Failure to launch - is there a hardware fix?

[caldwell77]

How many people have trouble getting a clean launch? Occasionly I can get the game to start up straight away with no problems, but most of the time it's more a matter of how many tries will it take to get a decent frame rate.

If the logo is choppy, I know it's hopeless - reboot.
If the logo is smooth, there is at least a chance - open a campaign, if the flags and clouds are stuttering noticably the battles will be a bug fest. reboot.
If the clouds and flags are just barely stuttering, try clicking on a few towns and scroll around a little. If it responds at all decently then just be happy you finally got it to run at all and deal with it. If it still lags, it won't get any better. - roboot.
If everything runs smooth as glass settle in for a 12 hr game session because not even God knows when you'll get another chance!

Seriously 6-8 launch attempts are common. After that, if I still can't get a clean start I just give up for the day and except that, like a woman on PMS, sometimes you just have bad days and there's nothing more you can do about it. Then I come on here and rant some more (guess where I am in that process right now).

How many other folks are nodding right now and saying "Yep, me to."?

[caldwell77]

OK well, since I seem to be the ONLY one having this particular problem I'll put it another way: Are there any known hardware conflicts that have consistantly caused problems? Or is there a video/sound card that is consistantly well behaved? Maybe it IS my computer.

Intel E8400 Core2Duo
4 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8600GTS
Intel DP35DPM Socket 775 Motherboard (with integrated sound)
VISTA 64 bit

[ReallyTinyGuys]

I would sooner point at Vista than the hardware you have, but I may be by myself with that call. I don't like Vista at all.

I run XP 32 Bit on a 4400 AMD x2 & 9800 GTX+ & XFI Platinum. I have only crashed once in game (well quite a few times but the one cause), and that was the known Inuit Indian bug.

The issue you are having seems very strange. But I wouldn't blame your hardware, as it looks pretty good to me.

If I was you, I would go buy a cheap hi-speed 10,000k Raptor drive and install 32 bit XP Service Pack 2 on it. Does wonders for loading times. Even better, get two Raptors and Raid (0) them. They are cheap nowdays.

[Legionnaire151]

I would sooner point at Vista than the hardware you have, but I may be by myself with that call. I don't like Vista at all.

Vista isn't the problem.

[caldwell77]

Entry deleted.

[Turbo]

Caldwell,

I get that on occassion but not as frequently as you do. I haven't been able to see whether the choppy graphics continue into the game as Empire consistently crashes for me when I hit the end turn.

If you have an NVIDIA card, then I can suggest a few things you can try. I haven't totally solved the choppiness but I was able to greatly reduce its frequency.

One thing you definately want to do is to disable your antivirus from scanning files prior to executing. For some reason this drives Empire nuts. Another is to look at increasing your virtual memory. Even though I have 4 gigs of ram and XP, Empire either has a memory leak with some cards or doesn't use the memory well. It does a fair amount of swapping to the harddrive during launch.