Hi everyone,
First time visiting these forums but people here seem much more knowledgeable than the other forums I've been on, so here's hoping you can help!

I have been highly anticipating the release of Shogun 2: Total War and even upgraded my processor specifically with it in mind (I am well within required system specs). However I find that every time I attempt to run the game Shogun 2 I blue screen. To be more detailed every time I launch it, I get to the splash screen that shows copyright information and immediately following that I crash (so I have never made it to the main menu). This has never happened before and does not happen with any other programs, including other new graphic intensive games.

-Vista Home Premium x64 (came installed on system)
-Purchased 2nd half of '08, OS never re-installed



What I have done so far:
updated video card (from nvidia's site)
updated chipset, lan, and wireless lan (from intel's site)
updated audio (a homebrew I found that seems to work)

[gateway's support site for my laptop is horribly dated, and before I updated those things above (save for the video card update) I was still crashing due to shogun 2]

What has been suggested for me to do:
upgrade bios - (no official update exists, I found a homebrew that's slightly newer but I'm hesitant for obvious reasons)

I think I have spent more time trying to fix this then I would have playing the game if it were working.

Thank you for your help in advance!

Yes it is stable at all other times, I only blue screen when I try to run Shogun 2, I can still do everything else including playing other games, videos, internet etc...

And by downgrade do you mean my Processor or drivers? although I wouldn't know how far back to go with drivers because it was always 'stable'.

Also hard to know what I changed because it is impossible for me to know when this problem started as it only occurs when I specifically try to run Shogun 2 which I have had for about a week.

I realize that the easier solution is just don't run Shogun 2 (as the blue screen is specific to it). But after getting it and upgrading my processor specifically for it I don't want to think I just wasted $250 in total.

I have BIOS version 94.29 (it is what shipped on the computer, it is puzzling that the one on the gateway site is older ><)

There is no option for virtualization on my BIOS... however this is the homebrew BIOS I found for my system that supposedly has a virtualization option. Of course I have not tried it out yet

New Gateway FX BIOS 94.31 with VT enabled - Not for 7811FX

Sorry, did you want me to run that BIOS Implementation test suite?

I thought I followed the installation process correctly but I feel like it didn't give me much information so maybe I didn't... this is some of what I was able to find.

Code:

Running MSR consistency test suite...
(MSR 0x39 consistent): FAIL
(MSR 0x14e consistent): FAIL
(MSR 0x1c9 consistent): FAIL
(MSR 0x402 consistent): FAIL
Summary: 4812 Passed, 4 failed

Code:

Starting pass #1, Calibrating the TSC.
Starting pass #2, Wait here, I will be back in 15 seconds.
0      < t <=    1us; average =  85ns; count = 175634643
 Times between first few observations: 135ns  105ns  100ns 90ns  80ns
100us < t <=   1ms; average =  515us; count = 58
 Times between first few observations: 258ms  258ms  258ms  258ms  258ms

Summary of impact: observed maximum latency = 522us
Risk of OS timeouts exists with this observed latency (ideal < 150us).

Code:

Count | Signature | PlatformID| Prev Rev  | Avail Rev | New Rev  | Status
2       | 00010676 | 00000008 | 00000607 | None      | 00000607 | No Change
Replaced microcode on 0 of 2 CPUs.
error: Failed to open file: /boot/mcu.first.

although it didn't really give me much information about what my system/bios is capable of, just tests as seen above