noko expert at vid probs, HELP! SHOGUN won't run!

[Guest]

AAAAGGGG!! I am at my wit's end and can't figure this out!
I picked up Shogun: Total War this week but have had nothing but trouble. At first after installing it, I could not get it to run at all. I installed all the latest drivers and went through hell trying to get it run at all. Then I see that only certain drivers for nVidia will work with it (off Total War website.) OK, new vid drivers allow me to get into the game, but whenever I go to load a battle (in tutorial, historical battles, or campaign,) it locks, just accessing HD for minutes. I have to alt-ctrl-del to restart.

I have DX8 (retail) installed for MW4. Of course, the drivers that work with Shogun (11.01) are not "certified" for DX8, but MW4 runs fine. All DX video and sound functions work fine using dxdiag. I tried every possible combination of installation, drivers, etc and nothing works. I tried all the tips on the Total War site and in the manual. The system diagnostic that comes with the game says I should be able to run it fine, but it doesn't work--HELP!

system:
celeron 450
STB Vel 4400 (TNT)
SB Live!
3Com 905B NIC
128 MB RAM
9 GB HD with >3 GB free

 

[noko]

Do you have DX8a vice DX8? DX8a fixed a few problems. A TNT, wow. Also a SB Live! Have you tried the pre detonator 3 drivers which suppose to work much better on TNT cards? I never owned a TNT card from Nvidia just a Velocity 128 and my current MX400. I checked Nvidia site and they don't even list the TNT anymore, so much for support. If all your other games work fine with your set up and this one game doesn't then either the game is incompatible with the TNT card or you might try different drivers turning on and off the different settings. That is the best I can do. Anybody else here with a TNT card please help out.

<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/directx/" target="_new">http://www.microsoft.com/directx/</A>

Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b>

 

[Guest]

Wow! thx for the fast reply!
I have solved the problem. YAY! The only thing I had not tried was the AGP aperature. I had it set to 256 (as recommended by STB) but I lowered it to 64 and now the game runs.
Yes, I know the TNT is ancient -waiting for Radeon II or wfor when GF3 is cheaper now. I really need a whole new system.
I have the latest DX from m$ site.
How do I know which drivers are Det3 are which are Det2?? I know <A HREF="http://www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com" target="_new">http://www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com</A> has them all, but they don't say det2 or 3.

Thx again for speedy reply

 

[Pettytheft]

Everything at the-ctrl-alt-del is det3. You can get the last final Det 2 drivers at Nvidia's websight.

Blah, Blah Blahh, Blahh, blahh blah blahh, blah blah.

 

[noko]

Thats great you got it working. Yeap in a few months time the top cards will shift around some, GF3 Ultra (?), Radeon 2. GF3's I expect to drop down into the $200-$300 range by Christmass. I don't know why some people recommend the 256mb for AGP aperture, when I tried it I also got a number of crashes. Now I keep it at 64mb and everything runs smooth.

Well to eat your <b>C kie</b> and have it too, gotta get <b>Rade n II</b>