The awesome PC strategy game Total War: Shogun II is finally out! It is available on Steam so I recommend getting it now or even purchasing it at a store. At the very least try out the demo! Anyway, here are some Total War: Shogun 2 game fixes for those who need a guide to help them troubleshoot any issues in there way!

*Update* Shogun 2 is currently on sale for $39.99 at Amazon! You can find Shogun 2 on sale here.
Total War: Shogun 2 Limited Edition on Sale!

How to Install Shogun 2: Total War from CD / DVD

If you want to install the game from the disc rather than having Steam download it for you, then perform the below steps. Not that those on a Macintosh (Mac) operating system will not be able to do this.

1) Load and Log in to Steam
2) Click on Library and then right click on the game -> Delete Local Content
3) Insert the CD into your disc drive
4) Exit Steam, then go to Start -> Run — and type:

“C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe” -install E:

This will launch Steam from the specified location and install from your E drive. Make sure to alter this to correspond to your settings of your Steam is located elsewhere or your CD/DVD drive is located elsewhere.
5) Hit OK, login, and have fun installing!

Install Locks / Freezes, Decrypting Files or Verifying Game Cache Stuck

Unfortunately, it appears many people are having this issue. Particularly when verifying the game cache it may halt at 74%. You can try the following steps to remedy it:

— Patiently waiting, as it may eventually finish (it commonly takes a long time for this game specifically)

If after waiting a while (really, give it some time) it still doesn’t install or the percentage is still stuck, then try:

— Close, then re-open Steam
— Restart the process
— Delete the game and all traces of it, then reinstall
— Installing from the disc instead (if you have a copy)

Enabling Anti-Aliasing (AA) & VSYNC For Total War: Shogun II – NVIDIA Graphics Card Method 1A

This game does not come with an anti aliasing option. However, many graphics cards are capable of forcing anti-aliasing and VSYNC upon games and applications.

For NVIDIA cards, the common method (this varies depending on your card) is to:
1) Load the NVIDIA Control Panel (can be accessed in system tray generally or Control Panel)
2) Click on “Performance & Quality Settings”, then the “Add Profile” button & enter Total War: Shogun 2
3) Click on the “Browse” button, select the Shogun Two EXE, then check the checkbox that’s located next to it in the associated application list
4) Under “Application” be sure to select the entry you just added and uncheck “Application-controlled”

Here you can edit your settings, such as VSYNC, Ant aliasing, and Anisotropic Filtering.

Enabling Anti-Aliasing (AA) & VSYNC For Total War: Shogun II – NVIDIA Graphics Card Method 1B

If the menus are different for you, then you may have a different NVIDIA Control Panel. Try the following instead:

1) Load the NVIDIA Control Panel
2) Under “3D Settings” choose “Manage 3D settings” in the menu, then under the Program Settings tab select the game from the drop down menu if it is present, otherwise click “Add” and navigate to the game’s EXE

Here you can mess with sampling, triple buffering, vertical sync, gamma correction, texture quality, GPU acceleration, and antialiasing. Simply override instead of using the global settings. Hit “Apply” when done.

Enabling Anti-Aliasing (AA) & VSYNC For Total War: Shogun II – ATI Video Card Method

Forcing antialiasing on for ATI graphics cards is pretty similar to the procedure done for NVIDIA video cards.

1) Load ATI Catalyst Control Panel and expand the 3D menu

You are now to the tweaking option. You can adjust Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic filtering, and other things here. Just make sure to click “Apply”.

Getting Limited Edition / Pre-Order Extras

If you have the limited edition or preordered the game, then you might be wondering how to redeem the extras / gifts that come with it. It features things like units and armor. You’ll find the code in your game box. Simply load Steam and enter it there. The official directions to do this are as follows:

If you have purchased the Total War: SHOGUN 2 Limited Edition or received an exclusive pre-order code via participating retail outlets, you will need to connect to the internet, redeem your code through Steamworks and easily unlock your units for use in game.

Install SHOGUN two and the Steam client as per instructions included with the game.
Launch the Steam client and select “Activate a product on Steam…” under the “Games” menu.
Step through the Steam Product activation wizard, entering the product code as prompted.
The Limited Edition content will then become available in the game as follow:

1. Exclusive ninja clan – available in single and multiplayer games from the clan selection screen.
2. Extra historical scenario – available in single and multiplayer games via the “Historic battles” menu.
3. Special armour for your avatar – it can be accessed from your avatar screen by clicking on the “Customize avatar” icon.
4. Bank account of XP for your avatar – the extra XP will automatically be added to your avatar profile

General Fixes: Lag / Black Screen / Crash to Desktop / C2D CTD

This is a pretty broad title, I know. A lot of the fixes for this are the same though. It would be redundant to keep them separated. This also includes fixes for launch failure / failed to open, which isn’t uncommon.

— Try running Total War: Shogun 2 in Windows XP compatibility mode through right clicking the exe -> properties -> compatibility and selecting it there.
— Patch the game when you can
— Restart the computer
— Revalidate your game cache to make sure it isn’t corrupted
— Update your drivers (i.e. video card drivers) to the latest version. This generally not only provides you with an increase in frames per second (FPS) to help with stuttering or lagging, but can provide game fixes for things like weird textures, artifacts on the screen, pixilation, game crashes, and more.

Total War: Shogun II – No Game Sound / Music

If there is no audio being produced by the game, then try the following game fixes:

— Set compatibility mode to Windows XP (right click the exe -> properties -> compatibility)
— Update your sound / audio drivers

You can also try disabling Hardware Acceleration and reduce Sample Rate Conversion Quality to try to fix it by:

1) Go to Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices (or) Control Panel -> Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices -> Sounds and Audio Devices
2) In the Volume tab, click the “Advanced” button under “Speaker settings”, then click the “Performance” tab
3) Move the slider from “Full” and “Best” to “None” and “Good”. Click “OK”.

Note that I recommend doing them one at a time rather than both at once on the off chance that you do not need to disable one or the other to fix the problem.

You can also try using DXDIAG:

1) Go to Start -> Run — and type in “dxdiag”
2) Click the “Sound” tab and under “DirectX Features” move the slider from “Full Acceleration” to “no acceleration” to disable the setting for DirectSound

Where is the DirectX 11 (DX11) Support?

Unfortunately, as of right now you cannot enable DirectX 11 for this game. A patch will be available soon to provide Direct-X 11 support.

Steam_api.dll is Missing

Simply download Steam_api.dll here.
Step 1. Extract the file to c:\windows system (32 bit windows users) or to c:\windows\SysWOW64 (64bit windows users)

Steam Error: “Servers Too Busy”

This error isn’t usually one you can fix. That’s because it means that the server is crowded. The easiest and recommended solution is to just try again later, especially during odd hours. This is common mainly during the initial release of hot games.

Minimum and Recommended Hardware Requirements

Minimum Hardware Requirements
2 GHz Intel Dual Core processor / 2.6 GHz Intel Single Core processor , or AMD equivalent (with SSE2)
1GB RAM (XP), 2GB RAM (Vista / Windows 7)
256 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card (shader model 3)
1024×768 minimum screen resolution
20GB free hard disk space

Recommended Hardware Requirements
2nd Generation Intel® Core™i5 processor (or greater), or AMD equivalent
2GB RAM (XP), 4GB RAM (Vista / Windows7)
AMD Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series graphics cards or equivalent DirectX 11 compatible graphics card
1280×1024 minimum screen resolution
20GB free hard disk space

If you know any other game fixes for Total War: Shogun 2, then please share them! This game is too fun to be played with bugs, problems, and errors! Thanks!