Unable to start Empire: Total War

llama_attack · Post by **llama_attack** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 11:06 pm

I've just installed Empire: Total War without any hiccups (It is validated and runs through Steam). However, When I try to launch the game it just hangs with a window saying "Launching Empire: Total war" for ages without any apparent progress. I would post the terminal output but I do not know how to for games that run through steam. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance

FatButtLarry · Post by **FatButtLarry** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:43 am

Since steam launches the app, the backtrace is tough. Browse through
program files and look for the exe. With steam open, see if the exe
will launch.

-Tres

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 11:06 PM, llama_attack <[email protected]> wrote:

I've just installed Empire: Total War without any hiccups (It is validated and runs through Steam). However, When I try to launch the game it just hangs with a window saying "Launching Empire: Total war" for ages without any apparent progress. I would post the terminal output but I do not know how to for games that run through steam. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance

--
- [email protected]

llama_attack · Post by **llama_attack** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:08 pm

Actually it's working now, just a day-zero bug or something, windows had the same problem. Thanks anyway

llama_attack · Post by **llama_attack** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:52 pm

I take back what I just said, When i go to run the game, the first intro screen comes up no problem, but then I think the intro video causes some problems. Is there any way to deactivate them?

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 12:48 pm

Hmm I have the same issue as you originally had: it just says it's starting but then nothing happens (for me it closes the status pop-up).
I checked the console and it resulted in the following errors:

$ wine Empire.exe
err:module:find_forwarded_export function not found for forward 'd3dx8.D3DXGetImageInfoFromFileInMemory' used by L"C:\\windows\\system32\\d3dx9_36.dll". If you are using builtin L"d3dx9_36.dll", try using the native one instead.
err:module:find_forwarded_export function not found for forward 'd3dx9_36.D3DXGetImageInfoFromFileInMemory' used by L"C:\\windows\\system32\\d3dx9_40.dll". If you are using builtin L"d3dx9_40.dll", try using the native one instead.

I have yet to search the forums for this error, but at least it's better than no errors

I'm not running off the daily though, using a precompiled one from xubuntu.

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 1:28 pm

I found some similar errors reported for other games. THey suggested copying the mentioned file to the system32 directory. I only have _36, not _40. After copying _36 it wouldn't even start and i got some other error. Doesn't look like that's the way to go forward.

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:01 pm

Allright, so i got it to work after I installed dotnet2.0 and directx9 via winetricks (not sure the latter is needed, I tried that first though so it's hard to tell).
I get into the main menu after the intro-movie, i can set all options etc.
When I try to start a battle or tutorial, i get the loading screen, but then it dumps the game and crashes the process and the loading screen just stays there.
I'll see if the campaign map works in a bit.

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:12 pm

The campaign map works. Sort of.
I'm running in 1280x760, low details. About the top 40% of the screen was not refreshing and full of garbage.
I now set it to MEDIUM details, and everything is working.
I'll give a battle a try again, but I reckon that's related to something else.

Is it correct that I can't add an application to the appdb with this forum account btw?

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:17 pm

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 2:12 PM, Deleon <[email protected]> wrote:

Is it correct that I can't add an application to the appdb with this forum account btw?

Right, you'll have to register for the AppDB.

It's been a backburner project to combine the accounts, but no one's
taken the initiative

--
-Austin

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:34 pm

Well, I submitted the information to the AppDB so it's at least stored somewhere.
Still gotta fix the battles though.

Djembe · Post by **Djembe** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 6:13 pm

I installed it last night through steam as well. It started up but there was
no sound and then it crash when I tried to start a campaign. I then edited
the launcher cmd line to match what I use for EVE Online and so far
everything works fine - sound too - and no crashes.

Click Applications -> Wine -> Configure Wine
Click Audio
Check the OSS Driver box and deselect any others
Click OK
Right click your Empire Total War icon on your desktop.
Click Properties
Click Launcher
Copy the contents on the Command textbox somewhere to backup the original
entry - for example mine was:
env WINEPREFIX="/home/username/.wine" wine "C:\Program
Files\Steam\steam.exe" -applaunch 10500

Change that to this:
padsp wine explorer /desktop=0,1024x768 "C:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe"

Modify the 1024x768 to whatever dimensions you'd like.

See if this works for you.

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Djembe · Post by **Djembe** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 6:27 pm

One more thing I forgot to mention - I also have changes related to Direct3D
in my user.reg which may help - certainly does for EVE.
[Software\\Wine\\Direct3D]
"DirectDrawRenderer"="opengl"
"OffscreenRenderingMode"="fbo"
"PixelShaderMode"="enabled"
"VertexShaderMode"="hardware"

The file is located in ~/.wine/user.reg
Make a backup copy before editing.
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Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:35 am

Didn't do anything for me. Sound works ok for me btw, so didn't change any of that.
Still freezes when it starts to load battles after changing user.reg.
The first time I ran i got some error in the console (which also crashed..) about creating a dump in relation to some 32bit instruction. I'm running the AMD64 version of Ubuntu, maybe that can cause the problem, donnow.

I added the game to the AppDB btw, you can find it here:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... &iId=15915

Thanks for your suggestions

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:42 am

I also have some issues with the right side of the screen (about 20%) not correctly showing the overlay things (movement overlay, borderlines etc). Units are drawn correctly though.
Currently running 1440x900 windowed, medium gfx

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:43 am

Turning off the Distortion effects appears to be the culprit when it comes to the original problem I had regarding the campaign map, where the top section of the screen was bugged.
Leaving it on resolves this issue.

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:55 am

Reverting to OSS crashes the battles from the loading screen (I guess that's an improvement over crashing and having to manually shut it down via kill

).
Reverting back to Alsa.

Djembe, you got anything like directx and dotNET installed?
Maybe I should start with a clean wine and test again. Not sure how to save all the downloaded data from Steam though, it's quite a few gb's.

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:31 am

1.1.17 didn't help, still the same issues.

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:38 am

1.1.18 didn't work, although now it doesn't close the loading screen when starting a battle

Cellus · Post by **Cellus** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 4:20 am

1.1.19 is the same. i.e. Campaign seems to run fine so long as Distortion Effects are turned ON, but hangs at battle load.

Deleon · Post by **Deleon** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:53 am

Confirmed!

Ubuntuxer · Post by **Ubuntuxer** » Sat May 22, 2010 4:38 am

The problem still exist. 1.1.44 Also in the latest game Napoleon: Total War.

Please submit your tracebacks in this bug report and vote for it!!!

mintminty59 · Post by **mintminty59** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:10 pm

I have wine 1.3 (tried 1.2 also) and using play on linux.

I am still having the crash at battle loading, can someone please explain to me in simple terms if there is a fix for this and how to do about it. Its this game thats really only keeping me from leaving windows perm.

I am using ubuntu 11.04 32 bit

jjmckenzie · Post by **jjmckenzie** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:22 pm

mintminty59 wrote:I have wine 1.3 (tried 1.2 also) and using play on linux.

If you are using POL, you will have to ask for assistance from the POL package maintainer. We have an agreement with them because they use unofficial patches for some of their packages.

If you are using Wine from the Ubuntu PPA, then we can help.

James

mintminty59 · Post by **mintminty59** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:24 pm

I just did a source install and I tried the patch from a bug report, and I still have the same issue. Any suggestions?

mintminty59 · Post by **mintminty59** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:26 pm

sorry for double post.

I am new to linux and wine, so its a steep learning curve so any help on anything you can offer I would really appreciate it.