Medieval 2, reinstall

**Rory Òg** · February 01, 2013, 03:18 AM

Firstly I must apologise that my first post to your wonderful forum is one seeking assistance, but such is the way of it for many people I suppose.
OK, so I have had to reset my lappy back to factory default, no big deal. But I am now unable to play Medieval 2 after having done so; I have Steam version installed. It used to run fine on near max settings, but now I just get weird graphics glitches the whole way. Be it campaign or in battle; Im gettin woeful stutters. Its jumpy in the campaign map, Il scroll across the screen and it will start/stop mid scroll before continuing on, and its really bad in battle mode.

When I choose auto detect the appropriate video settings, it tells me to run at same as before, High or Very High etc on nearly everything, yet the game will not run smoothly. Ok so, fair enough, I change to low low low settings because I just want it to play smooth, Im not fussy. Yet same problem; not as heavy perhaps, but the same problem. Its most annoying as I had it working perfectly before.

I have updated graphics card drivers etc, have directX11; note that my system is also so much lighter now, my resource use, RAM and CPU are in better shape than they have ever been. I dont know, Im lost.
It pains me not to be able to figure this out; please help some1.....

Intel Core i5 2410M 2.3 GHz with turbo boost
NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M, 2MB turbo cache
6 GB DDR3 Memory
640 GB HDD
15.6" HD LED LCD screen, 1366X768

**irishron** · February 01, 2013, 06:01 AM

When was the last time you opened the case and cleaned it out?
When was the last time you ran Disk Cleanup and did a deep optimized defrag?
Have you checked your temps and voltages?

**Rory Òg** · February 01, 2013, 01:20 PM

Thank you for your response ron, re:private message. I'l stick it out for many more; stay the course, aye.....cheers

**Rory Òg** · February 01, 2013, 05:09 PM

Ok, can eliminate hardware concerns, I spent the last 4 hours sorting through everything. The hardware is ship shape. Plus I can run games that I expect to be far more resource intensive than this. Yet I tried kingdoms vanilla, custom battle, 3 units each, and Im still getting the same thing.....

**Rory Òg** · February 01, 2013, 05:22 PM

EDIT, sorry there

**Rory Òg** · February 01, 2013, 05:24 PM

Just wanted to put a copy of our exchange up here for other people to see, and for posterity. If this issue can be solved, I hope the record may be of benefit to anyone else who is suffering.......................

Hello Ron, thanks for the speedy reply. To be Honest I believe its in perfect condition hardware wise. It sits on a cooling unit, and I type using an external keyboard so I rarely have to lay a hand on it; except to turn it on/off, and I very seldom move it to another location. Also, its hardly a year old, would opening it to clean etc really be the right course of action at this stage????

Id like to eliminate all potential problems of course, but I really feel the answer lies in a different direction, its a software issue. Everything else is smoother and faster than its ever been. I have tested other games, Deus Ex: Human revolution and Metro 2033 to name but two, and have had no problems whatsoever with them. Cheers anyways, thank you for your help......

**Rory Òg** · February 01, 2013, 05:26 PM

IRISHRON SAID:
1. Medieval2 and Kingdoms do not like wireless devices of any kind. If you have a USB wired keyboard, it would be better.
2. I have to blow out my desktop every two months maximum or my fans tell me about it when I load Medieval2.
3. I have ahd my response times tied to harddrive go to Hell when it's badly fragmented.
4. Software can be an issue as this game is dinosaur age by today's standards. It does only use core of your cpu and everything including every animation file goes through it before a graphics card/chip sees its first graphic byte

MY RESPONSE:
1. Yes, I have wired usb keyboard, mouse etc, I dont use wireless stuff, even my internet is on a hardwire.

2. I will clean out my fan as you recommend and see if it has a positive effect, tbh tho, my fan is quite as a mouse, I have three external cooler fans underneath, and thats what I hear most of the time, even they are barely audible.

3. Disc fragment is as up to date as it could be, I have Advanced System Care Pro, taking care of all those optimisation tasks now, as I said before, its fully optimised and my resources use is lower than its ever been.
On a side note could this programme itself be responsible for what Im seeing? Although it would not be RAM or CPU related, could it be causing some kind of conflict? Im questioning this line more and more now, mainly because of timing. These events, what Im seeing in game, and my install of ASC do coincide.

4. This is very interesting, I wasnt thinking about this before, that even though my resource use is lower, the game is not manufactured to take advantage, and all apparant extra resources are kind of irrelevant. I should still be able to play the game at a decent frame rate on my system though, right? I mean I was able to play it perfect a month ago......

Cheers again for your reply, Theres no rush on response times really, am sure you have plenty of other things to be at than answering annoymous queries.

**irishron** · February 01, 2013, 05:35 PM

Blame it on the dinosaur called Medieval II total War Kingdoms. The Kingdoms patch is five years old this month and that's a couple of lifetimes ago in computer games.

**Rory Òg** · February 02, 2013, 01:42 AM

Cheers there ron. Sorry if that came across wrong copying that up there; I hear you loud and clear alright. I really like this one though and I'm absolutely determined to get a fix for it. When I do, I will post up my findings here.
Thanks again for your help, gets the brain juices flowing etc....