Crashes, red and white squares...

This post was meant to be posted on the 2k support forums, but due to not being able to post at all, I'll try here.

All the problems I have been experiencing since I bought G&K and BNW in 2013 are the same as this poster in this thread:
http://forums.2k.com/showthread.php?254086-Civ-5-crashes-memory-could-not-be-read-written

These problems have been persisting to this day. For the sake of not hijacking threads, I'll make my own. Here's a list of everything I can remember.

- Red and white squares for hex grid, yield icons and leader scenes
- Missing graphics for Civilopedia/Great People/Wonder images
- Most of the Saves I try to load (Manual or Autosave) makes the game crash
- Crashes when trying to start a huge game with 12 players
- Sometimes crashes when settling 1st city
- Sometimes I can't even select a unit, must quit game
- Great Wall of China ALWAYS makes the game crash
- Trying to use the Steam overlay (Screenshot, webbrowser) will make the game crash(guaranteed C++ error)
- Random weird FPS drop/lag

Most of these crashes gives the good ol "memory could not be read/written" or C++ Runtime error message.

System Specs:
Win XP SP3
4GB of RAM
Intel Core 2 Q6600 @2.66 (4 CPU)
nvidia GTX 560 (1gb)
Dxdiag in Pastebin



I'm not finished. Like I said above, these problems appeared after getting both big DLCs. Running Civ 5 without these 2 makes the game work perfect just like it did before.

Back in 2013, we could not disable DLCs with Steam, just see a list. Recently, Steam updated this feature and you can now disable DLCs as you wish. So I reinstalled Civ5 with the DLCs... Same problems, just like before... ok... I then disable BNW in Steam and POW, just like magic, the game was cured of every problems mentioned above aside the fact that I can't play BNW.

Like the stubborn mule that I am, I tried debuging Civ 5 yet again, just like I did with Tech Support email back in 2013. Except I tried new things this time and made an interesting discovery that semi-fixed my problem. Hear this out...

I've tried editing the INI files in My Documents. Most of the edits I tried failed or made the game worse, except this one.

Inside the config.ini, there's a line that say :

; This is capped at runtime to the number of physical processors
MaxSimultaneousThreads = 8

I have a quad core cpu, so I set this 4 at first, thinking I'm a smartass. Nope, the game still suffered the same problems.

Then I tried 1... WTF. For the 1st time since I bought the DLC, I was able to start a huge game without any red-and-white squares whatsoever. I could even open the Steam overlay and open a website. Sadly, my PC BSOD'd after a few dozen turns.

Then I tried 2. Same result. Game ran fine for a while but still BSOD'd on a unit turn swap. Everything was going so well.

If I set it to 4, G&K seems to runs fine, but not BNW.

The BSOD screens were uttering nonsense about going into my BIOS and disabling caching. It did not specify what process had caused it. I remember getting BSOD because of my old graphic card(not the one I'm using) and it came with a message like "nvdisp.dll has failed" or something. But not these BSOD's I had with Civ 5 with my tweaking....

Is multithreading really breaking BNW like I think it does? Sorry for the wall of text. Any reply would be helpful...

It sounds like you're overclocking your computer. If so, undo it and try again.

Maybe your video is overheating? is it overclocked? When was the last time you cleaned it? Try lowering your graphics settings to all low and try again.

Last resort, or a if you have a spare hard drive. Try reinstalling Windows. Windows becomes corrupt over time with many different programs being installed/uninstalled and can become corrupt.

MarkJohnson said:

It sounds like you're overclocking your computer. If so, undo it and try again.

Maybe your video is overheating? is it overclocked? When was the last time you cleaned it? Try lowering your graphics settings to all low and try again.

Last resort, or a if you have a spare hard drive. Try reinstalling Windows. Windows becomes corrupt over time with many different programs being installed/uninstalled and can become corrupt.

Click to expand...

(I am the OP, my username got corrupted :S)

1 - Nope. I don't know how to overclock my hardware and I wouldn't do it if I could because I don't want to fry my PC.

2 - Nope. I've checked the temps before and after playing Civ. It's like the game doesn't draw any power at all from my PC, in fact.

3 - No. Civ 5 with G&K works just fine with the MaxSimultaneousThreads fix. It's when I install BNW that it all goes to hell.

For me, with all the crazy tests I've tried, everything seems to point out that BNW cause problems with Quad CPU/DX9/Win XP/multithreading/whatever.

It's really funny that Civ 5 was updated TODAY but none of this mess was fixed. It's been almost a year since I contacted tech support email telling them about these issues. The final answer was "wait for a patch".

Here's a followup, just for the record.

1 - There IS something wrong with my computer, I don't know if it's hardware or software related, but the BSODs I mentioned above are NOT related to Civ 5 or BNW. I am very sorry for the confusion.

2 - The MaxSimultaneousThreads fix IS the cure to my problem. I've set it to 2 and I've yet to experience the problems listed in the OP. If I set it to 4 or above, the problems reappear. The default number for this INI line is 8.

I have nothing else to say.

This thread can be locked and archived if necessary.