Crashes/freezes and lots of attempted fies....

New to forum so please forgive any lack of etiquette.

System:
HPA730N
P4 530
512MB RAM
ATI X300
onboard sound

My symptoms have been the same since I first installed the game, Dec 26.
I can play a single player game for 10-20min, (longest was 1hr, shortest was this morning , 5min) and then the game has one of the following faults:
1) freeze, then CTD with a resulting VPU error box
2) flicker and loose graphics, sounds still available and responds to keyboard commands
3) full system freeze, requiring a hard reboot

This seems to occur when an event is being reported (i.e. notification that a Civ has completed a wonder, A great Person appears in one of my cities, a city needs instructions on what to build next, etc.

Because the game has been flaky, I have followed the following process before starting each game:
1) fresh reboot
2) close ALL apps except my Norton Firewall
3) kill all processes not required by Civ (e.g. gamedrv.exe, hpupdater.exe etc)
4) disable NAV autoprotect
5) check memory/cpu status (always 200MB+ free)

I have attempted the following as suggested in the forums, with no change in the symptoms
1) reinstall
2) apply patch 1.52
3) uninstall game, video drivers (ATI catalyst v5.13), reinstall game, reinstall video drivers
4) uninstall game, video drivers, reinstall game, install old (ATI Catalyst 4.12)
5) change level of detail in game to lowest
6) disable all sound
7) set MemSaver = 1 (this forces me to hard reboot on game freezes)

I've attached the config and logs from todays crash.

commentary:
Civ is really the only game I play. This is very disheartening to have spent aprrox 20hrs applying fixes and workaround for 5-6 hrs of limited gameplay.
If I am going to be a part of Firaxis' QA team, I think that I should be compensated ;-)

Firstly, set MemSaver = 0, as turning it on actually induces more crashes.

Two things I would advise

* Check your mobo and sound chipsets/drivers, if theres an update, apply it.
* Set your pagefile as high as you can, I would recommend a good gig at least.

I did upgrade my BIOs and Sound drivers over the weekend, but no luck.

Current configuration:
v513 Catalyst driver
virtual memory - 750MB -1.2GB
memsave = 0

Failure occured after 1 hour of play on a standard size map at High detail, at approx 900AD

Screen went black, hard drive ground for approx 30sec, cursor re-appeared, but screen remained black.
I was able to alt-tab to the desktop and back into civ4.
Civ4 gave audible cues in response to keyboard commands.
Unable to shut down/save civ4 because I can [esc] but the resulting dialog box seems to respond to mouse clicks only.

see attachment

changed to the OMega 5.12 Radeon drivers.
No dice.
Still lockup requiring hard reboots, black screens with cursor and background noise.

Plus side - Omega drivers and control panel use approx 50MB less memory than the ATI & CCC.

dbrown00d said:

I did upgrade my BIOs and Sound drivers over the weekend, but no luck.

Current configuration:
v513 Catalyst driver
virtual memory - 750MB -1.2GB
memsave = 0

Failure occured after 1 hour of play on a standard size map at High detail, at approx 900AD

Screen went black, hard drive ground for approx 30sec, cursor re-appeared, but screen remained black.
I was able to alt-tab to the desktop and back into civ4.
Civ4 gave audible cues in response to keyboard commands.
Unable to shut down/save civ4 because I can [esc] but the resulting dialog box seems to respond to mouse clicks only.

Click to expand...

Hey, I'm gettting the exact same symptoms here. Happened in a game w/ huge map, 7 civs......around 1200AD....

At some time in the near future, you may want to increase
your total system memory to 1 GB, or 2GB. The problems you describe can be greatly alleviated by increasing your system memory. You should be able to run CivIV without problems with your current memory through the following procedure:

You only need make two more adjustments. First, load CivIV and open the Advanced menu. Open the graphics page, and change the Graphics quality/detail from High to Medium. Exit this page and exit Civ IV to the main Menu, then the program itself.

Open up your CivilizationIV configuration setting file and change memsaver to memsaver = 0. Locate the AutosaveInterval setting and change it to AutosaveInterval = 0. Save the file and close.

Reboot, load CivIV and your problems are over. Remember save frequently.