Campaign Crashes To Black Screen

[Lanceret]

So I've been getting this crash a hell of a lot lately both while playing the 'Third Age Total War' mod and 'Stainless Steel' I haven't played any other variant of mtw2 since I installed so I don't know if this problem persists in other variations.

But whenever I'm playing on the campaign map the game has a habit of crashing to a black screen where my monitor doesn't seem to pick up anything anymore and the sound will carry on playing for a minute or so before getting stuck in a loop and forcing me to restart my computer. The problem seems to be associated with my graphics card but I've monitored the temperature and it does not overheat and I opened up my PC and cleaned out all the dust which didn't help, there is also no sign that a crash is coming ie with frame rate lag or artifacts. I have also removed my graphics drivers in safe mode and installed the latest drivers to no avail.

The crash only seems to occur on the campaign map, when in battle the game runs fine without crashing which you would imagine would be the more graphics intensive part of the game, so I have no idea what to do about this crash, any suggestions? My graphics card is a Nvidia 8800gt. Also due to the nature of my crash I dont get a crash log since I have to manually restart the computer myself so the computer doesn't make a crash log.

[PoleCat]

Well if the heat seems to be in the green and the case is clean then look at memory next.

What OS are you running on, how much memory do you have and what is the size of the page file? It could be you're maxing out available memory and the system is locking up for that reason....

[irishron]

I had Rome do that when I had a graphics card dying. It sounds like your graphis card is getting too hot.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...-Z_v0.3.8.html is for GPY-Z, a utility that will give you the temps of your card.

[Lanceret]

I run xp with 2gb's of Ram. I've been running 'saboteur' fine these last few days for 3-4 hour periods at a time which is a much more graphics intensive game that gives me frame rate lag in some areas but doesn't crash. It's strange that my computer crashes for Medieval total 2 considering I've played the game fine for about 2 years now. My memory shouldn't be running out since I've played fine for so long without a problem.

[irishron]

Parts do wear out. I have run Medieval2 with 3gigs of ram on XP Pro and still give it a run for its money.

It's heat related. Believe me. This game can generate this kind of heat. I have experienced it. Another hot spot: the cable to your monitor. Have you checked the connections on it tosee if they are tight?

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It's heat related. Believe me. This game can generate this kind of heat. I have experienced it. Another hot spot: the cable to your monitor. Have you checked the connections on it tosee if they are tight?

I don't think it's necessarily heat. My campaign crashes to black screen (freeze) when i scroll the campaign map with any agent selected. It can happen immediately after starting the program; i seriously doubt M2 magically melts my gfx after 1 minute, especially since i have no crash problems with ETW or any other game.
I do have the same GPU as the OP though, maybe it's simply not very compatible with M2...

[meatboy]

Mine does the same thing only I don't have a mod hooked up to it and it happens when I completely destroy a faction

[irishron]

Mine does the same thing only I don't have a mod hooked up to it and it happens when I completely destroy a faction

I never had that problem and I have about eight to go.

Have you run Microsoft Update?
Is your .Net framework up to 3.5 SP1?
Is your directx 9.0c updated through 9/2009?
Is your Windows Media Player version 11?
Have you updated your video drivers?

[irishron]

Are you using a wireless keyboard and/or mouse?

Nvidia 8800gt ought to run this game if it has 256mb of dedicated ram or more. 512mb seems to be about max without problems, though. Any more, it seems to busy loading into memory instead of scrolling the map. Mountains and forests will lag with card but not black screen.

Another thing that will cause it if you have a power supply going out. Any card including the 8800gt nedds a minimum amount of amps on the +12volt line. The amount depends on the card. The power supply drops below that you can get strnage happenings including black screens and just outright computer reboots.

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Are you using a wireless keyboard and/or mouse?

Just the mouse.

Nvidia 8800gt ought to run this game if it has 256mb of dedicated ram or more. 512mb seems to be about max without problems, though. Any more, it seems to busy loading into memory instead of scrolling the map. Mountains and forests will lag with card but not black screen.

I have the 512mb version. There is no lag, it runs on max settings just fine. Until the crash, that is.

Another thing that will cause it if you have a power supply going out. Any card including the 8800gt nedds a minimum amount of amps on the +12volt line. The amount depends on the card. The power supply drops below that you can get strnage happenings including black screens and just outright computer reboots.

As i said, no other game crashes, plus i can play battles in M2 just fine. It's the campaign map that's problematic.
Edit: changing graphics settings and reinstalling does not fix the problem, either.

[Gigantus]

Scrolling crashes can happen. Particularly over a densely wooden area or high mountains. M2TW uses only core and that kind of processor intensiv stuff can zap your machine. Check my thread to see what I mean.

Esoteric grafic crash with map

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Scrolling crashes can happen. Particularly over a densely wooden area or high mountains. M2TW uses only core and that kind of processor intensiv stuff can zap your machine. Check my thread to see what I mean.

Esoteric grafic crash with map

My game only crashes when i scroll with an agent selected. Yes, it's weird. I guess i'll just have to avoid using any agents, although it's quite a big part of the game

[Calyptus]

got the same problem, the screen goes black and the music keeps on playing with some stuttering, pc not-responsive.

The irritating thing is I got this first on RTW, so I just installed M2TW just to play some total war during my night shifts, and after a while the exact same thing happens. Only in campaign as well. It takes quite a few turns for it to start, but once it starts, that save is fooked, and you can barely play a single turn without rebooting.

I think the problem started after I updated my video drivers(9600m GT). So I'll look into this.

[irishron]

got the same problem, the screen goes black and the music keeps on playing with some stuttering, pc not-responsive.

The irritating thing is I got this first on RTW, so I just installed M2TW just to play some total war during my night shifts, and after a while the exact same thing happens. Only in campaign as well. It takes quite a few turns for it to start, but once it starts, that save is fooked, and you can barely play a single turn without rebooting.

I think the problem started after I updated my video drivers(9600m GT). So I'll look into this.

One bad thing about this game on a laptop, it will heat it up. The longer you play, the more the heat will build.
Another thing bad about this game and laptops is your graphics chip really is not made for heavy 3d gaming.
Another bad thing about this game and laptops is the cpu and gpu have to share the same memory. This game needs 256mb for graphics and the rest for the operating system, whatever elese you have running in the background, and the rest of the game of which I have seen in TAsk Manager push 400mb by itself.
This combiation will cause ctds, and freezes.

[Calyptus]

One bad thing about this game on a laptop, it will heat it up. The longer you play, the more the heat will build.
Another thing bad about this game and laptops is your graphics chip really is not made for heavy 3d gaming.
Another bad thing about this game and laptops is the cpu and gpu have to share the same memory. This game needs 256mb for graphics and the rest for the operating system, whatever elese you have running in the background, and the rest of the game of which I have seen in TAsk Manager push 400mb by itself.
This combiation will cause ctds, and freezes.

With all due respect, but almost everything you're saying a pre-assumptions and flat out untrue.

My temps are constantly under 60° C when playing this game(I'm not as stupid to not check for my temps). I've underclocked and undervolted the card to see if the crash was a problem with stability, it didn't matter.

The 9600m gt is quite a powerful card for a laptop. Go look up it's specs. Then come back and look at what you've written.

I run windows xp 64 bit. Optimized everything for gaming.

In any case, here's all the stuff I've tried thus far.

-> reinstalled game => no effect
-> reinstalled latest drivers => no effect
-> underclocked my card by 20% to look for stability issues => no effect
-> undervolted my card by 0.125v => no effect
-> full cleanup with drivercleaner and reinstall of the drivers => no effect

Next up, reverting to former drivers. If that doesn't work, I'll run memtest during the night.

[irishron]

With all due respect, but almost everything you're saying a pre-assumptions and flat out untrue.

My temps are constantly under 60° C when playing this game(I'm not as stupid to not check for my temps). I've underclocked and undervolted the card to see if the crash was a problem with stability, it didn't matter.

The 9600m gt is quite a powerful card for a laptop. Go look up it's specs. Then come back and look at what you've written.

I run windows xp 64 bit. Optimized everything for gaming.

In any case, here's all the stuff I've tried thus far.

-> reinstalled game => no effect
-> reinstalled latest drivers => no effect
-> underclocked my card by 20% to look for stability issues => no effect
-> undervolted my card by 0.125v => no effect
-> full cleanup with drivercleaner and reinstall of the drivers => no effect

Next up, reverting to former drivers. If that doesn't work, I'll run memtest during the night.

Just post your dxdiag and then make a decision if I'm as wrong as you say I am.
My assumpoitions(?) are based on past experiences of mine and others posted here. Do a search. 90% of the problems have been exactly what I posted. Research it for yourself.

I just pulled up the specs and there is absolutely no dedicated memory listed for chip of which it is robbing from your cpu. How much ram do you have? The last I checked Vista needs 1500mb just for itself.

[Calyptus]

reversed back to the 179 drivers and deleted physX, and problem solved.

Just post your dxdiag and then make a decision if I'm as wrong as you say I am.
My assumpoitions(?) are based on past experiences of mine and others posted here. Do a search. 90% of the problems have been exactly what I posted. Research it for yourself.

I just pulled up the specs and there is absolutely no dedicated memory listed for chip of which it is robbing from your cpu. How much ram do you have? The last I checked Vista needs 1500mb just for itself.

a) a 9600m gt has 512mb dedicated, possible Turbocache(disabled, will only slow me down on my resolution). Mem clocked at 800mhz, core at 500, shader at 1250mhz. I usually overclock to 9700m gt specs on newer games to great effect.

b) I said I had a gaming rig, with xp 64 tweaked towards, and you're talking about Vista? That's like commiting sacriledge . 4 gig drr2 800.

c) my card robbing memory from my CPU? Wut? I hope ya meant my RAM.