RTW Gold Steam Version CTD after copyright screen

**Wes312** · August 21, 2012, 07:13 AM

I recently bought RTW Gold off steam, but every time i try to start up the game, it shows the copyrights screen, but then crashes to desktop without an error message, just with the ordinary Windows 7 crash message "Rome Total War Gold has stopped working".

I've tried redownloading it, running it as administrator, and have updated all my drivers. I'm using Windows 7 32-bit. Can anyone give me some help?

**PoleCat** · September 09, 2012, 02:23 AM

Sorry that it's taken so long for you to get a response. Have you tried running M:TW in XP compatibility mode? The other thing to try is to lower your graphics resolution from 1600x1200 to 800x600 just to see if you can get the game to work. This is a very old game and it may not like newer and higher widescreen resolutions. Good luck!

**Brusilov** · September 10, 2012, 06:59 AM

I play R:TW at 2560x1600 without problems.

Have you turned off UAC (User Account Control) and installed away from the program files folder? These are the first two things you need to do when using games on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 system.

Make sure you turn off UAC before you install the game.

If you did neither of those it may be best to uninstall the game, turn off UAC and then install to a new folder away from the program files folder (c:\games or anything else really).

Your system sounds OK - just remember that it's an old game (pre 2004?) and does not use more than one core and many features from graphic cards.

**Wes312** · September 17, 2012, 01:51 PM

Hi, sorry for the lateness in replying back to your solutions. Before you posted, I got it to work somewhat. I set the launch options to -nm which i think disables the movies. This gets me past the copyright screen, and I can play most of the game. But for some reason, campaign still doesnt work. Once I pick a faction and the loading starts, it crashes a few seconds after freezing at the end of the loading screen. This also happens with historical battles.

Everything else seems to work fine, including custom battles and multiplayer. I've disabled UAC and reinstalling the game, but still it doesn't work.

**Brusilov** · September 18, 2012, 05:16 AM

Make sure you add the -show_err switch in the same way that you added the -nm switch.

If the error is trapped by the exe it will be shown after the CTD....

I use (remove the double quotes):

".......\The Creative Assembly\Rome - Total War\RomeTW.exe" -show_err -movie_cam -nm"

**Wes312** · September 18, 2012, 02:15 PM

Still after turning on -show_err it still just displays the typical "Rome Total War has stopped working" after a CTD It never tells me the exact error.

**PoleCat** · September 20, 2012, 01:50 AM

@Brusilov - I'll have to ask you this question as I'm not familiar with R:TW. It would seem that it's crashing at either the campaign map or the historical battles. Is there a movie script in between loading the factions and choosing the map in those instances?

Also - what effect would you predict if some of the older DX codecs were loaded onto his machine? Could this be a case of too new DX11 codecs crowding out functionality on this old game? Maybe adding the older codecs would help? Good luck!

**AngryTitusPullo** · September 20, 2012, 03:00 AM

Download dx9

**irishron** · September 20, 2012, 06:11 AM

With the UAC disabled.

**Wes312** · September 20, 2012, 04:08 PM

I still have no luck. I've downgraded back to directx 9.0c with the UAC disabled and it still crashes at the same point.

**Wes312** · September 20, 2012, 04:20 PM

Okay. After some further tries, it seems that only the campaign crashes now. Once I pick a faction and press start, the loading screen appears. At first it's the normal "campaign" music, but then it quickly switches back to the main menu music as if I had just got onto the game. It then proceeds to crash just as the loading screen is 100%. I don't think it's an incorrect install since I've tried reinstalling a couple times already.

i've been using -ne -nm -show_err but it never displays an error message.

**PoleCat** · September 20, 2012, 11:09 PM

Try loading the game without those parameters and see how it behaves. Maybe somehow adding those parameters to the run file is causing this. I can't see how but it wouldn't hurt to try it once. Good luck!

**Brusilov** · September 21, 2012, 06:33 AM

The switches should not affect the game in any way.

I used to have the -ne (run in Windowed mode) on but it messed up the game at some stage - I seem to recall it may have been something about taking screen shots but I'm not sure. Youy could not use that one.

The -nm (no movie) will also have no detrimental affect. All it does is stop the movie at the start playing. I don't think there are any in-game movies either. I think there used to be some animation movies for certain events - but these only appeared if you clicked on the drop down box that told you of the event.

The -movie_cam only affects the battle replays (from custom and MP games). It gives you more control over the camera.

The -show_err switch will only display a message if it's an error trapped by the exe. Typically, this will be a 'file missing' or similar message. It can also display some diagnostic messages such as the 'Select an item from the list' which indicates that you're probably running the game without the final R:TW patches.

Also have a look at this thread: here. It explains some things that were done by players to make E:TW stable when that game was first released.

**Wes312** · September 21, 2012, 02:27 PM

Oh well, none of your solution worked, but its ok. I can still play multiplayer, so I'm fine. Anyway, thanks for all your help.

**PoleCat** · September 21, 2012, 09:45 PM

Could this be an issue of BIOS and/or MOBO drivers being faulty? I've found one BIOS update for that system on just a casual search. The problem is that this model seems to span a number of years and it could be difficult to pinpoint the actual model he has. Just food for thought....