The problem, for several months now I've hardly been able to play a game thru. PTW games just eventualy at some point stop responding, C3C are more dramatic. Eventually switching to city view is the equivalent of setting off a booby trap. BOOM! DESKTOP! Often attempts to even restart the game blow you to desktop.
I'm 99% certain this all started when I installed a Radeon 9800. Also have a 7000 for backup. Same problem with both. Formerly used a 9200 without all this grief and an INVIDIA before that. I contacted Atari Tech. I updated every driver that could be involved. My modding style seems to play a factor. I like LOTS of production. So I'll mod vanilla games and I'll mod other mods, which seems to make them prone to this problem. But it's not consistent. I'm running a game of the Fantasy Empires mod that I molested and it's solid as a rock!
Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks

ATI/Radeon were the best cards for Civ3, originally. Around the time of the 9600/9800, they ran into some problems. The newest cards are supposed to be extremely good again. (I use a 9000 Pro, myself. ;))

I just ran into something even more basic...no mods, nothing. Recently switched from an ancient (but reliable) GEForce 2 to a Radeon X700 series card :scan: (running on XP SP2, C3C patched to v1.22, current audio/video drivers). Every game I try to play, around turn 10 or so...PHZZZZFPPH...crash to desktop :mad:. Tried uninstall/reinstall game, double-checked drivers to no avail. Hoping for a solution, but am about to resign myself to playing GalCiv until CivIV makes its appearance.

Maybe I'll just borrow back my ole 9200 from my GF's comp. Test to see if they play well together like I remember...