I've been playing Medieval Total War 2 for months with no problems. Just a few days ago I started running into a strange bug. Basically, just after entering a campaign (starting a new one or loading a saved game) the system would basically slow to a grind. The cursor would freeze in place and whatever sound that was currently playing would continue playing only with a huge stutter, progressing at maybe 1/100th speed. Most of the time I would have to manually power down the computer as alt-f4, ctrl-alt-delete, and alt-tab were all unresponsive. Occasionally after 10-30 seconds of frozen stuttering, the game would recover for a few seconds and then freeze again. In these cases I would be able to quit to desktop eventually. Sometimes the computer would be messed up after quitting out, other times it would be fine. Eventually, I started getting some minor graphical glitches along with the freezing and sound stutter.
I tried updating motherboard (nforce 4) and graphics drivers (which were already up to date). I also disabled other programs and ran msconfig to turn off any unnecessary processes. This didn't help.
I then noticed that when the game freezes, the HD activity light on my case would blink slowly and steadily rather than the normal erratic fast blinking. I tried running a checkdisk and this seemed to fix the problem temporarily. I was able to play fine for a day, then the next day it bugged out again. Checkdisk fixed the problem again.
Meanwhile I downloaded the LOTR online stress test beta and played that for maybe 20 minutes with no issues. That was yesterday.
Today I tried to play LOTR again and met the same error I was getting from Medieval only with more graphical glitches. This time, however, I was able to alt tab to the desktop. What I found was quite strange. I fired up task manager to look at the cpu usage patterns and found that it was basically normal, only every 3-5 seconds there would be a brief (.5-1 second) spike of 100% activity. During each spike my screen would go black.
I forcequit LOTR and the problem persisted. I restarted my computer and the problem went away. I tried running checkdisk again (which took way, way longer this time) and that didn't help this time. Furthermore, the last two times I've tried to use the program I've gotten a hard lock with lots of graphical problems and no ability to alt tab or forcequit. I've had to restart the computer manually. Furthermore, the computer has more graphical glitches in the BIOS and windows startup screen and fails to restart the first time. The second restart works fine. I checked to see if this would happen with Medieval too and I got the exact same error.
I can't even get into the games anymore -- the crash happens at the menu screens.
There are a lot of possible things that could be causing this. It could be something to do with the hard drive, but Everest's SMART check revealed no problems. I'm also not having trouble with any programs other than graphics intensive games.
I'm strongly suspecting the video card here -- if somehow it was leaving bad data behind when the bug happens it would explain the error persisting after the program exists or between restarts. The problem is clearly getting worse over time. It may be that there was a minor glitch initially and it persisted because of some sort of crap left behind which the scandisk somehow took care of, I suppose? But since then the problem recurred, only worse. Who knows.
Basically what I am wondering is:
1. Has anyone else experienced something like this? If so, any suggestions?
2. Does anyone know of a diagnostic I can run to figure out if it is my graphics card that is causing the problem? Unfortunately the people I live with either have laptops or don't have 3d cards, so I can't just swap in a known good card to see if that works. It's going to be a lot more of a pain to swap out the hard drive, so I'd like to start by testing the graphics card.
If any of you need any more information let me know and I'll do my best.
Thanks!
PS: I posted this on the Nvidia forums but got no responses... probably should have just posted here to begin with!
UPDATE: I Defragged my hard drive successfully -- except for a few files related to lotro and total war 2. My most fragmented files are data 1, 2, 3, and 4 for medieval, which are 1800, 1100, 1000, and 750 fragments respectively. Another medieval file is in 250 fragments. A few lotr related files are in 10-20 fragments, and a few unrelated items are below 4 fragments each.
I tried updating motherboard (nforce 4) and graphics drivers (which were already up to date). I also disabled other programs and ran msconfig to turn off any unnecessary processes. This didn't help.
I then noticed that when the game freezes, the HD activity light on my case would blink slowly and steadily rather than the normal erratic fast blinking. I tried running a checkdisk and this seemed to fix the problem temporarily. I was able to play fine for a day, then the next day it bugged out again. Checkdisk fixed the problem again.
Meanwhile I downloaded the LOTR online stress test beta and played that for maybe 20 minutes with no issues. That was yesterday.
Today I tried to play LOTR again and met the same error I was getting from Medieval only with more graphical glitches. This time, however, I was able to alt tab to the desktop. What I found was quite strange. I fired up task manager to look at the cpu usage patterns and found that it was basically normal, only every 3-5 seconds there would be a brief (.5-1 second) spike of 100% activity. During each spike my screen would go black.
I forcequit LOTR and the problem persisted. I restarted my computer and the problem went away. I tried running checkdisk again (which took way, way longer this time) and that didn't help this time. Furthermore, the last two times I've tried to use the program I've gotten a hard lock with lots of graphical problems and no ability to alt tab or forcequit. I've had to restart the computer manually. Furthermore, the computer has more graphical glitches in the BIOS and windows startup screen and fails to restart the first time. The second restart works fine. I checked to see if this would happen with Medieval too and I got the exact same error.
I can't even get into the games anymore -- the crash happens at the menu screens.
There are a lot of possible things that could be causing this. It could be something to do with the hard drive, but Everest's SMART check revealed no problems. I'm also not having trouble with any programs other than graphics intensive games.
I'm strongly suspecting the video card here -- if somehow it was leaving bad data behind when the bug happens it would explain the error persisting after the program exists or between restarts. The problem is clearly getting worse over time. It may be that there was a minor glitch initially and it persisted because of some sort of crap left behind which the scandisk somehow took care of, I suppose? But since then the problem recurred, only worse. Who knows.
Basically what I am wondering is:
1. Has anyone else experienced something like this? If so, any suggestions?
2. Does anyone know of a diagnostic I can run to figure out if it is my graphics card that is causing the problem? Unfortunately the people I live with either have laptops or don't have 3d cards, so I can't just swap in a known good card to see if that works. It's going to be a lot more of a pain to swap out the hard drive, so I'd like to start by testing the graphics card.
If any of you need any more information let me know and I'll do my best.
Thanks!
PS: I posted this on the Nvidia forums but got no responses... probably should have just posted here to begin with!
UPDATE: I Defragged my hard drive successfully -- except for a few files related to lotro and total war 2. My most fragmented files are data 1, 2, 3, and 4 for medieval, which are 1800, 1100, 1000, and 750 fragments respectively. Another medieval file is in 250 fragments. A few lotr related files are in 10-20 fragments, and a few unrelated items are below 4 fragments each.
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