Civ 4 Freezes after 15 minutes of play

[elysiansmiles]

Hi! I've recently re-discovered Civ 4 - yay! I played a lot over this past summer, then my job started up again (I'm a teacher) and now I'm finally finding time to play again. At first, it all seemed to work fine. Now, however, I'm really disappointed as I've been experiencing hardware problems. The game starts up fine, but then sporadically freezes (in more advanced societies, it seems to happen within 15 minutes of play time, less often in new games).

At first, I got the blue screen of death and was very very frightened. I responded by updating my video drivers to the newest set. Now I don't get the blue screen anymore, but the game freezes (I still hear sound and I can move the mouse and alt-tab, but the game doesn't respond to me). It seems to be progressing in the background (based on the sounds I hear) but the video just stops. This never happened before. When I try to kill the game, ctrl-alt-del, etc it takes me back to a very pixilated version of my desktop that isn't very responsive to me either. It isn't frozen, it is just clearly graphic-deprived and doesn't want to do anything for me. If I try to restart the game at this point I get a DirectX error.

I haven't made any hardware changes, and the biggest software changes have probably been regular Windows updates.

Have tried:
~ Reinstalling the Game
~ Update to the latest game patch
~ update to the latest drivers, both through Windows and from NVidia's site
~ was concerned about overheating; cleaned out case and am now running cooler but the problem is still there
~ turned down all the video settings in the game to medium, then low

My computer:
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
Memory: 990MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 6150

Full info is attached.

 

[StargazingDog]

My first impression is that your video chipset is overheating. Open your case and locate the heatsink for the video chipset on your motherboard. While you are playing the game, occasionally touch the heatsink. If it is hot enough that you can't keep your hand on it indefinitely, then it is too hot.

Since your video chipset uses your system memory instead of having dedicated memory, it could also be a memory problem. Athlon systems are notorious for being very sensitive memory-wise, although you had no problem until recently, so I am not convinced you have a memory problem.

 

[elysiansmiles]

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I tried monitoring temps with Speed Fan, and it didn't show anything wrong, but I don't think it had a point to record from near the graphics chip.

I was playing another game today and got a DirectX error, so I think those may be related. I've ordered another hard drive (I'm concerned about the health of my current one, though its still functioning properly I think it may be close to failure) and I ordered another video card (it was time to upgrade from on board anyway). It looks like I'll be doing an operating sys reinstall soon, so... one of these changes ought to fix stuff. I'll be real concerned if its still malfunctioning once all that is in.

Thank you and happy holidays!

Robin