Total War: Medieval 2

Hi. Sorry if this is duplicate. When I start Medieval, it show me black window, i can hear music but can't see anything.
In Kingdoms game loads, I can see menu, but if I want start campaign, game is loading, status bar is full and then nothing. If I press some key, game will crash. Thanks

Hi, I'm a computer no-no, so really hope you can help me out. Medieval 2 is one of my favorite games and pretty desperate to have it run on my Macbook Pro.

Followed the manual 2.2 (Engines), downloaded 1.3.24 as suggested, created a wrapper with manual 2.3, installed my dusty version of Medieval 2 from CD/dvd through manual 4.1. Got to Wineskin.app -> Advanced -> Configuration "to select the executable file to run", and found "/Program Files/SEGA/Medieval II Total War/medieval2.exe".

No clue what to do next. Pressing. Should I install windows (7?)? How to run it from now on? Really appreciate your help if story above makes any sense to you.

Kind regards.

Finally got the installation done, but trying to run it "medieval2.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close".

What's needed to get it running from here? Downloaded "d3dx9_30.dll" file and three available patches, but haven't used them yet, 'cause not sure which are a necessity and where and how to patch these files in "drive_c". Or maybe I'm missing out on something.

Bit of a run-through would be much appreciated.

hi there,

The Game runs great on my mac now but i have a problem with the text on the game. When ever i got to options or the some of the in-game scrolls the text is blured like a squiggle. Can anyone help?

I have the same problem. I know it's a know issue with PC users using ATI-graphic cards. They solved the problem there by going into the cards advanced settings and turned the catalyst AI off. But on mac there is no way of changing any settings. What Computer are you on? I'm on an Imac, 3.06 intel core 2 duo, 4 gig ram NVIDIA Geforce 8800GS.

Alright im guessing this ones gonna take a genius to figure it out but i thought id give it a shot. I recently switched my computer to ubuntu and installed wine to help play the game, it took me awhile but i was able to install both the first and second disks finally however when i try to play the game now it says "please insert correct cd/dvd rom". the first disk is clearly in and the computer can recognize it since it did install both disks already. Ive tried configuring wine for the cd/dvd rom and have mounted the cd/dvd rom. nothing works. the wine website says the game is definitely playable on wine and ive heard of a lot of accounts, ive heard it might have something to with the cd security but just wanted to hear if anyone has an idea...thnks a lot

Well have you tried getting it working with a crack for the game? If you need help getting one please send me an email (its my user @yahoo.co.uk)

Cheers,
Maq

yes i installed the crack off freeinformation society.com or somethin like that and it didnt make any difference

I'm sorry for the delay in posting, I've only just seen this (normally an email lets me know about these things...)

Anyhoo, I can only surmise you are using the wrong crack simply because if the game is still asking for the right CD then it isn't cracked! Have you patched it completely first and then cracked it?

The game does play flawlessly when you get past the cd security (I run it on steam so it isn't an issue for myself).

Not sure what else to suggest really, since you've already said you created a cdrom in winecfg and tried it that way. CD security sucks!

Cheers,
Maq

When i installed the game it asked for cd 2 which i put in, but the installer cudnt find or read cd 2 when i was installing it. can you help?

There is a feature of wine I read about but haven't had a chance to test myself called "wine eject"

If you run that from the command line in a separate terminal then it should stop wine from locking the drive so you can eject it properly and remount it properly, there maybe a "wine mount" or something but I'm unsure.

Another solution I used to do with some multi-cd games was try and copy all of the CD's into one directory and try installing from there, often different CD's have different filenames for the install files so this works often.

A 3rd solution I can think of is to put all the CDs in their own directory and have each directory linked to drive letter, then you can just point the installer to E:\ for cd2 or something like that.

Cheers,
Maq

Using the HowTo listed on this page i have instaled and started the game, however the 3 problems showed up:
1) scrooling at the campain map works bad, it has low FPS
2) In battles there is a problem with terrain colors. On some places colors are ok, but on some they are like my computer is on LSD. Those colors move, and rotate with the screen.
3) at the end of every battle, game (along with wine) crahes

can some1 plz help?

1, me too. : (
2, is from dx9. Without dx9 its look much better. : )
3, me too. : (

I've installed M2:tw. Didn't install DirectX. Got wintricks and entered: "sh winetricks d3dx9", got all the d3dx9_** on native.
Used the crack that was with the game, also tryed the 1.0, the 1.3 and the 1.5 no-cd crack, but no use.
They all give the error: "Medieval Total War has encountered an unspecified error and will now close.", some do while in the first screen after opening the .exe and others when I start the great campaign.
I've tryed using a virtual Desktop, and without, still no use.

Can anyone help me?

On 1.1.41 game seems to complain that some effect data files are missing. I was able to remove most of these errors by manually unpacking data files with a tool that can found in gamedir/tools/unpacker-folder since 1.2, but this did not solve all of them and I can't find any more datapacks to unpack.

If somebody can locate the missing castle effect files this game would work perfectly. All of these are .anim-files


P.S.unpacker needs msvcr71.dll and msvcp71.dll to be placed in it's folder in order to work.

I have this problem as well, but can't get the unpacker to run. I copied msvcr71.dll into the unpacker directory. I downloaded msvcp71.dll and placed it in the unpacker directory. Unfortunately, running "wine unpacker.exe --source=..\..\packs\*.pack --destination=..\..\ --verbosity=1" returns FAILED after two prompts asking if I wish to proceed.

Help appreciated!

wine doesn't run commandline application directly. Try "wineconsole cmd" and retry from there.

Good suggestion. Unfortunately it yields the same result: FAILED.

when I type the command "winecfg", wine tells me that: the programm winecfg.exe has encoured a serious problem and needs to close. Why? please

I don't think this is specific to Medieval 2: Total War - it sounds more like you need to do a fresh install of Wine

Has anyone tried to install kingdoms? I keep getting this error message

error number: 0x80040708

Description: unable to create required engine components, check whether you have appropriate priveleges to creat com components

setup will now terminate



I have installed basic medieval 2 however im unable to install the kingdoms expansion.

Also im running ubuntu 9.04 no extras. wine 1.1.23

Kingdoms expansion installed cleanly for me under wine version 1.1.25

post a bug report if you don't know how please tell me and I'll endeavour to post one.

Game works, but battle scenes horribly slow

Whenever I try to load the game it says the game cannot be loaded because of a fatal graphics error and I should try going into battle before changing the settings.

I'm running the latest version of wine with 180 Nvidia drivers and Ubuntu 8.1

The game ran fine on Windows.

Anyone know what the issue is?

Hi,

I just successfully installed and patched from 1.0 to 1.2 to 1.3. All done on wine version 1.1.16 on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid. Played the whole tutorial without problems. The siege battles do work but take a long time to load as someone mentioned here earlier.

Hi there, I have Ubuntu 8.04 and have followed the install instructions, including cracking the cd. When I try to start up the game, I get an unspecified error every time. What do I do, this is one of my fav games.
James

The game is working just fine for me. Both campaign mode and battles work flawlessly. But, there is one problem:
When i try to enter a battle in be sieged settlement, the game shows the loading screen (which turns black after a second, but this is normal...); the game loads for a while and then becomes idle.
So I have to execute the game and there are a lot of animation errors shown in the console.

Any suggestions, how I could fix this?

Thanks in advance!

Well, i haven't patched to 1.3, but with 1.1 when in a Siege you just have to way a LONG while as it loads up. Also, my experience is that siege battles are really really SLOW, as frame rates drop to almost nothing if you have too many units on both sides. Battles that occur in the field have an OK frame rate.

Could be i have a crappy video card (nvidia 8500), but in windows battles were smooth even in siege events.

Cheers!

Changing advanced graphics settings to use shader model 1 only fixes this for me, ymmv

I run Medieval TW 2 under wine 1.1.8. In general game is totally playable. Only few minor remarks:
In campaign map there is no borders between provinces and no visible roads (I have similar problem in Rome TW, but there roads and borders become visible around borders of the screen when I change zoom level). On the radar all provinces visible as they should be.
Sometimes game freezes for a few seconds in campaign screen during scrolling of the map.
Although cursor mostly looks ok, it doesn't change to sword cursor when hovering over enemy armies/troops(in battle screen).

I want the game patch 1.2 to 1.3 and this write the patch:
This 1.03.000 update cannot be applied to the 1.02.000 version of the game. And do no install the patch.

Tried applying patch 1.2 via wine 1.1.6 and wine 1.1.3 and keep failing with Error Number: 0x0000005 setup will now terminate. Used wine 1.0 and patching went fine.

The game is essentially unusable to me. Battles freeze or crash at the loading screen. The campaign map does not display terrain (although borders are visible).

Whenever I try to install Medieval 2: Total War, I get the same error about half-way through. It says that there is a transfer error with pack 3, and that the pack isn't ready. I'm sort of at a loss as to how to deal with it. I'm running wine 0.9.46.

I know this isn't directly useful to your problem, but ...

If you just want to play, you probably won't get M2TW running with wine 0.9.46 regardless of installation issues. I recall it not working with some versions around then. 0.9.49 seems to work, others later and earlier seem not to.
If, on the other hand, you're regression testing, awesome :) Wish i could be more helpful.

I managed to get the game to run with wine 0.9.50 once I copied over the DLLs mentioned in the comments here. I'm running version 1.0. However, I get very grave graphical errors... the campaign map shows no landscape: it's covered by water (the borders show up though). Worst is in the battle map, units arent animated among of the weird things... A screenshot is avaible here: img522.imageshack.us/img522/7166/battlesceneny0.th.jpg - Running ubuntu 7.10 with nvidia drivers version 100.14.23. Any ideas would be appriciated.

Sorry, I posted a link to the thumbnail instead of the screenshot!
The screenshot is here: img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=battlesceneny0.jpg

Same here.
No idea what to do about it, yet.

the glitches don't occur with 0.9.49... Crazy but true, if you install that version the problems go away.

Yeah, i just experimented with it, 0.9.49 seems to work, except for the mouse pointer.

Hm, I have the same Problem unfortunately I can not switch back to 0.9.49 because then some other Apps will not work anymore.
Is there anything else I can do about that?
I use wine-0.9.53.

Best Regards

Niels

Compile a copy of 0.9.49 in another directory, do not do "make install, and run the game with full path to wine.

i.e.

/home/myuser/wine-0.9.49/wine medieval2.exe --io.file_first

And confirm bug 11445 in bugzilla, please.

I did that and it works fine now, thank you. :)

Still an issue on wine 1.0.1-1 on debian lenny.

Fixed on wine 1.1.11, usign proposed d3x9_30.dll!

Follow howto above, if you get audio flckering select "Standard" and "Emulate driver" on winecfg's audio tab. Also, try lowering sampling rate and bits from 16 to 8, etc.

It's pretty much flawless now!

Hello.

I run the game, it say that "this game require pixel shader 1.1"

Here's the terminal error:
err:wine_d3d:DllMain VideoMemorySize is 0 but must be >0
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x34ae0c,0x00000000), stub!

I'd be very very very grateful to anibody who can help.

Same here!

Not sure about having enough graphical card for this game :S
This is what terminal says...

fixme:spoolsv:serv_main (0 (nil))
err:advapi:service_get_status service protocol error - failed to read pipe r = 0 count = 0!

re-testing, i had a little trouble getting things working after patching to 1.3 on yet another reinstall.
it may have been due to permissions on medieval.exe (not writable), permissions on setup.ilg (weird) somewhere in the Program Files\Install Shield directory, or perhaps on having the DVD mounted so copy protection was being difficult.

Possibly bug 10020, which is apparently fixed in current git so i hope not to have this installation issue in 0.9.48

So, testing, much stuffing around, and i find the campaign works in a virtual desktop.
As soon as i post the results, it stops working in the virtual desktop. with the same error it did fullscreen.

fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_EvictManagedResources (0x18b810) : stub
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_EvictManagedResources (0x18b810) : stub
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_EvictManagedResources (0x18b810) : stub
fixme:d3d_surface:IWineD3DSurfaceImpl_LoadTexture (0x1dbd9d28) Operation not supported for scratch textures
err:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_Reset Cannot change the back buffer count yet
err:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_Reset What do do about a changed auto depth stencil parameter?
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_EvictManagedResources (0x18b810) : stub
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_CreateAdditionalSwapChain The app requests more than one back buffer, this can't be supported properly. Please configure the application to use double buffering(=1 back buffer) if possible
fixme:winmm:MMDRV_Exit Closing while ll-driver open

so frustrating.
what did i do different that it worked before i posted the test results? i have no idea.

my idea now is that it was random, by chance when testing i got a few consecutive successes.

Hi!
Is anybody familiar with such an error:

This program requires graphics card with pixel shader 1.1 or better

I am trying to run the game on the following system:

HW: laptop with ATI Radeon 9700
SW: Ubuntu 6.06, Wine 0.9.44, DirectX 9 DLL (v30) is provided

Is there anything to do to run the game?

by the way, the error msg from wine:

ALSA lib seq_hw.c:456:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory
err:wgl:X11DRV_wglGetProcAddress (wglMakeContextCurrentARB) - not found
err:wgl:X11DRV_wglGetProcAddress (wglGetCurrentReadDCARB) - not found
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x34ae34,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_GetAvailableTextureMem (0x1a5a18) : stub, simulating 64MB for now, returning 64MB left
err:d3d:getColorBits Unsupported format: WINED3DFMT_UNKNOWN

fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_GetAvailableTextureMem (0x1a5a18) : stub, simulating 64MB for now, returning 64MB left

you can set your video memory size to the correct value, and it may fix some of the other trouble.

run regedit,
in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software/wine
if it's not already there add a key called Direct3D
in Direct3d add a string value called VideoMemorySize and set it to the correct amount, in my case 256

Well the game works great prboably better than in windows in Battle mode but in Campaign Mode it just freezes. Also when I start it in terminal I get the following error:
error_handler: c:\windows\profiles\All Users\Application Data\Trymedia\data\
and it then exits.

I did everything in the help here and then added all the dependencies:
- d3dx9_30.dll
- bootvid.dll
- hal.dll
- kdcom.dll

I no longer get the failure for not having directx. But, now, when I run the command sudo wine medieval2.exe, it will not load anything, it just goes back to the prompt with no error. Any thoughts?

Btw, I'm running on Ubuntu Fiesty x64.

One last thing, I downloaded the files from a direct to drive site. They worked back on my Win version. So, I doubt I need the no_cd crack.

All you need is d3dx9_30.dll.
And you need the no-cd patch.

Ok, I have placed the no-cd patch on and it still does the same thing.

Actually, sorry, when I thought I replaced it, it didn't do so. But, now, the problem is, I cannot use mouse or keyboard in it.

I see that there is a problem running it from the terminal, but how does one run it then if not from the terminal?

See my post re CA_LIBS error above, it explains how to create a desktop shortcut

Ok, I did that and ran the .sh, but, still no keyboard or mouse useage. I also tried to do it with virtual desktop, but it still didn't work. Any other thoughts? Game runs beautiful except no mouse or keyboard *heh*.

Odd, the only think I can think of is that you missed installing some of the dependencies listed in the HOWTO above. Try reinstalling all of the packages in the HOWTO that has the 'sudo apt-get install' lines, if that doesn't work you have me stumped.

Ok, well, I went through all those terminal runs again and they were all already installed but I did get two odd situations with the first and last install lines in that "How To."

First odd thing:
sudo aptitude install build-essential flex bison libc6-i386 libc6-dev-i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "libc6-i386"
Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "libc6-dev-i386"
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Done


Second odd thing:
sudo aptitude install libgphoto2-dev ia32-libs
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "ia32-libs"
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.

The rest were done without any issue (and were already installed). Still no reaction from keyboard or mouse. So stumped.

Ok, update:
I was able to get the keyboard and mouse to work! I didn't do the audio fix as stated in the bugs. Once I did that, it fixed it.

I am able to do both keyboard and mouse now.

Ok, well, that's all fun and fixed. Now, ran into the next problem (how much I hate these jerks who don't code in opengl), I try to do the Grand Campaign, select my country, and it goes back the Single Player screen and I can't select Grand Campaign or go into the game. Any thoughts?

The mouse should work.
For the keyboard:
Try to emulate a virtual desktop in the graphics tab of winecfg(matched to your desktop resolution).

The mouse should work.
For the keyboard:
Try to emulate a virtual desktop in the graphics tab of winecfg(matched to your desktop resolution).

I have the game "running" with 0.9.35
the menus and campaign mode is however soo slow (the computer is a P-M
with a gig of ram and mobility radeon X300). Battle scenes are much faster, actually semi-playtable, however with significant corruption.
Anyone has a clue about speeding up the 2d stuff?

The only semi-success i had was with wine-0.9.28 and wine-cvs 04/10/2007. Read 3 and 4 posts up. Although the game is unplayable(for me) so far even if you downgraded wine, i will frequently test with wine-git and keep you all posted(when it works good).

You can try to Mute Sound before starting the campaign map.

And try to:
cd enter-path/to/medieval2-here
su root
as root su back to you

so example:
art@linet:~$ cd enter-path/to/medieval2-here
art@linet:~/enter-path/to/medieval2-here$ su
Password: 'root_password'
root@linet:/home/art/enter-path/to/medieval2-here# su art
art@linet:~/enter-path/to/medieval2-here$ wine medieval2.exe

I believe this is the same as sudo, but i dont install sudo. ;)

After doing some research, I decided to update my video card driver. I'm now running version 1.0-9755 and the crash is still happening. I'm half tempted to try downgrading Wine next...

Here is a simple fix for the CA_LIBS error, please add to the HOWTO.

- Create a file called medieval2.sh in the game's install directory and place the following code in the file (make sure you change the second line to point to the proper place):

#!/bin/sh
cd ~/games/medieval2/
wine medieval2.exe

- Now make this shell script executable by running the following command in a terminal window:

chmod u+x medieval2.sh

- Finally, make a shortcut on your desktop pointing to this new shell script

I have this error ("Ca_libs"), but i don't understand how can i create medieval2.sh file? Could you help me please? I don't know what is a shell file and where i can find an explanation about this!
Thanks

I do all, what you write, but if I want to make this shell script executable it writes me : chmod: cannot access `medieval2.sh': No such file or directory

Can you help me with this ?
Thanks you alot man :-)

Ok so I have satisfied all dll dependencies and install the no-cd crack. It loads up but I just get a black screen with the title being something along the lines of "Requirements not met". This ran on windows so is this a hardware problem?

What video card do you have, and what driver are you running?
Also, run 'glxinfo|grep direct', it should return 'direct rendering: Yes'

Game tested with the retail release patched to 1.1 and no-cd-patch.

Works:
Install
Battle Scenes
Grand Campaign almost working with ocassional crash error: "Medieval2.exe: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit."
It seems to simi-work with random crashes loading the Grand Campaign map and switching from Battle map back to the Grand Campaign map.

Trouble Shooting Crash:
Mute sound in game(as mentioned in known bugs above) or add/change medieval2.preference.cfg
---------------------
[audio]
enable = 0
---------------------
But then when the Grand Campaign map loads it seems(so far) sound can be enabled.

What was not tested:
Multiplayer

Additional Comments:
Mouse cursor appears as garbled image, animated cursors won't show. see bug: 6989 above.
Unit Highlighting doesn't work correctly. Sometimes holding the shift key during/after moving your unit helps.
Sometimes the Grand Campaign doesnt load, but when i keep trying(3-4 times) it does eventualy load more so with sound disabled.

Looking forward to the next wine release(s)..

some things i have noticed:

wine 0.9.28 - Grand campaign works but not the battle scenes
wine 0.9.34 - Battle scenes work but not the grand campaign

It might be related to bug 2398.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Graphic Card: Nvidia
OS: Slackware 11

which graphic driver do you use? My machine is running on fglrx. I read somewhere that this driver causes some problems under wine.

Im using the NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755 driver from the nvidia site

I'm using the restricted drivers that come with Ubuntu 7.04 (beta). I believe they are also using the 9755 drivers from NVidia.

PS: My computer is currently on the fritz (hardware malfunction) and I am working on getting it up and running again, which is why I am late on getting back to some of your messages. I should have it back up and running within the next week. Sorry for the delay.

Hi,

I am trying to run medieval 2. Historic Battels work, well with some graphic issues. But I cannot start a campaign. After the loading bar finished I get an error message: Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit. The last lines of the terminal output are:

fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_CreateAdditionalSwapChain The app requests more than one back buffer, this can't be supported properly. Please configure the application to use double buffering(=1 back buffer) if possible
fixme:winmm:MMDRV_Exit Closing while ll-driver open


But how do I enable double buffering? Winecfg (in wine 9.34) is not offering this option to select.

An help is welcomed
HHH

I believe this option was removed in 0.9.34. It is stated in the ChangeLog. It was removed 2007-01-01.

Im getting the same message.

I'm on ubuntu edgy and I installed all the dependencies as suggested in the howto.
The game installs without any problem, then I satisfied the d3dx9_30.dll dependency and installed a no-cd crack.
From the terminal I launch

$ wine medieval2.exe

fixme:d3d:IWineD3DDeviceImpl_GetAvailableTextureMem (0x39e0070) : stub, simulating 64MB for now, returning 64MB left
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DImpl_GetDeviceCaps Caps support for directx9 is nonexistent at the moment!

then a black screen appears with the white cursor of the mouse and nothing else happens. I have to kill wineserver from the console to go back to my desktop.
any idea ?

I can play the campaign perfectly (although somewhat slow) but i cannot enter the battles.

funny I can play the battles but not the campaign...

The d3dx9_29.dll is OK, but you should NEVER copy ntoskrnl.exe from a Windows machine; that won't work at all. I don't know much about the other DLLs, but my guess is that they are not needed.

Get a crack from a place like www.megagames.com

You mentioned getting a no-CD crack. You believe these errors come stem from that?

After removing the ntoskrnl.exe I get the following errors:
err:module:import_dll Library ntoskrnl.exe (which is needed by L"C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\SECDRV.SYS") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\SECDRV.SYS" failed, status c0000135
err:module:import_dll Library ntoskrnl.exe (which is needed by L"C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\SECDRV.SYS") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\SECDRV.SYS" failed, status c0000135

You need a no-CD crack, but the one you mentioned above did not seem to work, so try another one.

Added No-CD crack and got the following (seems to be a step in the right direction) along with a wine pop-up warning (CA_LIBS, no message):

error_handler: c:\windows\profiles\All Users\Application Data\Trymedia\data\
error_handler: c:\windows\profiles\All Users\Application Data\Trymedia\data\
error_handler: c:\windows\profiles\All Users\Application Data\Trymedia\data\
error_handler: c:\windows\profiles\All Users\Application Data\Trymedia\data\

Try a different crack; that one seems to be for the TryMedia version.

Reinstalled game from scratch (so as to be able to apply version 1.0 no-CD crack). Applied different no-CD crack. When running from command-line I get the CA_LIB warning window (with no message in it). This time no error, though!

When I run it using the launcher on the desktop it opens a black square, shows a garbled cursor, and hangs. Examining the system.log.txt file, it shows the following:

16:10:07.338 [system.rpt] [always] CPU: SSE2

16:10:07.338 [system.rpt] [always] ==== system log start, build date: Oct 5 2006 version bld-medieval2-final-52 (29455) ===

16:10:07.346 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_0.pack

16:10:07.346 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_1.pack

16:10:07.348 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_2.pack

16:10:07.350 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_3.pack

16:10:07.352 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_4.pack

16:10:07.352 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/localized.pack

16:10:07.368 [system.io] [warning] open: preferences/player.txt is missing

16:10:07.368 [system.io] [warning] open: preferences/keys.dat is missing

16:10:07.368 [system.io] [warning] open: preferences/keys.dat is missing

16:10:08.142 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for DEFAULT

16:10:08.143 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for NOMOVE

16:10:08.143 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for COHORT_INFO

16:10:08.143 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_EMBARK

16:10:08.143 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_EXCHANGE

16:10:08.144 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ENTER_SETTLEMENT

16:10:08.144 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_WAYPOINT_MODE

16:10:08.144 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MOVE

16:10:08.144 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_DRAG_FORMATION

16:10:08.145 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_IN_RANGE

16:10:08.145 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_OUT_OF_RANGE

16:10:08.145 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ANISELECT

16:10:08.145 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for SELECT

16:10:08.146 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_DISEMBARK

16:10:08.146 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_DIPLOMACY

16:10:08.146 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_SPY

16:10:08.146 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_SABOTAGE

16:10:08.147 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_ASSASSINATE

16:10:08.147 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_SABOTAGE_AND_ASSASSINATE

16:10:08.147 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_ACQUIRE

16:10:08.147 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_DENOUNCE

16:10:08.147 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_TRADE

16:10:08.148 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_WAYPOINT_MODE

16:10:08.148 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_DRAG_FORMATION

16:10:08.148 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ATTACK

16:10:08.148 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for RANGE

16:10:08.149 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_IN_RANGE

16:10:08.149 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_OUT_OF_RANGE

16:10:08.149 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for THROWN_ATTACK

16:10:08.149 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_IN_RANGE

16:10:08.150 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_OUT_OF_RANGE

16:10:08.150 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ARROW

16:10:08.150 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for SIEGE_ATTACK

16:10:08.150 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ENTER_SETTLEMENT

16:10:08.151 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for STEP_LEFT

16:10:08.151 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for STEP_RIGHT

16:10:08.151 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for STEP_FWD

16:10:08.151 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for STEP_BKWD

16:10:08.152 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ROTATE_LEFT

16:10:08.152 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ROTATE_RIGHT

16:10:08.152 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MOUSE_LOOK

16:10:08.153 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for PRESSED

16:10:08.153 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for SANDWATCH

16:10:08.153 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for ENABLED

16:10:08.153 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for DRAGGABLE

16:10:08.153 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for DRAGGING

16:10:08.154 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for INVALID

16:10:08.154 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for CLICK

16:10:08.154 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for PICKUP

16:10:08.154 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for WALK

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_MULTIPLE_SELECT

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_ATTACK

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PLACE_CHARACTER

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PLACE_RESOURCE

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PLACE_FORT

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_MOVE_OBJECT

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PLACE_WATCHTOWER

16:10:08.155 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_DEPLOYMENT_AREA

16:10:08.156 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PLACE_TILE

16:10:08.156 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PLACE_SPECIAL_PIECE

16:10:08.156 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PAINT

16:10:08.156 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_ADJUST_HEIGHTS

16:10:08.156 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_ADD_UNIT

16:10:08.156 [data.missing] [warning] missing/invalid cursor for MODIFIER_PLACE_SETTLEMENT

16:10:08.299 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War failed to initialise audio system.

Audio card is not supported or audio drivers are out of date or not installed.

Game will continue with audio disabled.



16:10:22.286 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War failed to find DirectX 9, which is required for the game to run.

Please reinstall DirectX.



16:10:24.598 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

Can you run the command in the shortcut from a console? That way it would be possible to find out why it is not detecting DirectX.

Yes, all my posts refer to the command line from the shortcut unless otherwise noted. Now, for some reason I do not see the same results as the shortcut does when running from the command line (i.e. there is no black box with a garbled cursor).