Civ 4 crashes PC at random

[Neon Deon]

I managed to play for 4 hours straight last night without crashing. All I did was turn the resolution down to 1024x768 and turned all graphics options to medium.

Game looks ugly as hell now, but at least it's working. I'm not underclocking my GPU just to play one game - a game that seems to run smooth as silk at maxed graphics settings up until my screen goes psychodelic on me and crashes the system.

There is still something wrong if Civ4 is trying to somehow push my GFX card beyond what it can handle. I mean I've got a Leadtek 6800GT with a half kilo of copper, and a good fan on it, it should not be overheating at standard frequencies (nor does it in any other game).

Is everyone else who has this exact problem running a 6800GT? I think everyone who's posted their graphics card details thus far has one. Maybe that's part of the problem

Civ4 is such a good game, that I can still tolerate playing it in ugly mode, but I really hope this gets investigated and addressed in a Civ4 or driver update.

IMHO:

No game I have ever seen messes with the graphics card to get it to run out of spec. based on that opinion I believe that the 6800GT is an over rated over heated power hog. That in itself can be overcome. The problem arises when someone runs out and upgrades an exsisting system thinking they dont have to get a new PS and that standard case cooling or worse no case cooling will work with no problems.

As for a card hitting 120c!

That is just FUBAR!

 

[heathen666]

I've finally managed to get Civ 4 stable on my system, I've made quite a few changes so I'm not sure which one fixed it, and I did notice the graphics card is still running around 100c.

Changes made:

1, Under clocking card from 350 / 1000 to 225 / 775.
2, Replaced the lastest Nvidia drivers with 71.89.
3, Installed 2 more case fans and an expansion card fan under the graphics card. My pc now has more fans than the Spice girls.
3, Reduced the graphics detail to low.

 

[Harkonnen]

heathen666
Did you drop vertex shaders version to 1.1 as one of old ways to fight slowness before? I have noted that with vertex shaders 1.1 GPU is used way more intensively.

 

[Mollyoko]

I have a fairly new machine, specs below and civ 4 completely shuts my machine down after about 20mins of play. Its completely overheated and starts to smell of burning (not good). No other game I have does this, eg. Half Life 2, Doom 3 etc...

I have updated my chipset drivers, nvidia drivers and even my Bios to the latest.

Playing Civ 4 in window at default graphics settings in 1024x768 res.

Cam anyone help please ?

Molly

 

[heathen666]

heathen666
Did you drop vertex shaders version to 1.1 as one of old ways to fight slowness before? I have noted that with vertex shaders 1.1 GPU is used way more intensively.

No I didn't.

 

[Mechachrome]

Well i'll have to say this is the first time ive ever encountered a (graphic problem) with a game but i also am having the same screen as Heathen .I just joined the boards myself after searching to see if anyone else is having the same thing my setup:

FX-51
1gig corsair
PNY 6800 GT

My longest game was 6 hours(map size huge,aa 0 graphics all on high) didnt have a problems really just some studder with the videos,since this is my 1st time at a Civ game thought id search for some better insight into the game other than the manual .This is how i came across the Harkonnen fix thought that might help the video studder after i did that fix thats when i started getting that graphics lockup about 20mins into a game .Didnt matter the map size at all .Also my gpu temp is 67 degrees under load .Power supply not an issue either checked that .

What i did clean out the dust (i needed to anyway it was about the time) did a fresh install of civ 4 again put everything back to the way i had it the 1st time . Last night i played a 3 1/2 hour game map size large everything on high so far so good .

Id like to add im not saying that Harkonnen's fix caused the problem, i just agree with alot of others that our systems can handle other games w/o problems whats going on here .Also i have smaller system im going to test Civ 4 on it to see if i get any problems .

 

[Harkonnen]

Mechachrome
Thanks for pointing that out... appreciated

My fix reduces memory usage at the cost of computation power (CPU and video). No, I don't silently overclock anything!! Just that could overcome the stability threshold of nearly-instable systems... While HDD was swapping, CPU and video had time to cool down. If my fix overcame swapping threshold with some systems, it could overcome stability threshold as well if it was too close.

 

[Mechachrome]

Np after reading the boards your fix has helped an number of people an i if not for people like you lending a hand i think many of us would have just moved along to something else .I will say that after playing for a number of hours an then quiting back to desktop(surf web,ect) Civ 4 an EQ2 are the only games it was better for me just to reboot because it seemed my memory was sucked up .Memory leak? dunno
But again with people like you lending a hand im sure it'll get worked out .