Can't seem to get games validated.

[LincolnOfRome]

I tried to participate last month in a couple of games and I got got emails that they were both invalidated. I've got an old 1GB 1GHz laptop with maybe 32k of video memory. It works, but I never seem to be able to make it through a full game without some type of crash.

I think one game may have crashed while loading the initial file, and both may have crashed at some point with a "failed to allocate video memory." I also get this reverse video thing where the game will randomly get really dark and reverses colors. I have to reload from the previous turn to or the colors will stay reveresed. I am running on lowest video settings.

I can't really afford to buy a new computer. Is there any way I might be able to participate this month?

EDIT-----------

Of course, willfully breaking rules would be a problem, and I am not doing that.

What I'm looking for is advice for making an validated save, even on a system that isn't real reliable. For instance, would setting autosave every turn work on computers that crashes a lot? It usually crashes between turns, so would going to last autosave present a problem? Since we have only one chance on a file, and there is always a chance of crashing, what are players doing to get validated saves?

 

[AlanH]

You have a private message.

Yes. Autosaving every turn is ESSENTIAL, particularly on a computer that crashes a lot. And then you MUST replay from the LAST autosave.

 

[Ronnie1]

I used to have lots of crash problems also. I found a free product, "Game Booster" from Iobit, it is configurable, and allows me to shut down almost all background processes with a single click. My computer almost never crashes now!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I also get this reverse video thing where the game will randomly get really dark and reverses colors. I have to reload from the previous turn to or the colors will stay reveresed.

If you get that behaviour again, press Ctrl + Alt + Del and open up the Task Manager. Doing so seems to force your computer's memory to refresh itself, which tends to be enough to fix graphical glitches and can temporarily speed your game up if it was lagging more than normal, presumably if it is lagging due to too much memory being allocated to memory page files.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I've been able to get my last couple games validated by setting autosave to every turn and only keeping the latest save--so I don't accidentally open a previous save after a crash.

Mostly, I think my installation was buggy. I reinstalled everything and seem to have less problems with BTS and Vanilla (Warlords is still buggy). Now, I still get the reverse video thing, but it resets after a few seconds.