RTW: CTD end of turn

[Lazlo]

RTW CTDs at end of turn very frequently. Usually it is resolved by deleting map.rwm and restarting. This was happening every 2-3 turns, however now I find that I can't even proceed one turn.

Some details:

- have completely uninstalled (clean).
- RTW with BI installed and patched to 1.6.
- modded descr_strat.txt to make all factions playable (currently playing as Egyptians).
- historic_events.txt checked against save files (current date is 135 BC Winter).
- modded to enable night battles.
- autosave disabled in preferences, had no effect on CTD.
- -nm -show_err does not give me anything.
- display drivers up to date, and DirectX is 9.0c on Windows XP (SP3).

Any help would be much appreciated.

(oh, and hello everyone ).

[irishron]

Can you play without ctds BEFORE modifying any files? If so, it is in your modifications. If not, you have a bad install.

[Lazlo]

Thanks for the response.

I have just returned all modded files back to vanilla. Easy since I habitually keep the originals.

Deleted map.rwm again just for luck.

No change - still CTDs at the end of the turn.

Not convinced about the bad install theory. This is why I did a full uninstall / reinstall, complete with purging registry entries and so forth.

[irishron]

Have you tried all factions? The game is bugged but short of my own stupidity in modding I have yet to get a ctd within the first few turns. Mine have always been later.

[Lazlo]

Well, that's the thing. My current campaign (Egypt) is now at 135 BC, which is a lot of turns in. This makes it particularly annoying since I've just finally got round to attacking Rome (surprise attack on the soft Grecian underbelly ). For most of the campaign I had no problems, then a few days ago started to get a lot of CTDs (all at the end of the turn), culminating in the current situation where it's impossible to advance even a single turn.

The previous campaign was with the Brutii, during which I had no trouble at all.

I can still load the Brutii campaign save and run that for a few turns without issue.

Can't go further back than that I'm afraid - at least not reliably, since the last time I played (apart from the 2 campaigns mentioned) was several years ago...

[irishron]

It starting sound like you're running out of memory. Have you tried turning off/disabling anything not needed by the game including autoupdates and ims?

[Lazlo]

Got about 0.9 Gb of my total 2Gb memory left (it's not that old a machine), even if it is XP.. By today's standards RTW is pretty light on performance requirements. I've even tried running with a vanilla preferences.txt, just in case there were any performance gotchas.

Autoupdates / ims? I'm a bit old-school in this respect, I tend to have everything I don't absolutely need turned off (and preferably uninstalled) as default.

[Lazlo]

Ok so...

After much grabbing at straws, I have just moved a spy away from an enemy town. This meant that I didn't see some local troop movements.

I can now progress. Watch this space...

[irishron]

I have autoupdaters disabled in msconfig/startup out of habit. Never got into ims (instant messaging as in MSN,mIIRC, etc.) Old school as you say. If you mix up your last moves and do things differently, does it ctd the same place? Have you followed the ai around with the fog of war off?

[Lazlo]

I have autoupdaters disabled in msconfig/startup out of habit. Never got into ims (instant messaging as in MSN,mIIRC, etc.) Old school as you say. If you mix up your last moves and do things differently, does it ctd the same place? Have you followed the ai around with the fog of war off?

See previous post. Fingers are being crossed.

Thanks for the suggestions. It is, as I say, very much appreciated.

[irishron]

Good luck. You may have just found a bug.

[Brusilov]

You can use 'msconfig' to stop various services from being loaded at start-up. Also you may want to consider using IOBIT's (free) Game Booster software which can be used to put your PC into 'game mode' where a lot of Windows services are also closed.