Game won't Launch

[bendover]

Hello all,

I just got a new refurbished Asus gaming lab top and so far it is working great aside from the fact that none of my Total War games will open on my computer. Other games work on my steam so I do not know what the problem is. So far I have downloaded Rome 2, Empire, and Napoleon and none of them open after I press Play.

I verified the game files, uninstalled and reinstalled the game, I don't have any mods, and as far as I know I have not set up any antivirus or firewall protection yet.

I literally bought this computer to play Total War so if anyone has any ideas as to how to fix the problem it will be greatly appreciated

Thanks!!

[valdimar_scriptus]

Do the games crash to desktop after loading in or are they not running from the button press.?

Also have you updated the drivers for the GPU.?

[Batman Kurdistan]

I'm having a similar CTD on startup problem. It's saying my mods are out of date all of a sudden, but there doesn't appear to have been updates recently?

[valdimar_scriptus]

Batman- You can either disable the mods used that are not compatible with the latest update/build version of the game or right-click the game in the library and select properties, then beta tab, there is a pull down menu there that you can pick a previous build (patch version) so you can roll the game updates back to a version your mods work with and launch the game ok again

[Ubuntuify]

valdimar_scriptus I think I have a similar problem. It starts with a black screen then closes. I detected some mini dump files in the game folder.

[MANWHATADONGA]

verfe your game files in properties.

[valdimar_scriptus]

RyanGamingXbox - have you tried reinstalling or verifying the games files like the OP.?

[Lemieux]

I have literally the exact same problem. New refurbished Asus laptop, perfectly fine specs for running. I click play on the launcher and it does not work. I've tried EVERYTHING suggested on different forums. Nothing works. It's incredible that CA can have such an error in their game. You wouldn't be allowed to sell a car that does not open. So why can you with a game?

[Ubuntuify]

Yes, I have done that.

[valdimar_scriptus]

RyanGamingXbox / Lemieux - One possibility is a setting in the preferences.script causing a crash, it is located somewhere like C:\Users\YOURACCOUNTNAME\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Rome2\scripts and you can open it with notepad to manually edit. Perhaps first delete it and try to launch the game and it will create a new one.

If still crashing look through the settings, usually the graphic settings cause these sort of issues for people on launch and when the game first came out I had to manually change them and save the file prior to launch of the game as my GPU at the time did not like the direct x version it was set to.

If editing, make a copy of the file so if you need to, you can revert back to what was there.

These are my current settings from the top of the top dealing with the graphics, but they may not suit your computer setup, e.g. your monitor resolution may be lower:

write_preferences_at_exit true;
last_version 19728;
app_multirun false;
x_res 3840;
y_res 2160;
x_pos 0;
y_pos 0;
vfs_log_level 0;
unit_test false;
gfx_first_run false;
gfx_video_memory -2000;
gfx_fullscreen true;
gfx_vsync true;
explicit_thread_affinity true;
enable_steam_update_thread true;
gfx_hdr 1;
gfx_shadermodel 0;
gfx_aa 0;
gfx_texture_filtering 4;
gfx_texture_quality 2;
gfx_device_type 1;
gfx_ssao true;
gfx_distortion true;
gfx_grain false;
gfx_cloud_shadows true;
gfx_hide_foliage false;
gfx_lightning true;
gfx_god_rays true;
gfx_fade_near_units true;
gfx_hide_dead_bodies false;
gfx_depth_of_field 0;
gfx_unlimited_video_memory true;
gfx_tesselation false;
gfx_alpha_blend 1;
gfx_gpu_select 1;
gfx_direct_resource_access false;
gfx_sky_quality 5;
gfx_unit_quality 5;
gfx_building_quality 5;
gfx_water_quality 5;
gfx_shadow_quality 4;
gfx_tree_quality 5;
gfx_grass_quality 5;
gfx_terrain_quality 5;
gfx_unit_size 3;
gfx_fleet_size 2;
gfx_gamma_setting 2;
gfx_brightness_setting 1.2;
gfx_screenshot_folder "./screenshots";
gfx_gpu ""NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti"";
gfx_effects_quality 5;
gfx_vignette false;
gfx_blood_effects true;
gfx_nightmare_mode false;

try with aa off and lower settings first, once you can launch the game use small changes and through trial and error bring the settings higher for performance and less crashes, make sure it knows your GPU, I helped someone recently and it had a different GPU listed and until fixed it was crashing.

[The Boominator]

So, I haven't had this specific problem, but I have had issues with it before.
Here's the checklist I'd recommend, let me know if none of these solutions work and I'll consider posting a step-by-step of more technical solutions.

1. Restart your computer and give it time to boot up. 90% of problems with these gaming computers are just random errors that I honestly can't explain but seem to go away with a reboot of your system. Depending on your computer settings, this may also automatically begin any OS updates that you have that may be worsening computer performance or causing cloud issues with internet-integrated applications like Steam.
2. Manually check for an update to your OS. You may not have your computer automatically check for updates when it restarts. On Microsoft Windows in particular, windows updates can interfere with your steam cloud and performance.
3. DO NOT launch the game with the "Continue Campaign" button. If you are running the game on a new system for the first time or after an update that may affect computer performance, this can cause issues for your computer. The game detects your hardware for graphics and if you're running new hardware or different settings for an old campaign, this can cause crashes.
4. Verify the game files and clear the game cache. Sometimes files aren't installed correctly the first time. Sometimes updates and hardware modify them. Sometimes computers are just dumb.
5. Disable all mods/workshop content. The problem may lie within these. If the game can run without them, that helps narrow the scope of your problem.
6. Use task manager (or whatever your system's equivalent is) to close any and all steam background programs. Wait a few minutes, as sometimes the processes take a few minutes to pause and abort, even without a prompt. Then restart Steam. This can resolve any conflicts within your steam. Sometimes processes of games continue to run in the background, which will abort the launch of a new game that uses a similar system.

These are the generic "unplug it and plug it back in" solutions. I'm guessing >90% of issues have to do with the integrity of the steam and OS processes. If you have done all of these, then it is an internal problem with your hardware and system settings as there cannot possibly be any conflict with your software. If you are still having issues, let me know and I'll have some back and forth with you about the specific nature of your problems and tests you can perform.

[Lemieux]

I managed to fix it last week, it was running Steam as administrator that fixed it for me, which is just ridiculous that Total War is the only game that requires that...

[valdimar_scriptus]

Glad to hear your campaigns can be under way Lemieux. This is not something I have had to do for this title but as long it works, perhaps something for RyanGamingXbox to try too if the issue is the same

[Lemieux]

Yeah, cheers for trying to help 👍

[Ubuntuify]

Well, number one. The game can't go even that far in launching for it to create a Rome2 preference.script file and I have searched like every inch of the internet and found deleting that folder did absolutely nothing for me sadly. The solution that worked for Lemieux didn't work for me and to provide more info, looking into the launching of the game. I found some DirectX minidump crash files that may provide more information. But I have no idea why it dosen't work.

The OS is fully updated and has not worked even with a clean restart. I am kinda losing hope right now. I hope you can find a solution for me fast as I can't play with my friend.

[The Boominator]

Originally posted by RyanGamingXbox:

Well, number one. The game can't go even that far in launching for it to create a Rome2 preference.script file and I have searched like every inch of the internet and found deleting that folder did absolutely nothing for me sadly. The solution that worked for Lemieux didn't work for me and to provide more info, looking into the launching of the game. I found some DirectX minidump crash files that may provide more information. But I have no idea why it dosen't work.

The OS is fully updated and has not worked even with a clean restart. I am kinda losing hope right now. I hope you can find a solution for me fast as I can't play with my friend.

Can you describe what happens when you launch it? Like, does Steam even indicate that you started the game? Does a window open? If so, what does it look like?
Ideally I could see a recording of your screen, but the type of crash can help me narrow down the issue.