Empire: Total War crashes

Hey guys. I just got Empire: Total War and when I try to start a battle, it crashes. I put it on the lowest settings but my FPS stays at 1. I have updated drivers and I definitely have enough power to run this game. Any help would be appreciated.

Steam already installed all the updates for the game.

 

I would suggest you...
- use Hwmonitor to check the temps and ensure that the unit isn't overheating
- ensure any power management settings for the GPU are set to "performance"

NBR Cooling Central

 

None of those are the problems. But thanks anyway.

 

you can check or report your problems here
http://www.totalwarforums.com/

 

Sadly is a buggy game, you are not alone. I would check the ETW and/or Steam forums.

 

Maybe it's conflict with ur windows 7. Did u try to run it on vista?

 

i second ditching the pre-release operating system.

 

I wouldn't ditch Windows 7 personally, it's a very very stable Operating System - more stable than Vista in my opinion.

Also very little has changed internally to stop games running, so I doubt that's the issue. If you want to 100% rule it out you could install ETW in the XP virtualisation that Windows 7 has.

Personally I'm gonna go ahead and blame the game. As mentioned, ETW is a VERY buggy game. So buggy infact I could barely run it on lower settings on my rig for some reason, the map was extremely laggy. Battles weren't too bad, but still a buggy, glitchy game.

 

Stability of the OS does in no way imply stability when running games that were not explicitly written for the OS. That said, it should work fine seeing how similar vista and windows 7 are.

And yea, ETW is load of fail for a lot of people. The AI could be better (a LOT better), the native americans could be better balanced, there could be more variety in Europe, etc etc etc... For a lot of people, there were also a lot of crashes before and after patches. Mine personally never crashed after I turned down the game settings a little bit.

 

I'd also recommend either going to the twcenter forums or the totalwar.org forums. There are some really helpful people there that can probably help you out better

 

if you dont over heat in similar games, then it is possibly a corrupted file.

Try reinstalling it

 

So it sounds like it is STILL buggy. It was so bad when I bought it launch week, that I put it aside for them to fix it. Sounds like it still has issues.

 

Some do some don't. Mine's running fine. In fact I have iTunes going in one window while genociding Indians and the French in another lol, pretty much high/max settings on my 5000+ BE and 8800GT.

 

I guess I will try the other forums. I reinstalled it 3 times but it still doesn't work. I am trying the sega support site, but they take forever to answer. I have waited a week and still no troublshooting.
Steam support wont help me since it is a 3rd party game. This SUCKS! It cost me 50 bucks for nothing.

 

you reinstalled the game 3 times or the operating system?

i still say ditch the pre-release operating system. it can be stable as hell and nice and everything, but it doesn't matter how stable it is. there may be a simple compatibility issue with the OS and the game.

also, steam support helping you with game trouble would kind of be like target helping you had you bought it from target. you'll definitely need to contact sega for help. you might also be able to get a refund from steam? maybe? i dont know about that.

 

Odd, I'm running it on Windows 7 without any issues.

 

I reinstalled the game 3 times

What version are you running? I am using the official RC1 from Microsoft.

 

You guys know of a number so I can call sega? The wait for support is outrageously long. A US number please.

 

I just saw something interesting. When I run it in a window and it crashes, the whole screen seems to flicker, not just the game. It flickers right before it crashes.

 

What you need to do is scour the forums for helpful fixes and advice, contacting support is usually a one way trip to no answer. For PC gaming get used to finding your own answers, this is nothing new. Often these kinds of things can usually be fixed by something very simple like:

• Update to the latest drivers (audio and video)
• Disable any anti-virus or apps running in the background
• Make sure the game is patched up to date (even though Steam updates games automatically, sometimes downloading the patch yourself from another site and manually installing it may do the trick)
• Make sure your OS is patched up to date (hard to say what to do about Win7... make sure you're on the latest RC I guess?)

 

While I generally agree with the advice you're giving, I don't think we can presume that the game is the problem when the OP is requesting support on an OS that is still a release candidate.

 

Totally agree but I think that was touched on earlier, the OP seems intent on using it so I thought I'd just try to help as best I can.

 

Ok guys. So I edited my settings in msconfig and limited my startup to only a few programs. Then I started playing ETW and it was perfect. I guess some incompatible app was open in the background.
PS: I completely agree with saying no to 16:9 screens. Mines an 1920x1200 17' beauty.