WINDOWS XP or forget it

[ger217]

I wrote both Sega and Steam support. They both tell me two different things. Sega says, that RTW2 is compatible and OS supported with WINDOWS XP. On the other hand, Steam says not. I already preordered it from Amazon. So who is really telling the truth? If Steam is right, i will cancel my preorder. Steam also states that their engine cannot support WINDOWS XP for ROME TOTAL WAR 2. So, if any WINDOWS XP users out there, have preordered this title, beaware maybe we can't run this game at all with WINDOWS XP.

[Sharpe]

Windows XP is old.

[ger217]

Windows XP is old.

Yes is Shape, bit who is telling the real truth?

[Sharpe]

Yes is Shape, bit who is telling the real truth?

My name is NOT SHAPE!

[Sir Adrian]

Yes is Shape, bit who is telling the real truth?

If CA said it can run on XP I'd be more inclined to believe them over the Steam guys. That being said I strongly advise you to get windows 7. Except for Medieval II, total war games run a lot better on 7 than on Xp.

[StealthFox]

Windows XP is old.

Really? This is your post here?

@ger217, I'm willing to bet it will work with XP, but hopefully a CA rep can post here to clear this up and let you know for certain.

[ger217]

Thankyou Stealth and the rest of you guys.

[Semper_Fidelis]

Get Windows 7 champ, much better and even it does work for XP it will probably be far more optimized for Windows 7

[Kadoken]

Seriously dude, windows 7 is good and is a marked improvement over XP. I hear that Windows 8 becomes better since you get some third party applications to get rid of the metro.

It might be time to upgrade. I know that XP doesn't allow more than 2 gigs of RAM to be used, also it's slowly becoming incompatible and outdated, so much so I believe Direct X 10 and 11 don't work with it.

[Arcani 4 Ever]

Although i do believe this game will run in Windows XP...i find it rather confusing why the hell would you want to run the game in Windows XP in the first place.

The true joy of a Total War is watching those graphics that consoles will never match.

[DaciaJC]

The true joy of a Total War is watching those graphics that consoles will never match.

For me, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

[Arcani 4 Ever]

For me, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

That's called variety man, some like some stuff some like other stuff.... XD

[Toho]

why would anyone use a windows XP when windows 7 is clearly superior? turn off from vista? I guess I understand...

[ger217]

@Sharpe, sorry I had windows 7 when it came out. I had problems with my RTW mods chrashing all the time. So I went back to windows xp and everything was alright. First of all maybe windows 7 & 8 does play better. But my question is why one is telling me one thing and the other showing the opposite. Im playing Shogun 2 with XP and I don't have any problems running it. Someone here in the forums says, if you could run Shogun 2 with XP than you could run RTW2 with no problems.

[ElvenKind]

@Sharpe, sorry I had windows 7 when it came out. I had problems with my RTW mods chrashing all the time. So I went back to windows xp and everything was alright. First of all maybe windows 7 & 8 does play better. But my question is why one is telling me one thing and the other showing the opposite. Im playing Shogun 2 with XP and I don't have any problems running it. Someone here in the forums says, if you could run Shogun 2 with XP than you could run RTW2 with no problems.

Your mods were crashing in Windows 7 due to Virtual Store issues. There is a really easy and quick solution for that, you just edit the security of your main RTW folder and no more problems. Well, except for bugs, but that is more mods based

[Ichon]

I run all sorts of mods with RTW and MTW2 on Win 7 64 bit- just avoid installing under ProgramFiles and turn off UAC when you install and should avoid almost all problems related to Win 7. I'd be surprised if Rome 2 does not run under XP but it surely won't be optimized very well and if its an old computer it will chug more under XP than it would under Win 7.

[daniu]

The problem - and reason for the two different compatability statements - is that it's not so much about the OS, but about the programming framework libraries used in the game's development. Those usually do exist for the older Windows version, but don't always work 100% reliably or have slightly different behaviours that may or may not take effect in game. So it depends on your definition of "supported"; it should run, but might not. The usual meaning is "will run on" or "we'll try to fix problems that occur with it", and those two are already quite different; it should run, and they'll try to fix any problem you may have, but most certainly with a smaller priority if the root problem turns out to be the Win XP.
Another definition would be "CA ran compatability tests on it", and that would be the most helpful. Only CA can answer that of course, but even if they do test, those can only go this far with the myriad of actual system configurations out there.

As for switching OS, you'll have to eventually. Microsoft themselves have announced to cancel their support fo XP on April 14th next year, and that means that some newer libraries won't even exist anymore after then, so there'll be more and more games that won run period. But even before, you'll have a much harder time getting help from the community with an OS two generation behind, simply because less and less people will have it.
Personally, I managed to solve all problems I came across with Win 7.

[ptoss1]

Windows 98 or forget it.

[ElvenKind]

When BUYING Windows 7, be sure to get 64 bit version, otherwise you would make a mistake.

You can have for example 32 GB of RAM installed, but on Windows XP only 3.3 - 3.4 is usable.. while on Windows 7 64 bit all that amount of RAM is available and usable.

EDIT: Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate version is the one you need IMO..

[SamueleD]

The real problem with windows xp is that form the 8th of April, 2014, it will no longer be supported by Microsoft, it will no longer receive updates and it will become more and more vulnerable to attacks an d viruses, as well as losing all software support. Considering this, I would urge you to update to Windows 7, which is still fairly similar to XP in its interface, and it's quite a good system that will keep being supported for years, if you need to run XP for some old programs you may easily set up a windows XP virtual machine on 7. If you are feeling bold you may jump directly to Windows 8, but, be warned, it can be a pretty alienating experience, for one that has not yet moved on from XP!