Rome: Total War keeps minimising on startup

[andymac4883]

So I recently purchased the Steam version of R:TW since my old disc vesion of the gold edition wouldn't work on my laptop since I updated it to Windows 10. Playing the Steam copy yesterday just after purchase, everything worked fine, except that I changed a few graphics settings and the changes didn't seem to take. I figured they would take after the game restarted, so didn't worry about it.

Fast forward to today, I try to play the game again but every time it loads, the screen flickers as it does when switching to a program with a different resolution, and the game minimises itself and stops loading. Trying to maximise it again just leads to the same issue, with the only difference being that it has a second or so to load further. So far I haven't been able to get past the SEGA logo.

Now I feel like one of the graphics changes I made might have been the cause of the issue; most of them were just upping specific qualities and unit scale, but I also tried putting the game into widescreen mode, which was the only resolution change I made. Could this be the cause? And if so, how do I fix it, since I can't get back to the settings page to turn off widescreen mode?

If it helps, I'm currently running at a native resolution of 1920x1080. There are programs open in the background, but since they weren't an issue when playing the game successfully last night, I can't see how they'd suddenly become an issue now.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by andymac4883:

Fast forward to today, I try to play the game again but every time it loads, the screen flickers as it does when switching to a program with a different resolution, and the game minimises itself and stops loading.

Some of those older Total War games like to be ran in compatability mode for older operating systems. Try Windows XP SP2, for example, perhaps.

[andymac4883]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by andymac4883:

Fast forward to today, I try to play the game again but every time it loads, the screen flickers as it does when switching to a program with a different resolution, and the game minimises itself and stops loading.

Some of those older Total War games like to be ran in compatability mode for older operating systems. Try Windows XP SP2, for example, perhaps.

Tried running it in XP and Vista, two OS types I know I've had the disc version at least run in fine on older computers. Unfortunately, no joy. And even if it worked, it wouldn't explain why it ran absolutely fine last night but not now.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by andymac4883:

And even if it worked, it wouldn't explain why it ran absolutely fine last night but not now.

It could. If the OS did an update, for example, or other conflicting software also did an automatic update and is/are now causing issues.

What is your antivirus program and any other security software installed ?

Security software is not the only thing that can cause issues with games. Yes, even if you never had a problem with that software before:

Programs Which May Interfere with Steam

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

Use msconfig from Windows Start to see what is actually running.

You really should include system information in threads like this, such as OS, and all hardware specs. Windows 10 is not a complete OS, by the way.

You should always state if the OS is 32 or 64 bit also.

Like this :

Windows 10 64 bit.

[Kelmenjar]

Originally posted by andymac4883:

. . .it wouldn't explain why it ran absolutely fine last night but not now.

Originally posted by andymac4883:

. . . except that I changed a few graphics settings and the changes didn't seem to take. I figured they would take after the game restarted . . .

Try right-clicking the game in your library list and see if Configure/Confugration option is there (some devs have enabled it for older titles - some not) If it does show, try to undo the changes you made or reset to default if possible.

[andymac4883]

To fill you in on other details, I'm running Windows 10 Home 64 bit, on an Alienware M15x with a GeForce GTX 460M. MacAfee is the only antivirus software I'm aware of aside from things like Windows Defender. Between now and last night the computer hasn't been shut down, just set to sleep overnight, so I don't know if anything has updated in the interim.

Originally posted by Kelmenjar:

Try right-clicking the game in your library list and see if Configure/Confugration option is there (some devs have enabled it for older titles - some not) If it does show, try to undo the changes you made or reset to default if possible.

No joy there, unfortunately, there was no config options that I could see. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, then uninstalling and deleting the save and preference files from the SteamApps common folder, to see if the reinstalled game would go back to default video settings, but the issue persists. I'm not sure if that means the issue has nothing to do with the video settings, or if the preferences were saved elsewhere.

[The Giving One]

McAfee is a huge red flag for sure.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4361-MVDP-3638

McAfee AntiVirus

McAfee AntiVirus incorrectly identifies some third party game files as malicious and will quarantine the files during the download process. This often results in the message "This game is currently unavailable" when trying to launch the game.

Unfortunately, most editions of McAfee AntiVirus have no way to exclude files from real-time scans, so the only work-around is to disable real-time scans. To do this, open McAfee and select "Virus and Spyware Protection", then select the "Real-Time Scanning" option and click the button labelled "Turn Off".

Once Real-time scanning is disabled, you can restore your game files by following the instructions to Verify Game Cache Files.

Real-time scanning can be re-enabled once you are done playing, but unfortunately this will re-quarantine the game files, requiring this process to be repeated.

EDIT............................................

Here is another fun thing about McAfee. It may not like to be uninstalled from your PC, using the normal methods.

McAfee Product Removal Tool

https://service.mcafee.com/webcenter/portal/cp/home/articleview;jsessionid=mWFvrUrzN1D-DJkK2u2uVu7xu3vzum8Ksl4Nhen2lhc_2yRiU_EP!1801083531!-53234356?articleId=TS101331&_afrLoop=1845365062456321#!%40%40%3F_afrLoop%3D1845365062456321%26articleId%3DTS101331%26centerWidth%3D100%2525%26leftWidth%3D0%2525%26rightWidth%3D0%2525%26showFooter%3Dfalse%26showHeader%3Dfalse%26_adf.ctrl-state%3D146ndytf2b_4

And if only uninstalled using normal methods in Windows, it can leave behind one or two child processes that can still cause issues with Steam and games. (seen in msconfig from Start search)

Any program I cannot simply uninstall from Windows never gets installed on my computer in the first place. McAfee is notorious for being bad with Steam. I cannot say it is your problem, but it is surely a possible issue. And McAfee may not allow real-time scan exceptions ? No thanks. That is not something you want in an antivirus program, with Steam and games.

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/2595630410178807740/?ctp=2#c2595630410186367369
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/9/357288572126129212/?ctp=2#c357288572128593748 <-----------Disabled is not good enough.
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/135512555423951088/?tscn=1490424495#c135512555423996571
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/620712364034044113/?tscn=1491858111#c135513901709325962
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/2217311444336760846/?tscn=1500247486#c2217311444336895231

[Kelmenjar]

Found an old workaround on the TotalWar forums - maybe take a gander if the a/v thing isn't the issue. (the 2nd c&p seems to be the one for widescreen application)

https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/160589/issues-when-trying-to-launch-rome-total-war-on-windows-10-workaround-provided

and that's all I got, so will be getting out of TGO's way now - good luck guys, hope you can get it running!

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Kelmenjar:

and that's all I got, so will be getting out of TGO's way now - good luck guys, hope you can get it running!

Not at all, as the Total War forums are helpful also. Thanks for the suggestion. Anything might help with these older games on a newer operating system, depending on the issue at hand.

[andymac4883]

Regrettably, none of the above solutions appear to be working. I tried uninstalling McAfee, including using the remover tool, but that didn't help. Tried the preferences workarounds, but neither of them was useful - though the widescreen fix did actually make the game run (for the usual few seconds on the copyright screen) in widescreen before it minimised.

As an update, I'm having the same issue on the Steam copy of Medieval 2 that I got yesterday as well, though I didn't install that copy until today, thinking that I could play that if Rome refused outright to work. Exactly the same, reaches the copyright screen then force minimises and refuses to progress. Napoleon Total War is thus far unaffected, and my steam copy of Jedi Academy ran fine when I thought to see if all lower-resolution-than-native games were having issues.

One other thing I forgot to note, I'm running on multiscreen, with an extra monitor plugged in via video cable (the trapezoidal plug with screws, whatever that one's called). I did try unplugging the extra monitor to see if that helped but it didn't seem to make a difference. Don't know if that's at all relative.

[The Giving One]

Did you restart your PC after uninstalling McAfee ?

Did you verify the game files after you uninstalled McAfee ?

Did you try the visual theme options in the compatability window for the OS selection ? Sometimes, those can help also. But if you had the game running before, I think that the OS in your case is not the issue, but I could be wrong.

Have you searched the game forum for this game ? If the game will launch from Steam without crashes or errors, it's usually not a Steam issue, and the game forum is a good place for you to seek help.

I suggest you go there and use the search box for terms related to your issue. Try different terms also, while searching.

You can go here and enter the name of the game into the search bar.
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/#games

OR....

Right click the game in your library and select "view forum".

EDIT..............................................

Sometimes, it can help also to set basic preferrences in Nvidia Control Panel for these older games.

Such as single core for CPU and single display for display options (you said you had multiple displays and unplugged one but did you change it in Nvidia Control Panel ?)

These games were developed when single cores were pretty standard in the industry, so you have to keep that in mind when optimizing them. And GPU options back then were not as detailed as they are now for newer games. These Total War games ran on much simpler hardware, basically is what I am saying.

These are just ideas off the top of my head. I know you said you had the game running before, but now you added the other issue about Medieval 2 as well. When running these on Windows 10, expect to have to do some tweaking maybe.

[andymac4883]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Did you restart your PC after uninstalling McAfee ?

Did you verify the game files after you uninstalled McAfee ?

Did you try the visual theme options in the compatability window for the OS selection ? Sometimes, those can help also. But if you had the game running before, I think that the OS in your case is not the issue, but I could be wrong.

I've done these, aye. I also checked game forums for similar issues before making the discussion here, but a lot of what I saw didn't seem to apply to my issue or just didn't come back with a solution at all. I'll have another look around and try a few things, let you know how they turn out. Thanks for the help so far, by the way! I appreciate people trying, even if the solution is...elusive so far.

[The Giving One]

Sorry it was no help so far and thanks for following along and for the kind replies.

See my edit above, please.

Others may post here for suggestions also, so stay subbed to the thread, of course. If you figure it out, please update us here as we would be interested to know what the issue was and that might help others.

EDIT............

RTW Minimizing

https://steamcommunity.com/app/4760/discussions/search/?q=minimizing&gidforum=882957625838110599&include_deleted=1

M2TW Minimizing

https://steamcommunity.com/app/4700/discussions/search/?q=minimizing&gidforum=864945179797668703&include_deleted=1

Try setting at lower resolutions also, if you can select that option now considering, unless this was mentioned already.

[andymac4883]

All right, found a fix for Rome at least. The workaround Kelmenjar found with the preference file works, but I had to edit all the resolutions to match my native resolution. So setting everything to 1920x1080 made it run, no problems. So now I'm going to go and see if there's a corresponding workaround for Medieval!

EDIT

Further to that, editing the resolution values to match in the 'medieval2.preference.cfg' file in the main directory seems to have solved the issue for Medieval as well. That seems to be the end of that, at least for now! Thanks TGO and Kelmenjar!

[Kelmenjar]

Glad to see you got things sorted out - happy gaming!

[The Giving One]

Yep, nicely done. Thanks for the reply for sure. Happy gaming to you.