RTW + BI + FATW GAME FREEZES

[MasterShake]

I posted this on the FATW Tech Questions thread and I was instructed to come here in order to try and get the help I need.

First and foremost, thanks for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it!

So yesterday I reformatted my comp. So i figured I would give FATW a try.

I loaded Rome TW, the 3 Disk Version. Then installed BI. I then updated (the official totalwar.com 1.6 patch) After I installed TNS 2.0b. Then 2.6, then the music pack. I was so stoked to begin.

The game starts fine, no loading problems. However, when I get into a Campaign or in a Historical Battle the game freezes. It is always random, sometimes 1 minute in, sometimes 15 minutes in, but no matter what, the game eventually freezes and nothing can unlock the frozen game.

I figured I botched something in the install, so I deleted everything and decided to start 100% fresh this morning.

So, I installed Rome TW, then BI, then 1.6, then TNS 2.0b. I decided to stop here to see if the game still would freeze. Low and behold 15 mins into a Rohan campaign, bam, the game locks up.

Not sure what the problem is, but I am sure it is simple and I am just missing it.

I made sure I was using Options > Audio Settings and choosing Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio. This was the default sound.

It is funny because RTR worked fine (Before I reformatted) using the same drivers, etc... (but that was not using BI 1.6)

Btw, yesterday, when I had 1.6 installed, I tried a normal BI game and about 30 mins in the game froze just like in TNS. So it leads me to believe it more of a Rome/BI problem. Any advice? I will try and be watching the thread so I can answer any questions you might have for me.

[Legio]

Did you let the batch file run its course during the installation of FATW?
It can run for up to an hour on the older comps.

[MasterShake]

Yes, I let the DOS install go as long as it needed. I installed TNS 2.0 twice and each time allowed it to fully finish (i watched tv )

[Legio]

Yes, I let the DOS install go as long as it needed. I installed TNS 2.0 twice and each time allowed it to fully finish (i watched tv )

Not twice in a row I hope?
Okay, try this:
right-click on the FATW icon, and select 'Properties'
in the target line, add -show_err at the end, if it is not already there.
if there is, have you been getting an error message? What is it?
And were you running ANY other programs while installing FATW?

[MasterShake]

Not twice in a row I hope?
Okay, try this:
right-click on the FATW icon, and select 'Properties'
in the target line, add -show_err at the end, if it is not already there.
if there is, have you been getting an error message? What is it?
And were you running ANY other programs while installing FATW?

The first time i had my Anti-virus/Firewall on, and I figured that was the problem... thats why the next morning I unistalled everything and restarted from scratch with nothing else running.

I am at work (dun tell my boss) so I cannot try that right now, just thought I would start trying to troubleshoot this at work so I can get it working faster once I get home

[MasterShake]

After reading about BI issues I have an additional inquiry.

I installed:
-RTW
-BI
-Patch v1.6

When I install BI, it patches RTW to 1.3, does this effect BI and subsequently FATW?
Do I need to update RTW to 1.5? (I do not think it matters as long as I am using BI/FATW right?)

[Legio]

BI 1.6 patches RTW up to 1.5 I think. But I always do the patch just in case.
Maybe you installed FATW to wrong folder?

[MasterShake]

I thought about that, but I installed it to the one it said was default in the FATW directions. Also, FATW starts up great, and I can even play it for say 15-20 mins, but eventually it freezes up. I do not think it would work that much if it was installed to the wrong folder, right?

Also, BI (vanilla) froze up after a few turns on campaign mode. Which led me to believe its a RTW/BI problem I am havin

[Legio]

Any error messages?
Do you have enough virtual memory?
The default is not always the one you have. Do you have your RTW installed in Activision or The Creative Assembly folder?
To find out, go to My Computer
Loal Disk C:
Program Files
And then look for either of CA or Act and see if RTW is in there.

[MasterShake]

Thanks for your time helping Legio Ceasar, I appreciate it!

[Legio]

Thanks for your time helping Legio Ceasar, I appreciate it!

Sure.
I will try my best.
Maybe dl link for FATW is corrupted, or do complete manual uninstall of RTW.

[Legio]

How to do a complewte manual uninstall of RTW.
Maybe some other mod files still exist and are striking back!
EDIT: Sorry I did not realize I did triple post.

[MasterShake]

How to do a complewte manual uninstall of RTW.
Maybe some other mod files still exist and are striking back!
EDIT: Sorry I did not realize I did triple post.

It is funny because the reason I reformatted my comp was because I could not uninstall RTW, for one of the various reasons.

However, I deleted the CI folder, and then uninstalled BI, and then RTW. The folder was left empty, I deleted it and I was pretty sure (I had nothing else on the HD, except Starcraft and anti-virus) that I had a clean install.

EDIT: Also, I D/L everything from basically primary sources. 1.6 from Sega, and the FATW all from the FATW website post about the triple release.

[Legio]

So did you do what it said in the thread?
Deleting the folder is NEVER teh right way to do it. Go to control panel always or do manually.

[MasterShake]

Sure.
I will try my best.
Maybe dl link for FATW is corrupted, or do complete manual uninstall of RTW.

Mine is in the activision folder.

No error messages, just Freezes, and its usually when I click either a unit (in battle), or an area on the campaign map.

I have been able to make it through an entire Battle, Gondor/Rohan vs Harad, but other times it freezes before the battle is over.

[MasterShake]

I will post system spec's when I get home, I dun know them off the top of my head, but its a 2.8 Ghz AMD and 2 GB ram with a 512 mb 7800 extreme GT nVidia...

Like I said, I just reformatted the my comp so unless somehow I f-ed something up, I should have more than enough system performance to handle RTW-BI/FATW

I play games like Battlefield 2, CoD 2 on rather high settings w/o ever having resource/virtual memory problems. I will check tho once I get back to the comp.

For example, I can play Bf2 with xfire on and being in a Ventrillo server talkin with buds.

But like I said, I just re-formatted so maybe something got messed during windows installation

[Lysander13]

You clearly have enough "juice" so to speak to run the game. Though, I wasn't suggesting you didn't. Rather perhaps that there is some rogue running process that's mucking things up. Of course if you never encounter this problem while doing anything else or playing other games and it only occurs when you run BI...Then that is a strange one to be sure.

[MasterShake]

You clearly have enough "juice" so to speak to run the game. Though, I wasn't suggesting you didn't. Rather perhaps that there is some rogue running process that's mucking things up. Of course if you never encounter this problem while doing anything else or playing other games and it only occurs when you run BI...Then that is a strange one to be sure.

I use the Avast Anti Virus program, its free so I would be willing to bet it is not eating more then 2-5% of the pc's available resources.

I will check the virtual memory tho, it definitely could be the problem.

I would be willing to bet that RTW (not BI) works fine. So it leads me believe that the problem lies with my BI. I bought the game off of ebay, everything looked legit tho...

Could it be a graphics problem? The game only freezes when the campaign map/battle map is being used... havent had any problems in any of the menu's. So, could for some reason my Anti-aliasing, or Shadows be doing something that is making the system lock up?

[Lysander13]

I use the Avast Anti Virus program, its free so I would be willing to bet it is not eating more then 2-5% of the pc's available resources.

I will check the virtual memory tho, it definitely could be the problem.

I would be willing to bet that RTW (not BI) works fine. So it leads me believe that the problem lies with my BI. I bought the game off of ebay, everything looked legit tho...

Could it be a graphics problem? The game only freezes when the campaign map/battle map is being used... havent had any problems in any of the menu's. So, could for some reason my Anti-aliasing, or Shadows be doing something that is making the system lock up?

Well the problem could be any number of things. That's why you need to trouble shoot it a bit to narrow things down. One thing I believe I can safely say for sure is that the problem is on the user end and not with FATW the mod. As it happens I have it installed on my system and it runs just fine on high settings and your graphics card is better than mine. I believe you said you have a 7800GT Nvidia? I guess it wouldn't hurt to try shutting off shadows and anti-aliasing to see what happens. The only problem I could see with your Graphics card is a possible driver issue. Did you recently install new drivers? If you did, did BI run just fine with the old ones? How about your other games? How do they run now? If it is a driver issue, can you roll them back and still have your other games run without any problems? Before you do that though, confirm that your problem only occurs when your running BI. If it happens elsewhere, before messing around with drivers, check for rogue processes, virtual memory,...things of that sort. You said you just reformatted so I presume Hard Disk space is not an issue.

Edit: Though I'm sure it doesn't need to be mentioned. I will just to be on the side of caution. Trouble shooting your problem, presumes your BI CD that you got from Ebay I believe, is not damaged or scratched and is in good working order.

[MasterShake]

Well the problem could be any number of things. That's why you need to trouble shoot it a bit to narrow things down. One thing I believe I can safely say for sure is that the problem is on the user end and not with FATW the mod. As it happens I have it installed on my system and it runs just fine on high settings and your graphics card is better than mine. I believe you said you have a 7800GT Nvidia? I guess it wouldn't hurt to try shutting off shadows and anti-aliasing to see what happens. The only problem I could see with your Graphics card is a possible driver issue. Did you recently install new drivers? If you did, did BI run just fine with the old ones? How about your other games? How do they run now? If it is a driver issue, can you roll them back and still have your other games run without any problems? Before you do that though, confirm that your problem only occurs when your running BI. If it happens elsewhere, before messing around with drivers, check for rogue processes, virtual memory,...things of that sort. You said you just reformatted so I presume Hard Disk space is not an issue.

Agreed, the MOD is fine, it is definitely something wrong with my system. I rarely update my driver b/c I have a very rare Video Card and there are hardly ever any updates. So I use the original Asus/nVidia drivers that came with my original comp. These drivers have allowed me to play Bf2, CoD2, the newest Flight Sim (10 i think), Civ 4, and many other games. Never have I had a "Freezing" problem before. I have had many other problems, but never once quite like this random freeze/system lock up. I only have Starcraft installed on the comp up until this point, and it has no problems freezing and I have not had the comp freeze in anything except when I am playing campaign or battle in RTW-BI/FATW

Sorry I cannot get to my gaming comp until tomorrow night, but when I do I will try everything listed thus far in the thread.