Help - battles freeze.

**Cincinnatus** · September 26, 2009, 05:44 PM

I truly need help here.

I have had Medieval Total War 2 and the Kingdoms expansion since they came out. They used to work fine .I have them patched to the latest patches. I have the latest drivers for my Nvidia card. I use the "auto detect" settings for video. I bought and installed empire Total War when it first came out.

I have other games on my computer that are more demanding than total WAr, and work fine.

A few months ago, battles In Kingdoms would freexe. I would hear a humming sound, and the screen would lock up. I could not use any controls, aand nothing moved on the screen. The armies on the screen were frozen in place. After a minute or so, the lock up would end, and I would be able to proceed with the battle.The battle might lock up again, and unfreeze again. This could happen many times in one battle.

I had the same problem with Empire Total War.

Recently, the screen just stayed frozen, and would not unfreeze. The only way I could get out of it would be to manually turn off the computer.

I switched to playing vanilla Medieval total War 2. The battles I fought yesterday went perfectly, no matter how large, without a problem. The battle I attempted to play today, in the very same campaign I played yesterday, locked up and stayed locked up, in exactly the same way the other games did. This was a battle with smaller armies and better weather than the ones I played without problem yesterday.

I clicked on properties for the Medieval 2 folder, and saw a green dot in the space marked "read only". Could this have anything to do with it? If so, How would I change it?

Has anyone had a similar problem? Does anyone know how to fix it?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Cincinnatus.

**PoleCat** · September 26, 2009, 09:58 PM

...I would hear a humming sound, and the screen would lock up. I could not use any controls, aand nothing moved on the screen. The armies on the screen were frozen in place. After a minute or so, the lock up would end, and I would be able to proceed with the battle....

This sounds bad - like hardware bad and not software.

Recently, the screen just stayed frozen, and would not unfreeze. The only way I could get out of it would be to manually turn off the computer.

The problem is getting worse.

I clicked on properties for the Medieval 2 folder, and saw a green dot in the space marked "read only". Could this have anything to do with it?

No.

Short answer - if your system starts "humming" and afterwards you have a serious failure then something is dieing in your system. This case could be a bad power supply or graphics card.

Try doing basic maintenance before panicking - open up the side of your case and use a compressed air canister to gently dust off any dirt and accumulated grime you see (especially on the video card and CPU). Try not to touch them unless you've grounded yourself.

If this helps then you're set. If not then there's more to the story we'll need to know. If you need more help then give us your system spec via DxDiag. Here's how:

DxDiag is easy to run if you have any knowledge of Windows. Go to the "Start" button and in that menu choose "Run Program" option ("Run..." in Vista IIRC). In the pop-up field type "dxdiag" and press enter. This is the DirectX test program - let it finish the test. After the test is finished choose the button toward the bottom labeled "Save All Information..." and save it to your desktop. Next open up this forum and post the results by copying and pasting directly to the forum. Please don't post attachments as they take up more space and time - just copy and paste. Please post ALL info and if you can please wrap it in a spoiler tag to minimize page size.

Thanks! Good luck!

**Cincinnatus** · September 26, 2009, 11:42 PM

Thanks Polecat,

We'll clean the cpu per your instructions tomorrow and see if that fixes the problem. If not, I will do the DXDiAG and post it as you suggested.

Really appreciate your help.

Cincinnatus

**andfjel** · October 03, 2009, 11:56 AM

I have the similar problems with M2TW

I have both played the vanilla game, and Broken crescent mod... The game freezes, and sometimes you have to turn off the computer manually.
I have a totally new pc as well :/

**andfjel** · October 03, 2009, 12:02 PM

Here is the results of my dxdiag. Hope it can help

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**irishron** · October 03, 2009, 12:47 PM

One thing they are finding out in Empire is in Nvidia controls is set everything to application controlled and set the game settings in the game. You don't say what your game settings are but the this game is not optimized for multicore cpus or the latest graphics cards, you may have turn down your game battle settings.

**andfjel** · October 03, 2009, 01:06 PM

I run on almost best in everything with 1900 or so resoulution... so that might be the problem...
will try to turn down the resoulution first

thank you for the answer

**PoleCat** · October 04, 2009, 06:34 AM

Just looked your DX log and noticed you're not running DirectX 9.0. As far as I've read from following irishron you'll need the older files for this game. Just a heads up.

**andfjel** · October 04, 2009, 11:10 AM

Ah..I see... I have the newest processors..and that may cause problems... and I also run with DX10...
Is there a way to switch to DX9 easily, or do you have to uninstall dx10 and install dx9?

Thanx for the help anyway...

**irishron** · October 04, 2009, 11:33 AM

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en is for the latest dx9. Vista being what it is download it to your desktop and install it from there. The autorun will kick you out because you have a newer version (dx10). Don't edlete anything. Windows will use both and no conflicts.

**andfjel** · October 05, 2009, 12:49 PM

It seems that my problem is hardware

I get this hissing sound when it crashes...and my computer does this every time I try to run a game...not just M2TW. Had to send it back to the shop I bought it

hate it!

Glad that I have Europa Barbarorum on my laptop then...back to Rome Total War

Thanx for the help anyway