RSII Crashes AFTER every battle

[Kenny Works]

Hey all,

I've had this mod for some time and really enjoy it. I've played it on my Mac for a long time through bootcamp. Works great, no problems. I finally got around to installing it one my gaming rig that I built last year. Sat back, ready to enjoy some RSII.

But the game crashes after every battle. I can auto-resolve them, but when I try to fight them on a battle map, I get a crash as I try to return to the campaign game - forcing me to refight the battle again ... and get another crash ... or eventually cave and autoresolve it. The crash occurs after the battle is over (the battle works great), after the battle results window pops up and then I click to return to the campaign.

My OS is Windows 7. I'm running 16 gb of ram and 4 gb Radeon graphics card on 3.5 ghz Intel i5, so there should more than enough power to run the mod - but I'm guessing that this has nothing to do with the problem.

I see a lot of threads about crashing on startup or at end of turns; I have no problem with that. Also long as I'm willing to auto-resolve every battle, the game plays fine. It's only after battles.

Is there a toggle I forgot? Anyway help would be appreciated.

KGG

Edit: And I am NOT using the Steam version of the game. I'm using a digital download version that I bought.

[Amorphis]

One thing that worked for me was to wait about 30sec to 1 min after the battle result window pops before you click OK.
Sounds like voodoo but it worked...

[Kenny Works]

One thing that worked for me was to wait about 30sec to 1 min after the battle result window pops before you click OK.
Sounds like voodoo but it worked...

Thanks for the tip, but yes I tried that. It's an old RTW fix. Here is what I've tried so far.

1. Waiting for a minute after the battles results window displays.
2. Disabling all auto saves and making sure an auto-save file isn't being created.
3. Testing my original, clean RTW install that I used as the "basis" for RS 2.6 (so I installed it and copied the contents into a RS2 directory, then installed RS2 into that directory).

What I haven't done is the "youtube" fix (editing the exe file). A little nervous about that.

I've tried battles small and large. At this point, I have no idea what else to try. It pretty much makes the game unplayable.

[Battlus Lostus]

Maybe this can help you:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...p-with-crashes

[Kenny Works]

Maybe this can help you:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...p-with-crashes

Thanks, I tried it but two battles still crashed.

I finally bit the bullet and completed deleted my install and did a very careful reinstall, first testing RTW (1.5/1.6), then reinstalling RS2 in its own game folder (E:\Games\Roma Surrectum II). I now have 2.5 installed and I fought my first battle with success and no crashing. We'll see .... hopefully it was just a user error.

I still think I'll dup the folder before I install the 2.6 patch.

[dvk901]

TBH, I rarely experience any crashes with RS2 or any mod I have installed or worked on. But I follow very stringent rules when I set them up:

1. I use only 4gb aware exes
2. I disable auto save.
3. I instruct my anti-virus program(s) to ignore RTW folders.
4. I don't play for more than hour or so without saving and restarting (because of RTW exe memory leaks).
5. I save VERY often, and especially at critical points where CTD's have been known to be possible.
6. I don't try to maximize everything, because my systems have never been able to handle it.

Following these rules I've rarely had CTDs.

Now, that being said, there always exceptions. I've had installs of RS2 versions that just 'died' for some unknown reason and started CTDing all the time....both old ones, and even brand new ones. I just rebuilt the install and everything was OK.
Why that happens is a mystery...but it does.

Also, there were corrupt version of the RS2.6 patch out there, and I removed the links for all of them (I think). I tested them all and found only one that consistently worked.
There were also mistakes in the RS2.5 and 2.6 versions of RS in some of the Greek swap faction folders that I was unaware of (they were never reported by anyone). These mistakes concerned some units that the faction was allowed to recruit in decsr_export_buildings.txt, and had models, textures and sprite for in DMB.txt...but did not OWN in EDU.txt. Apparently, the game was allowing the unit to be recruited and fought with...sometimes....but then would CTD after a battle because the faction didn't own the unit (with no error message). I only just found these problems when I was working on the Athens campaign in RSIII, and fixed all of the errors.

I am going to release RSIII shortly, BTW. I've had some RL issues that cropped up and prevented it, but in the next few days I'm going to release it as an 'open beta'.

[Kenny Works]

TBH, I rarely experience any crashes with RS2 or any mod I have installed or worked on. But I follow very stringent rules when I set them up:

1. I use only 4gb aware exes
2. I disable auto save.
3. I instruct my anti-virus program(s) to ignore RTW folders.
4. I don't play for more than hour or so without saving and restarting (because of RTW exe memory leaks).
5. I save VERY often, and especially at critical points where CTD's have been known to be possible.
6. I don't try to maximize everything, because my systems have never been able to handle it.

Following these rules I've rarely had CTDs.

Now, that being said, there always exceptions. I've had installs of RS2 versions that just 'died' for some unknown reason and started CTDing all the time....both old ones, and even brand new ones. I just rebuilt the install and everything was OK.
Why that happens is a mystery...but it does.

Also, there were corrupt version of the RS2.6 patch out there, and I removed the links for all of them (I think). I tested them all and found only one that consistently worked.
There were also mistakes in the RS2.5 and 2.6 versions of RS in some of the Greek swap faction folders that I was unaware of (they were never reported by anyone). These mistakes concerned some units that the faction was allowed to recruit in decsr_export_buildings.txt, and had models, textures and sprite for in DMB.txt...but did not OWN in EDU.txt. Apparently, the game was allowing the unit to be recruited and fought with...sometimes....but then would CTD after a battle because the faction didn't own the unit (with no error message). I only just found these problems when I was working on the Athens campaign in RSIII, and fixed all of the errors.

I am going to release RSIII shortly, BTW. I've had some RL issues that cropped up and prevented it, but in the next few days I'm going to release it as an 'open beta'.

Okay thank you very much for this.

I got another crash and decided to use the NCore/CFF Explorer solution posted above. I believe this makes my .exe 4 gig aware, correct? When I opened the RSII.exe it looks like it had already been set to "App can handle > 2gb addressset."

Fine. I went to the RomeTW.exe and the RomeTW-BI.exe and tried the same thing. These needed to be changed so I changed them according to the suggestion above and ... I get an error:

"A required security module cannot be activated.
This program cannot be executed (13000).

Please have a look at http://www.securom.com/message.asp?m=module&c=13000 for further, more detailed information."

I bought the game years ago as digital download from a company whose name I can no longer recall. Egggh. Apparently I cannot alter the .exe files.

Suggestions? I will even buy RTW Gold edition again if someone bought it from a company whose .exe's can be altered. It costs next to nothing now. But as it stands right now, I can't alter the .exes.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

.................

Suggestions? ................

- Disconnect from the internet

- Disable your Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware product(s)

- Don't do anything else whilst playing

- Hopefully enjoy

- Reverse process (turn on AV/AM; turn off; reconnect; restart) before anything else

[Kenny Works]

- Disconnect from the internet

- Disable your Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware product(s)

- Don't do anything else whilst playing

- Hopefully enjoy

- Reverse process (turn on AV/AM; turn off; reconnect; restart) before anything else

Okay, thanks. At this point, I'm beginning to think of my father's old phrase: "too much is hard fun." If the game is so unstable that, in order to play it, I have to shut down all my systems and shut off the Internet, then I'll probably play something else.

It's unfortunate, though.

[neep]

Hi Kenny,
another option is to just buy a CD for $10 to get a later build - should avoid the issue with 'secdrv' and also allow you to modify the executable to access 4G

M-M-Max

[dvk901]

I emphatically agree.....especially since my esteemed colleague was an ardent tester among a few who tested RS for hundreds if not thousands of hours. People don't realize, especially people who are just new to RTW, that this game is 'ancient' in terms of today's video games. PCs were quite limited back in those days, and RTW took advantage of what it had to work with.....very low system RAM (which is why RTW will not run without a Windows swap file), single core processors, and video cards that were measured in megabytes of ram instead of gigabytes like today.

Also, Windows and AV\AM programs are not what they were 10 years ago. Back in the day, I worked on PCs that were buried in crap off the internet, and we (my co-workers and I) joked that Windows and in particular Internet Exploder were big holes through which the Internet dumped anything it wanted on your PC. The 'Program Files' folder was particularly susceptible to this. Consequently, Microsoft and AV creators spared no effort to protect Windows and the Program Files folder from anything that was suspicious and\or should not be there. RTW is one of those 'things' because it doesn't work like the more modern games that Windows recognizes as 'safe'. So we have always advised players to NEVER install RTW in the Program Files folder....which is where the default install is for both Steam and CD versions of RTW. AV programs are very likely to just randomly 'whack' RTW because they decided that 'today, at this time, and for whatever reason' we don't like what that software is doing.

Now, although ur Lord Tedric's advice about shutting down the Internet is a little more 'paronoid' than even I am, he is absolutely correct in saying that this also can cause trouble. This is because in ALL versions of Windows from 95 until Windows 10, Internet Exploder was an intregal part of Windows interface...AND ALWAYS OPEN TO THE WORLD. Closing Internet Exploder did not shut it down, it just shut the Browser. But things could still go out through it, and come to you secretly without you ever knowing. Efforts to stop this (never really successful) or 'blunt it', made Windows, again, paranoid about any activity that was going on in certain folders or any folder that it thought were suspicious. So in any version of Windows before Windows10, shutting down the Internet allows Windows to effectively say: Ok, I don't have to watch that any more.

Too bad that we have to jump through so many hoops with this old game, but I do think that if you follow the guidelines we've given, you'll have success playing RTW.

[Kenny Works]

I emphatically agree.....especially since my esteemed colleague was an ardent tester among a few who tested RS for hundreds if not thousands of hours. People don't realize, especially people who are just new to RTW, that this game is 'ancient' in terms of today's video games. PCs were quite limited back in those days, and RTW took advantage of what it had to work with.....very low system RAM (which is why RTW will not run without a Windows swap file), single core processors, and video cards that were measured in megabytes of ram instead of gigabytes like today.

Also, Windows and AV\AM programs are not what they were 10 years ago. Back in the day, I worked on PCs that were buried in crap off the internet, and we (my co-workers and I) joked that Windows and in particular Internet Exploder were big holes through which the Internet dumped anything it wanted on your PC. The 'Program Files' folder was particularly susceptible to this. Consequently, Microsoft and AV creators spared no effort to protect Windows and the Program Files folder from anything that was suspicious and\or should not be there. RTW is one of those 'things' because it doesn't work like the more modern games that Windows recognizes as 'safe'. So we have always advised players to NEVER install RTW in the Program Files folder....which is where the default install is for both Steam and CD versions of RTW. AV programs are very likely to just randomly 'whack' RTW because they decided that 'today, at this time, and for whatever reason' we don't like what that software is doing.

Now, although ur Lord Tedric's advice about shutting down the Internet is a little more 'paronoid' than even I am, he is absolutely correct in saying that this also can cause trouble. This is because in ALL versions of Windows from 95 until Windows 10, Internet Exploder was an intregal part of Windows interface...AND ALWAYS OPEN TO THE WORLD. Closing Internet Exploder did not shut it down, it just shut the Browser. But things could still go out through it, and come to you secretly without you ever knowing. Efforts to stop this (never really successful) or 'blunt it', made Windows, again, paranoid about any activity that was going on in certain folders or any folder that it thought were suspicious. So in any version of Windows before Windows10, shutting down the Internet allows Windows to effectively say: Ok, I don't have to watch that any more.

Too bad that we have to jump through so many hoops with this old game, but I do think that if you follow the guidelines we've given, you'll have success playing RTW.

Thank you both for trying to help me.

I'm sorry, I don't think I'm being clear. RTW (Rome Total War Gold Edition) runs fine. Ran fine on my laptop (see first post, I don't have it any more - now I play on a desktop), runs fine on my desktop. No problems here. So you might say I have success playing RTW.

It's RSII where my success lags.

RSII ran fine on my laptop. No problem there. I could play for up to 2 hours no problem. It was only when I installed it on my desktop that I started having problems. The first time I installed RSII on my desktop (post 1 above), it crashed like crazy. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it in a clean directory (post 5 above). It ran fine until I got to my first big battle. Then, after the battle and during the loading screen back to the campaign map, it crashed again.

I came back to the forum and reviewed the advice I'd been given to that point, particularly the advice of DVK910:

1. I use only 4gb aware exes

See below.

2. I disable auto save.

Done.

3. I instruct my anti-virus program(s) to ignore RTW folders.

I ALWAYS disable anti-virus and antimalware programs. I play some other older games that also dislike those types of programs. In fact, my gaming machine doesn't even have AV or AM installed for this reason (and I use my work computer to surf the net). Steam (other games) is the reason I need the Internet on my desktop. That's it, really.

4. I don't play for more than hour or so without saving and restarting (because of RTW exe memory leaks).

Did that.

5. I save VERY often, and especially at critical points where CTD's have been known to be possible.

Save before ending a turn in a series of recycling saves, advice I think someone on this forum gave me.

6. I don't try to maximize everything, because my systems have never been able to handle it.

Again, I did this. In fact, there was post somewhere about running AA through my graphic card settings and not the game settings. Did that.

The only thing I couldn't do was 1. I couldn't do it because I bought my original copy of RTW from a digital download company. When I tried to edit the exe using the tool above, the game wouldn't run because the .exe had been altered (protection coding). So I bought the disks, thinking I could get an .exe I could edit and ....

... that was a fail, too. The vendor who sold me the discs sent me a bunch of Steam-only disks. Crap, if I wanted a Steam copy I'd have just bought the damn thing online. My only reason for buying the disks was to get to an .exe that would accept that particular edit (the 4 gig edit). I still don't have that.

And honesty, I can't see dedicating one computer to one game, even an old computer. Sorry.

Thanks for the help.

[est Dudus]

I run max everything and almost never get a crash....I found if I play for over 5 hrs and have tons of large battles I might get a crash. In the video I made...if you follow the exact copy I use and the links for download I provide for the game you should never have a crash....the Cff takes care of the ram issue and the copy of the game is known to work. Hope it works for ya.

[LavaCreeper]

Could this advice be added to the RSIII installer ? Maybe even automate some of it, such as the exe edits.

[dvk901]

Ok, you've added a piece of information here that is of interest. If the game will run on your laptop without issues, then by rights it should run on a desktop without issues as well....assuming you are using the same installers for RS2.
Which means that the problems could be caused by something else.

First off, you should set your video card AA setting to 'allow program or game to control'. RTW does not like AA for some reason. It used to work, but at some point it became a problem and started causing CTDs. So disable it completely. The textures in RS2 are some detailed that it's unnecessary anyway.

Second, ensure that the fans on both processor and video card are working, and that the heat sinks are not clogged with dust. Inoperable fans and dirt will cause overheating, and the graphics in RS2 on the battlefield will DEFINITELY cause heat. I completely toasted a video card with RS2, so I know. And I was just testing a lot, not even playing much. If processors and\or video cards start overheating, they become unstable and you'll get a crash in the game for no apparent reason. It's very easy to overlook this issue....a lot of people never even open a desktop case, or would be afraid to.

Regarding the 'Steam Only' discs....well, I agree that's dumb. What the heck. I'd be pissed. But, the first version of Steam RTW actually worked with RS2. It's the current one available from Steam that does not. Their exes were altered by Steam or CA or both, and they will not work with RS2 at all. I'm not happy about that, but they pay no attention to me.

I'm truly sorry you're having so many problems.....it really annoys me that Steam and CA have screwed around with RTW so much with all these versions and changes that have broken a number of things. I just can't even keep up with them. I have tried to buy every known version of this game and test it. But up to this point the only one I KNOW will not work is the one Steam put up lately.

[Kenny Works]

Ok, you've added a piece of information here that is of interest. If the game will run on your laptop without issues, then by rights it should run on a desktop without issues as well....assuming you are using the same installers for RS2.
Which means that the problems could be caused by something else.

First off, you should set your video card AA setting to 'allow program or game to control'. RTW does not like AA for some reason. It used to work, but at some point it became a problem and started causing CTDs. So disable it completely. The textures in RS2 are some detailed that it's unnecessary anyway.

Second, ensure that the fans on both processor and video card are working, and that the heat sinks are not clogged with dust. Inoperable fans and dirt will cause overheating, and the graphics in RS2 on the battlefield will DEFINITELY cause heat. I completely toasted a video card with RS2, so I know. And I was just testing a lot, not even playing much. If processors and\or video cards start overheating, they become unstable and you'll get a crash in the game for no apparent reason. It's very easy to overlook this issue....a lot of people never even open a desktop case, or would be afraid to.

Regarding the 'Steam Only' discs....well, I agree that's dumb. What the heck. I'd be pissed. But, the first version of Steam RTW actually worked with RS2. It's the current one available from Steam that does not. Their exes were altered by Steam or CA or both, and they will not work with RS2 at all. I'm not happy about that, but they pay no attention to me.

I'm truly sorry you're having so many problems.....it really annoys me that Steam and CA have screwed around with RTW so much with all these versions and changes that have broken a number of things. I just can't even keep up with them. I have tried to buy every known version of this game and test it. But up to this point the only one I KNOW will not work is the one Steam put up lately.

Okay, problem solved! Here's what I did (and I'm just using advice I received from this forum):

First, I had a digital download game that I bought years ago. Whenever I tried to run the CFF fix, I got a digital signature error (because I was trying to edit the .exe). Finally, I thought I can't be the first person with this problem. So Google to the rescue. Not entirely sure if I can post my answer on this forum, but in my defense let me say before I got to this solution, I bought three new licensed copies of RTW Gold. Don't ask, I was trying anything.

So now I have an .exe that doesn't require a CD and can be edited. I swapped it with my digital .exe and applied the CFF 2 > gig fix. Worked like a charm.

Second, I did my safety measures. Turned off auto-save. Installed a clean copy of RTW Gold in an RSII directory, tested it and it worked. Swapped exes. Still worked. Paused to back up all my resources so if I have to do this again, I have everything I need - including notepad instructions. Disabled off all unnecessary functions ... but not the Internet. Sorry. Shut off AA and ran it through my Radeon graphics card. Oddly enough, this did not improve the appearance of the game ... I feel like the onboard AA does a better job of making the game look cleaner. But it's only going to so good on a modern 1920 x 1080 monitor.

Set my preferences and backed up the preferences file (assuming they're the same for both the /Rome, /Rome 1-Turn, and the general directory).

Don't have AV or AM on that computer so not a problem.

Started playing. Decided I would play until the game crashed. Four hours later, I had to go to bed.

In hindsight, I think part of the problem was the .exe with write-protection. Certainly, increasing it to 2 > gig helped.

Another issue is my gaming rig is just too fast This is a rig I built myself. I have a 3.5 GHz i5, 16 gigs of ram, and a Sapphire R9 290X 4GB graphics card and my games run from 1 TB flash drive. I keep the machine clean and well-maintained. One thing I've noticed with older games like Morrowind and others is that the computer thinks faster than the game. It shouldn't work that way, but I really think it does. Particularly with complicated functions, the game just hangs and will sometimes crash.

Right now, I think I have it working. Thanks to everyone for the help.

[neep]

Hi Kenny,
glad to hear you got it working.
Seems that getting a executable that you could 'fix' was the key to your issue.

That's a very interesting comment about having a machine that's too fast. Especially since you're running at 3.5GHz - which doesn't seem too fast
I'm mooching along at 3.2GHz and I'm pretty sure I've seen some folks running at 4GHz.
Sure enough I found a lot of discussion with really old games running under more recent (much faster) CPUs that do indeed suffer, but I would expect RTW/RSII to be modern enough to not suffer from that.
My guess is that those games that give you grief are 32bit, but use a fair amount of RAM so they're getting to their limit and falling over.
(From the comments I've seen, Morrowind seemed to be quite brittle - ambitious, large open world setting with lots of mods and updates, and memory leaks => Code complexity goes exponential and it's really tough to keep things stable at that point.)

[Kenny Works]

Hi Kenny,
glad to hear you got it working.
Seems that getting a executable that you could 'fix' was the key to your issue.

That's a very interesting comment about having a machine that's too fast. Especially since you're running at 3.5GHz - which doesn't seem too fast
I'm mooching along at 3.2GHz and I'm pretty sure I've seen some folks running at 4GHz.
Sure enough I found a lot of discussion with really old games running under more recent (much faster) CPUs that do indeed suffer, but I would expect RTW/RSII to be modern enough to not suffer from that.
My guess is that those games that give you grief are 32bit, but use a fair amount of RAM so they're getting to their limit and falling over.
(From the comments I've seen, Morrowind seemed to be quite brittle - ambitious, large open world setting with lots of mods and updates, and memory leaks => Code complexity goes exponential and it's really tough to keep things stable at that point.)

And I'm not suggesting that my 3.5 GHz is the fastest processor available (my machine is actually about 18 months old and, of course, it wasn't even the fastest then). But with my setup, even some pretty high usage current releases clock around a steady 50-60 FPS with vsync on (Fallout 4, etc.).

I'm running 64 bit Windows 7 Professional. Your comment about Morrowind sounds right, particularly since these games don't take advantage of multiple-core processors. I have 16 gig of RAM, which was twice the recommended at the time (because as you know RAM is cheap). I could set my clock by Morrowind/Oblivion crashes (right between 1.5 and 2.0 hours).

I really don't know exactly how RTW/RSII fit into this because I haven't played them much lately. Last night I ran four hours (about 3.7 actually) of steady, but cautious, gameplay without a problem. We'll see how it goes from here.