Nvidia troubles

[AU4Brent]

For the past two years, every time my computer has crashed (and it's happened several times), it's because the nvidia driver screwed up. It always seems to be when I'm playing M2TW. Has anyone else had this problem?

[Sknit]

Nope mine works fine are you sure that you have the latest drivers installed.

[Darkpriest667]

no but ive noticed that every time a NEW nvidia driver comes out .... within 15 minutes of playing agame if i dont have the new driver my computer crashes and system reboots... ... and it has ONLY done that when a new nvidia driver has come out... today june 18th the newest nvidia driver came out and guess what within 15 minutes of playing il 2 my game crashed and my computer restarted...

['nezau]

That happens to me every time I turn on my computer and play any game. It just restarts and then I get that "Don't Send" error. But it only does this once.

Check C:\WINDOWS\Minidump and you'll see that every time the computer restarts it makes one of those .dmp files at exactly the same date and time. One time I had so many of them the system restarted every time I tried to play a game. Deleted all of them and it worked smoothly for about a week... then it started all over again.

My brother said that folder is for memory errors but the game goes berserk just before the system restarts so it's gotta be something with the video driver or the video card itself. I have a Nvidia FX 5500 card bout 3 years old or so.

[zzzms]

My brother said that folder is for memory errors but the game goes berserk just before the system restarts so it's gotta be something with the video driver or the video card itself. I have a Nvidia FX 5500 card bout 3 years old or so.

What do you mean by berserk? Do the animations start to run extra fast? If so I don't think it's a video card/driver error. I get this in both M2TW and Rome, especially where a lot of units are crammed into a tight space, such as bridge battles and city gates.

On my old, old, AMD2800XP/ nvidia6200/ 2Gb RAM, it would do this and crash, on my old P4 (cant remember speed, it was 1st overclocking pc and didnt last long!!!) with an nvidia7800, 2Gb, the same happened and it occaisionaly crashed, on my latest machine (see sig) the same thing happens, but, it then calms down and goes back to normal. I had my old 7800 in my latest pc for quite a while (I had to do a lot of hard saving!), and the same thing would happen, it would go nuts, then calm down, but never crash.

I think it is a CPU/RAM thing, as the video card is only moving the units as instructed by the CPU, and, when this is happening the battle is still going on, and, as I said, it calms down and the battle continues. It seems that the better my CPU, with or without overclocking, and with better quality of memory, the better my machine copes. This maybe stating the obvious, but, I have a friend with a very similar set up, but he 'saved' money buying cheaper RAM, and he still gets the occaisional crash, when things go mad. But, not as many as before!

['nezau]

You know those Windows video tests with different colored shapes moving around on your screen?
Well on the campaign map in western and central Europe, usually the parts of the map with forests and a lot of graphics... that's where it starts to go weird with lines and shapes, like those in the video tests, appearing on the map and then the system restarts.

I tried to take a screenshot but the computer beat me to it with a cool restart... nice ... not!
Now I just get in the game move around the campaign map a bit, then I let it restart and then I can play without issues of that sort...

On the battle map I have no problems. Well no big problems... just ghostly units appearing here and there. Not all the time, but more often when I'm only using a general unit to fight some rebels.

[Squid]

Moved to M2TW technical help

[irishron]

What are your computer specs and operating system?

['nezau]

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Service Pack Service Pack 3
Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13


Motherboard
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1666 MHz (6.25 x 267) 2000+
Motherboard Name Shuttle AK32A (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 SDR DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio)
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT8366A Apollo KT266A
System Memory 1024 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (01/20/03)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

Display
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (128 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Monitor Samsung SyncMaster 703(M)s/750(M)s/753(M)s/MagicSyncMaster CM173A(M) (HDBW706952)

Multimedia
Audio Adapter VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller

Storage
Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y060L0 (60 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4167B
Optical Drive MFU SDEVCXQBWP SCSI CdRom Device
Optical Drive MFU SDEVCXQBWP SCSI CdRom Device

Partitions
C: (NTFS) 20002 MB (10164 MB free)
D: (NTFS) 38632 MB (13314 MB free)

Input
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse PS/2 Compatible Mouse

[irishron]

To me that's minimum specs at best and you're lucky it runs. If you're trying to run it anything above minimum you will have problems and you may with it.

['nezau]

Yeah I know it's a crappy rig. I got everything on low, no campaign map shadows nothing...
And the sieges are laggy.

Anybody know how to get rid of that smoke in the cities? Saw that once but can't find it anymore.
That usually is the culprit. Or the 6000 men in the siege.

[zzzms]

@'nezau, I don't want to be rude, or come across as being harsh, but, I feel you have wasted my time... Your PC is old, old, old, why would you expect it run new games? There are second user systems out there for <£200 (UK) that blow your system out of the water. Sort yourself out, dude!

['nezau]

OH NOES! I HAVE WASTED YOUR TIME!!!!!111

You will receive a refund a.s.a.p. but it's a recession out there so no refunds for you sadly.

I ain't going to go out spending money on a new computer just to play a game. Of course a great game, the best I've played in years but for me just not worth it.
The only reason I started posting in this thread is to maybe help other guys who like me, have a crappy computer and no plans of changing it in the near future. Maybe something in this thread will help somebody... who knows?

And if you feel like you wasted your time you could ask a mod to delete all your posts so your friends never find out you tried to help a guy with a crappy computer, because everybody knows that is the only motive people make fun of you...

[irishron]

It's the only link I have.

You're like too many others lately. The recession is not the game's fault. Nor is it the game's fault you have an underpowered computer to play it and refuse to upgrade. If that is the case I believe you need to find a game less demanding on your system.

['nezau]

I know it's not the game's fault. I like the game and I am going to play it even if I have this annoying problem. Just because I love it.
I would play the first Medieval Total War but I can't get it to work without crashing. That's the first Total War game I played back in '04.

And the link download still ain't working. Thanks for the link anyway!

[Gigantus]

New link for the reduced city textures.

['nezau]

New link for the reduced city textures.

Thank you!

[irishron]

New link for the reduced city textures.

Thank you.

[irishron]

These are my system specs from dxdiag

I have tried using the latest driver 186. WHQL final

The game starts no problem, I get to the custom battle menu choose my factions.
Then when I get to the loading screen the menu bar gets almost to the end and I get the white screen o sometimes the sound of the custom battles are heard but the loading menu is still on the screen?

I have reverted back to 181,22 on which I can play with all settings to ultra apart from ssao occlusion?
And if I do tick that box all that happens is the that I get some black lines appear from the edges of the animated models!
Any one have any idea why the problem still happens with the new drivers ?
Thanks in advance!


6/21/2009, 10:54:28
Machine name:
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7000) (7000.winmain_win7beta.081212-1400)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: G31M-S2C
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7300 @ 2.66GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 4094MB RAM
Page File: 2109MB used, 6376MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 125 DPI (130 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7000.0000 64bit Unicode

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 9600 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0622&SUBSYS_000010DE&REV_A1
Display Memory: 2289 MB
Dedicated Memory: 497 MB
Shared Memory: 1791 MB
Current Mode: 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (75Hz)
Monitor: SyncMaster 733NW /NW1733
Native Mode: 1440 x 900 (59.887Hz)
Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2um
Driver Version: 7.15.0011.8122 (English)
DDI Version: 10
Driver Model: WDDM 1.0
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 1/15/2009 08:19:00, 8612352 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: n/a
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a

Description: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0662&SUBSYS_1458A002&REV_1001
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM
Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5864 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail

The problems this game has had with Nvidia cards and drivers and some monitors having a mind of their own, find the settings that work best and leave it alone.

This CA/Nvidia finger pointing goes back to the Nvidia series 8 cards and I wouldn't be surprised to know it's still going on in the series 9 cards.

[irishron]

You're welcome. Thread closed.