and see, because I have only heard that the problem is with Shogun and the first Medieval Total War not Rome total War.

Oh, and Brusilov, I am in the UK and have just bought the Cossacks Anthology on ebay for a fiver, so by the end of the week I will be at least playing a MTW type game - shame I couldn't have saved five pounds sterling and be playing the original MTW!

When great games get old, the developer/publisher who has the rights to it should sell it directly, then with a game like Cossacks, I could actually give my money to GSC Gameworld rather than having to buy it secondhand!

[ordoprinceps]

Before I can considering modding I need a fix so I can play RTW with my high end NVidia card. I won't be buying anymore TW games until I get this issue taken care of. Who the heck can we contact for help?:hmmm: