Medieval 2 Total War Lagging in campaign mode (again

**Johnfromnz** · May 05, 2014, 06:56 PM

Hi Team

Sorry to make a new post about this old subject again but thought my issue was a little different and none of the old fixes helped.

Running MTW2 on an HP Netbook dm1 with 4G Ram AMD E-350 Processor, 1.60GHz, HD Graphics AMD Raedon 6130 Windows 7 Home Premium

Battles work fine but on Campaign map everything works at about 2FPS especially map scrolling becomes very lagged, slow and annoying.

Just to prove this is a software issue and torture me:

A) If a character is walking on the campaign map it will scroll perfectly until they stop - what's that about?
B) The Kingdoms add on works perfectly.

Is this a conflict with Windows 7 and can it be repaired

?

Thank you :-)

**Johnfromnz** · May 08, 2014, 03:36 PM

Hi again
It's not looking good - lots of views no replies

I was wondering if the 1.5 patch would help - this seems to be for "Kingdoms" only but who knows. Currently patched to 1.3 D2D version.

Downloaded 1.5 patch for D2D game. When I run it it just comes back with an error "Unable to find install location of Medieval II: Total war. Please re-install your game."

- Does this mean I have the wrong patch?
- Would reinstalling make any difference?
- Would patch 1.5 make any difference to the lagging campaign map anyway?
- Would a different version of the game help (Steam, Amazon)?

Cheers

**irishron** · May 08, 2014, 04:13 PM

The Kingdoms patch won't help BUT disable the UAC to give it a chance to install.
The cpu is a slowpoke and the builtin graphics chip is a POS for 3d gaming.
I have an old Pentium and a 7300LE graphics card in the closet that can do as good if not better.

**Johnfromnz** · May 08, 2014, 05:00 PM

Why thank you Irish Ron - you're correct of course the CPU and its built in graphics are a POS. This is just my cart around netbook, just feel like being a slacker on the lunch hour playing a bit of a favourite old game. Don't care about pretty graphics.

PROGRESS!: Tried running the game in different compatibility modes and what do you know? the most annoying problem went away (units getting to their destination and the whole system pauses for 10 seconds with a spinning hourglass). The map scrolls a little faster and by combining the arrows with the cursor is almost tolerable. The problem was the game would have become impossible to play later in the Campaign when I had 20+ territories and dozens of agents and armies each taking 30+ sec just to give an order to.

Can't really tell which is the best compatibility mode for now (Win 2000, Vista or Windows 7) but they are all better than Windows XP - hard case

Hope this helps someone else - cheers

**Johnfromnz** · May 08, 2014, 05:06 PM

POS = "PERFECTLY OPERATIONAL SYSTEM"?

**irishron** · May 08, 2014, 05:18 PM

If I wrote what it really means part of it would be :wub. Piece of (fill in the blank).
It's a good netbook, no doubt about it, but not for 3D gaming. Try XP SP3 mode. "Run as Administrator", too. May help being an XP based game.

**Johnfromnz** · May 08, 2014, 05:45 PM

OK Thanks Irishron. Have tried that - this particular system just seems to clash with XP compatibility in this game.

Vista compatibility seems to work best

Given my PC is a Perfectly Operational System or "Piece of supremacy", I could possibly enjoy better gameplay from Medieval Total War one.

Is there a downloadable version I can legally obtain? (No disc drive)

Cheers

**irishron** · May 08, 2014, 05:54 PM

Purchase from Steam is the only nondisc version that comes already patched.
Amazon has a download version but the Kingdoms patch is blocked from half the world and so not recommended.
Gamefly after buying Direct2Drive has not offered a patch and its existence is on who you believe and so not recommended.

**Johnfromnz** · May 08, 2014, 05:58 PM

Great Thanks for your help and advice Irishron

Off to log into my Steam account

**Johnfromnz** · May 11, 2014, 11:30 PM

OK my fix wasn't really a fix. In hindsight I think the map is just too big the little netbook to handle. Kingdoms works because the maps are much smaller.

Have downloaded Medieval Total War 1 and playing perfectly - I think it is a better campaign game than MTW2 anyway. The battle graphics are terrible but who cares?

Steam don't sell it anymore had to buy from DLGamer.

**irishron** · May 12, 2014, 04:11 AM

I played Medieval1 before Rome1 was released and enjoyed it. Have fun.

**Johnfromnz** · May 12, 2014, 04:50 PM

Yep same, Probably played Rome and MTW2 much more than Medieval but always kind of missed the more simple campaign map where you don't have to walk a bunch of agents and armies around one by one, just pick them up and drop them in the next territory.
I guess Rome/MTW2 give you scope to do more stuff - like walking through a neutral territory to attack somewhere else, but it is a hassle when you have a big empire.
The Game becomes a bit bogged down late in a campaign taking ages to just move your agents and armies around. Then they run into an obstacle so you have to order them again etc etc.
I won't miss merchants!

Is there a version of TW with:
- Randomly generated maps a la Civilization
- The ability to turn off features such as assassins, Merchants etc a la Space Empires?

Cheers

**irishron** · May 12, 2014, 05:04 PM

Random generated maps, M1, not that I remember. Aguy in M2's Mod Workshop came up with one but how elaborate, I have not fooled with it to know.
The recruitment of agents, merchants, spies, etc. are in the export_descr_buildings.txt. How many would the ai recruit anyway because of the hardcode, never tested it.