Empire total war win7 problem.

[Pownager704]

Hello folks.

Ive been running windows 7 for a couple of weeks. And it causes a true problem when i play ETW.
First I had vista installed and never had any problems except for installing the game properly.

Playing this game under win7 causes exactly the same problem everytime I play. The problem only occurs after a certain level in technology research. Whenever I try to get into battle at this point (probably around 1750ad) the game loads the battle map and then the loading bar flickers at the end. At the same moment you can hear the battlemap sounds (general advisor talking in the background) but it only shows the loading screen. It freezes then for a eternity. Commands like alt+tab alt+F4 do not respond. Only way to get out this situations is rebooting the computer.

I have started 4 campaigns in the meantime with prussia,uk,netherlands,and france and they all got the same problem after many hours of effort. Cause the only way to play further is trough the campaign map. No matter what army I select to do battle. Whenever it starts freezing it keeps freezing. Reloading previous save games doesnt work either, at a certain point in the campaign process the loading screen just somewhere fails to dissapear.

Ive been googling around and I can find a similar link to this problem but in fact not quite the same so im still stuck.

My computer specs are quite reasonable,

Core I7 920
2xHD4870
6GB
Win7

and even when I set all the graphics settings including screen resolution to minimum it still hangs on the loading screen.

The game got the latest patch. But I also tried the game unpatched, but that didnt worked either.
I got all direct x, graphics card drivers, hardware devices properly installed. Also i ran the game under different compatibility modes including running as administrator and it didnt made any difference either. I also tried cleaning out my save game files but even that didnt worked.

thanks for any help

[stokerme]

My name is Ron Francis and I live in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. I have been reading with interest the amount of people complaining that they can not go pass the date 1822 (crashes to desktop after turn).
> Recently had the very same problem when playing World Domination as Britain. This is how I fixed the problem:
>
> Downloaded a programme (could have been from your site) called EsfEditor (made for ETW). When you open it up and click on saved games, click on the last saved game before the crash (the crash will show at the top as an autosave). Click open.
>
> In the editor:
>
> Click the + on the savegames\ ?.
> Click the + on the CAMPAIGN_SAVE_GAME.
> Click the + on the CAMPAIGN_ENV.
> Click the + on the CAMPAIGN_MODEL.
> Click the + on the CAMPAIGN_CALENDAR.
> Click on DATE.
>
> In the right hand column highlight the date only that is showning
> there and backspace it. Now type in 1680 (the date I used).
>
> Go to file and save. Did not lose any data up to that saved game. Enjoy!
>
> You can also use this programme to edit out any unwanted saved games.
>
> Since I have done this I have played from 1680 to 1840 where I am now
> at. Have all of the technology avaliable and have not had a problem. As
> a matter of fact the game is now faster during the turns.
>
> I am running an Asus Deluxe V2 MB with an Intel I7 920. 12gig of memory
> with two Gforce 9600GT cards in sli mode and display set at 1920x1080.
> Game options are set at very high and ETW runs very smoothly.
>
> Hope this is of help to other gamers.
>
> Have a Happy New Year!