encyclodoc
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2009
- Messages
- 10
Hi all,
Like so many people it seems, I can no longer play Beyond the Sword. Not for a lack of trying.
Attached is my dxdiag.txt file.
EDIT:[I forgot to add the crash style. the primary monitor running civ will go to black, with the music still playing the the background. it hangs there and does nothing. If memsaver is turned on, instead, the game will crash, eventually, to desktop, and give me an error about device switching, as if I had tried to alt-tab. This crash occurs if i try to zoom out to the globe view just as i load the current save file, or if i don't do anything, and advance to the next turn. ]
EDIT: [As I was playing through this current game, the game would randomly crash, forcing me to reload, as I worked through the game. Now, I can't even advance or mouse around on the current save file. The crash styles varied. some would simply black screen. some would crash to desktop with no apparent errors. some would crash the primary monitor to no signal, and the desktop would resume on monitor two. sometimes the same as the last crash would happen, but at a lower resolution or color depth. The current, repeatable crash is primary monitor to black screen, impossible to alt tab or ctl alt del out of.]
The Current save file I am trying to finish is stuck at 1905. Game settings:
Marathon
Custom Continents
8 players (two have been eliminated)
Gigantic map size.
I have played gigantic sized maps, including terra maps, to completion previously, on this machine, when it had lower specs.
My Computers basic stats:
Intel pentium 4, 3 gHz, hyper thread. (Edit, not dual core as I indicated originally)
Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT
3 Gigs of memory, which I verified are for my motherboard
4 gig static sized page file
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
Windows XP 32 bit
~80 gig SATA HD. Not sure on RPMs. nothing fancy.
Current Game Version installed : Beyond the Sword 3.19
I purchased and installed Civ 4 vanilla from a CD.
I purchased Beyond the Sword from Direct to Drive, and patched from Direct to Drive.
I do run two monitors, but I have duplicated the problems with only a single monitor hooked up.
I have lowered my pixel and vertex shaders to 1.1, both, coupled with turning off AGP textures in dxdiag, and still it crashes.
I have cleared the cache, for both civ and bts.
I have tried to monitor memory usage with nvidias tools, but simply running the monitoring (nVidia Monitor) program instigates a crash (when run in tandem with an instance of BtS). This has been verified on a smaller save file.
I have lowered the graphical in game settings to the absolute bare minimum, including resolution.
I tried to install both the omega and NGO drivers, to run the card, but neither one was stable and/or would install my current graphics card.
At the time this game was coded, my machine should have been considered at the cutting edge of a gaming machine (I know, I know, not now, yeah yeah, send three thousand dollars to... and I will get right on that.) I no longer have an interest in new games, I just want to play this one, and right now, I can't get it to work. I have gone up and down two lists of suggestions, but perhaps there is something I am missing, some memory problem out there, that is keeping the game from running in a stable fashion. It makes no sense that the game has become progressively worse and worse as time goes on.
I have also monitored temperature of the gpu, and it is fine, running well within spec. With my Pentium 4, or because it is Dell, I am unable to monitor the Temp of the CPU, although I am going to go in and clean out inside of my computer, just in case. All the drivers from the motherboard on up are the latest available.
If you have some idea that could help, please please do so. I don't want to ruin the day of a nice minimum wage call center techie at take two.
EDIT [Events log shows no clearly apparent information regarding programs associated with civ causing an issue.]
EDIT {I am currently uninstalling the game completely, and reinstalling from civ 4 vanilla from scratch. Prior to doing so, I am also completely defragging my hard drive, as well as deleting and reinitiallizing the page file. }
Sincerely,
'Doc
Like so many people it seems, I can no longer play Beyond the Sword. Not for a lack of trying.
Attached is my dxdiag.txt file.
EDIT:[I forgot to add the crash style. the primary monitor running civ will go to black, with the music still playing the the background. it hangs there and does nothing. If memsaver is turned on, instead, the game will crash, eventually, to desktop, and give me an error about device switching, as if I had tried to alt-tab. This crash occurs if i try to zoom out to the globe view just as i load the current save file, or if i don't do anything, and advance to the next turn. ]
EDIT: [As I was playing through this current game, the game would randomly crash, forcing me to reload, as I worked through the game. Now, I can't even advance or mouse around on the current save file. The crash styles varied. some would simply black screen. some would crash to desktop with no apparent errors. some would crash the primary monitor to no signal, and the desktop would resume on monitor two. sometimes the same as the last crash would happen, but at a lower resolution or color depth. The current, repeatable crash is primary monitor to black screen, impossible to alt tab or ctl alt del out of.]
The Current save file I am trying to finish is stuck at 1905. Game settings:
Marathon
Custom Continents
8 players (two have been eliminated)
Gigantic map size.
I have played gigantic sized maps, including terra maps, to completion previously, on this machine, when it had lower specs.
My Computers basic stats:
Intel pentium 4, 3 gHz, hyper thread. (Edit, not dual core as I indicated originally)
Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT
3 Gigs of memory, which I verified are for my motherboard
4 gig static sized page file
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
Windows XP 32 bit
~80 gig SATA HD. Not sure on RPMs. nothing fancy.
Current Game Version installed : Beyond the Sword 3.19
I purchased and installed Civ 4 vanilla from a CD.
I purchased Beyond the Sword from Direct to Drive, and patched from Direct to Drive.
I do run two monitors, but I have duplicated the problems with only a single monitor hooked up.
I have lowered my pixel and vertex shaders to 1.1, both, coupled with turning off AGP textures in dxdiag, and still it crashes.
I have cleared the cache, for both civ and bts.
I have tried to monitor memory usage with nvidias tools, but simply running the monitoring (nVidia Monitor) program instigates a crash (when run in tandem with an instance of BtS). This has been verified on a smaller save file.
I have lowered the graphical in game settings to the absolute bare minimum, including resolution.
I tried to install both the omega and NGO drivers, to run the card, but neither one was stable and/or would install my current graphics card.
At the time this game was coded, my machine should have been considered at the cutting edge of a gaming machine (I know, I know, not now, yeah yeah, send three thousand dollars to... and I will get right on that.) I no longer have an interest in new games, I just want to play this one, and right now, I can't get it to work. I have gone up and down two lists of suggestions, but perhaps there is something I am missing, some memory problem out there, that is keeping the game from running in a stable fashion. It makes no sense that the game has become progressively worse and worse as time goes on.
I have also monitored temperature of the gpu, and it is fine, running well within spec. With my Pentium 4, or because it is Dell, I am unable to monitor the Temp of the CPU, although I am going to go in and clean out inside of my computer, just in case. All the drivers from the motherboard on up are the latest available.
If you have some idea that could help, please please do so. I don't want to ruin the day of a nice minimum wage call center techie at take two.
EDIT [Events log shows no clearly apparent information regarding programs associated with civ causing an issue.]
EDIT {I am currently uninstalling the game completely, and reinstalling from civ 4 vanilla from scratch. Prior to doing so, I am also completely defragging my hard drive, as well as deleting and reinitiallizing the page file. }
Sincerely,
'Doc