Random game freezes in computer move.

I've had Civ IV since its inception. I've given up on it several times because of this problem. I'm back again.

With my older AMD processor and nVidia 4200Ti video card and the Asus motherboard on-board audio, the basic Civ IV just doesn't cooperate. It will play along fine for a bit, then will freeze in the computer players turn. The graphics locks up, and even Task Manager can't overwrite it. I have to hard-power off the PC to get out of this. Sometimes I can play for hours before the lockup, sometimes only minutes. Although, most of the times, the problem occurs later in the game. I have to reboot the system and reload the game from the auto-save, and it will proceed past the previous problem. The processor and audio still seem to be functioning, as I regularly have radio streaming in the background.

Everything on the PC has the latest drivers. I've reinstalled this game multiple times. I've run regular hardware checkup program -- everything checks out fine. I've tried older video drivers. I've tweaked video options. I've removed and edited .ini files. The PC is very well tuned. I regularly have 1.2mb of memory (of 1.5) available before starting Civ IV. (XP with no service packs, but patched last on March 20). Absolutely nothing I've tried seems to impact this problem.

I have only encountered this problem on one other piece of software -- the Sins of a Solar Empire demo. (I regularly download demos -- I know that shader 2 doesn't work at all with this graphics card).

Upgrading simply isn't an option. Changing any of the graphics card, motherboard, processor or memory would require replacing all these components, and I can't afford that at the moment.

The search function on this site doesn't allow AMD as a search term (4 character minimum), and there's no hits on 4200.

I am exceedingly frustrated, and have been for a long time. Any help at all before I give up again?

First of all let me say i know what you're going through.
Ive had similar problems for along time with my computer
and i couldnt really understand why. Although i always
had this nagging feeling it had something to do with the
memory in my computer.

I also very rarely ran into this problem with other games
or programs. But it happened a few times and it always
struck me that it seem to happen when i had to use alot
of my memory (1 gig at the time). Civ 4 is using extreme
amout of memory it seems.

Anyways, i tried checking my memories with mem386 and
stuff like that. I couldnt really pinpoint if i really had some
failing memories or not. I never had any report saying
something was wrong, but also at some times the computer
would lock up the same way it did when i played Civ.

I came to the point where i thought i could really use more
memory anyways so i went and bought 2 gig of memory and
replaced my old ones (two 512 meg memories).

Now i have been able to play Civ 4 with full graphics at huge
maps without any lockups at all for a few weeks so i think
i can safely say that in my case the memories where at fault.

If its the same for you is hard to say, but thats probobly where
i would start looking anyways. You say you have 1.5 gig, thats
kind of unusuall, do you have three 512 megs ?

Maybe you could try removing one at a time to see if anything
changes or maybe you can borrow some compatible memories
that you know is ok to test it.

Thats about all advice i can give you at this point.
Hope you figure it out.

Cheers

Thanks, Cromm!

I've got a 1gb stick and a 512mb stick. Old memory. So old, I don't even remember what kind it is. I'll try pulling the 512 stick when I get a chance. Anything is worth trying right now.