About CTDs

[Bradley]

Hi Guys!

I made a little experiment. I have been playing RTW for quite a long time. Long long ago I have noticed, that there are mods and because RTW was quite lame (finished most factions, no news, IMBA Romans, historical (in)accuracy...) I have downloaded EB. It was like entering a new world. Than (aproximately half a year ago) I downloaded RS II (wanted to try something new) and I was really excited because of the graphics, legions, building tree, traits - simply put: RS II is astonishing when compared to vanilla RTW.

But

Even with EB there was CTD from time to time, but it was (mostly) quite rare in comparison to RSII. With RS II it is terrible experience because it is quite often to CTD - in battle, after battle, end turn, after taking city...

Because I really like RS II i tried this (looong story short):

changing hardware with the same rules for installation (installing RTW on separate disc (not partition), using recomended settings (FALSE autosave, RS 2.5, running with BI, playing as Pergamon, Rome and Syracusae - everytime after new install starting new campaign and activating script, medium vegetation, Antialiasing off, etc.)

I have bought completely new DVD with RTW anthology - non scratched non touched - I have created 3 separate ISOs of this "pure" DVD and running and installing game from this images (changing them if one of the images would be damaged).

OS W7, compatibility mode XP SP2, disabling AVG antivirus, no multitasking, music etc...

1st computer:
Intel Nehalem i7 920 (and with OC to 4.2) + Radeon 4890, 6gb RAM, HDD
- Pergamon 0turn - quite solid campaign, only about 20 CTDs in about 150 turns, mostly after battle.
- Roma 0turn - a lot of CTDs, mostly after battles (no matter if there is a family mamber or not in the army) I have counted about 100 CTDs after 150 turns
- Syracusae - CTD every turn - be it end turn, after battle or conquering the city - my patience was gone after 7 turns

2nd computer:
Intel Nehalem i7 920 (with 4.2 OC) + nVidia MSI GTX 460 1Gb, 6gb RAM, OCZ Agility SSD (separate disc where the RTW/RSII was installed)
- Pergamon - again, quite stable only few CTDs after battles (and only after battles)
- Roma - much more stable, only about 40 CTDs in 150 turns (mostly after battles, three CTDs on end turn, two after taking cities in Spain)
- Syracusae - my patience lasted to turn 60 (with about 60 CTDs - only after battles)

3rd computer:
Intel Ivy Bridge i5 3550K on 4.0 Ghz + nVidia 660Ti, 8Gb RAM, OCZ Agility SSD (separate disc where the RTW/RSII was installed)
- everything was the same as on 2nd computer (be it few CTDs here or there)

And now one interesting thing!

my 4th computer (ACER notebook with some i7 sandy bridge, nVidia 550M, 6 Gb Ram and Corsair 180Gb SSD, win 7 64bit) i use with EB. I made this:
installed EB many times (20?) (in Program files, out of Program files, old scratched DVD or new one), played through many campaigns with many nations, CTDs appearing few (many) times (after battles, in Lusotana, when action was eliminated, FM died...).
The important thing is THAT LAST TIME I HAVE INSTALLED EB, I INSTALLED IT INTO PROGRAM FILES WITH MY OLD SCRATCHED ANTHOLOGY DVD AND SINCE THAN I HAVE FINISHED THREE CAMPAIGNS WITH NO CTD! (Lusotana, Rome, Saka Rauka, playing Macedon and Aedui now, everything on max details and withou problems)

Conclusion:
1. If you have CTDs you have a wrong install and is not going - Im going to reinstall RSII few times more until I´ll get a solid (with Game Gods blessing apparently) install.
2. Altough I´m no geek I highly recomend installing on SSD - I suppose, that lower seek time and higher speeds of solid states are providing the game much more data and there are no lags for the .exe resulting in waiting - not receiving - going down.
3. Hardware is not helping anything (unles you have some really old that has problems with running the game with loves settings or something like Intel on chip graphics in i5/i7 - that is in my experience to weak). I dare to say, that my hardware is so much overkill for the game and it didn´t help anything.
4. In my experience if you put ISO with RTW on the same SSD as game is installed, there is another boost to transfering speed resulting into more stable game experience (less CTDs).

Finally: I would like to thank the mods for their amazing job! Guys, you made RTW much (MUCH) more better than original! I salute you!

Sorry for my english, long time no practice

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Thank you for the information - all interesting...

I too did lots of checks - and I don't have (unless there's something genuinely wrong) any CTDs at all.

The 'secret' is to have a standalone PC; no Anti-Virus; and nothing else at all - just Windows.

Between AV s/w and Windows protecting itself - those are the major causes of CTDs. Also - do not run anything else; do not run in Windowed mode (because you don;t do anything else at the same time).

Other programs cause the issues - and RTW/BI/Alex. It's not the mod.

[chris10]

Thank you for the information - all interesting...

I too did lots of checks - and I don't have (unless there's something genuinely wrong) any CTDs at all.

The 'secret' is to have a standalone PC; no Anti-Virus; and nothing else at all - just Windows.

Between AV s/w and Windows protecting itself - those are the major causes of CTDs. Also - do not run anything else; do not run in Windowed mode (because you don;t do anything else at the same time).

Other programs cause the issues - and RTW/BI/Alex. It's not the mod.

+1
I never suffered from CTDs with RSII...

[yutaty]

Hi Guys!

I made a little experiment. I have been playing RTW for quite a long time. Long long ago I have noticed, that there are mods and because RTW was quite lame (finished most factions, no news, IMBA Romans, historical (in)accuracy...) I have downloaded EB. It was like entering a new world. Than (aproximately half a year ago) I downloaded RS II (wanted to try something new) and I was really excited because of the graphics, legions, building tree, traits - simply put: RS II is astonishing when compared to vanilla RTW.

But

Even with EB there was CTD from time to time, but it was (mostly) quite rare in comparison to RSII. With RS II it is terrible experience because it is quite often to CTD - in battle, after battle, end turn, after taking city...

Because I really like RS II i tried this (looong story short):

changing hardware with the same rules for installation (installing RTW on separate disc (not partition), using recomended settings (FALSE autosave, RS 2.5, running with BI, playing as Pergamon, Rome and Syracusae - everytime after new install starting new campaign and activating script, medium vegetation, Antialiasing off, etc.)

I have bought completely new DVD with RTW anthology - non scratched non touched - I have created 3 separate ISOs of this "pure" DVD and running and installing game from this images (changing them if one of the images would be damaged).

OS W7, compatibility mode XP SP2, disabling AVG antivirus, no multitasking, music etc...

1st computer:
Intel Nehalem i7 920 (and with OC to 4.2) + Radeon 4890, 6gb RAM, HDD
- Pergamon 0turn - quite solid campaign, only about 20 CTDs in about 150 turns, mostly after battle.
- Roma 0turn - a lot of CTDs, mostly after battles (no matter if there is a family mamber or not in the army) I have counted about 100 CTDs after 150 turns
- Syracusae - CTD every turn - be it end turn, after battle or conquering the city - my patience was gone after 7 turns

2nd computer:
Intel Nehalem i7 920 (with 4.2 OC) + nVidia MSI GTX 460 1Gb, 6gb RAM, OCZ Agility SSD (separate disc where the RTW/RSII was installed)
- Pergamon - again, quite stable only few CTDs after battles (and only after battles)
- Roma - much more stable, only about 40 CTDs in 150 turns (mostly after battles, three CTDs on end turn, two after taking cities in Spain)
- Syracusae - my patience lasted to turn 60 (with about 60 CTDs - only after battles)

3rd computer:
Intel Ivy Bridge i5 3550K on 4.0 Ghz + nVidia 660Ti, 8Gb RAM, OCZ Agility SSD (separate disc where the RTW/RSII was installed)
- everything was the same as on 2nd computer (be it few CTDs here or there)

And now one interesting thing!

my 4th computer (ACER notebook with some i7 sandy bridge, nVidia 550M, 6 Gb Ram and Corsair 180Gb SSD, win 7 64bit) i use with EB. I made this:
installed EB many times (20?) (in Program files, out of Program files, old scratched DVD or new one), played through many campaigns with many nations, CTDs appearing few (many) times (after battles, in Lusotana, when action was eliminated, FM died...).
The important thing is THAT LAST TIME I HAVE INSTALLED EB, I INSTALLED IT INTO PROGRAM FILES WITH MY OLD SCRATCHED ANTHOLOGY DVD AND SINCE THAN I HAVE FINISHED THREE CAMPAIGNS WITH NO CTD! (Lusotana, Rome, Saka Rauka, playing Macedon and Aedui now, everything on max details and withou problems)

Conclusion:
1. If you have CTDs you have a wrong install and is not going - Im going to reinstall RSII few times more until I´ll get a solid (with Game Gods blessing apparently) install.
2. Altough I´m no geek I highly recomend installing on SSD - I suppose, that lower seek time and higher speeds of solid states are providing the game much more data and there are no lags for the .exe resulting in waiting - not receiving - going down.
3. Hardware is not helping anything (unles you have some really old that has problems with running the game with loves settings or something like Intel on chip graphics in i5/i7 - that is in my experience to weak). I dare to say, that my hardware is so much overkill for the game and it didn´t help anything.
4. In my experience if you put ISO with RTW on the same SSD as game is installed, there is another boost to transfering speed resulting into more stable game experience (less CTDs).

Finally: I would like to thank the mods for their amazing job! Guys, you made RTW much (MUCH) more better than original! I salute you!

Sorry for my english, long time no practice

my rs2 crashes and i reinstalled it with no change anything you can advice me?