CIV IV BTS CTD/BSOD Windows 7 Ult x64

[sloosecannon]

First post here... Hoping to be able to play CIV again...
After playing for a while (months, maybe years) without issue, BTS now refuses to start at all.

one of 2 things happens. Either it flashes (like a black flash on the screen, really fast) and freezes (I have to ALT-CTRL-DEL out, even ALT-TABBING doesn't work...) or it gives me a lovely BSOD about nvlddmkm.sys

In event viewer, the crash is displayed as follows:

Faulting application name: Civ4BeyondSword.exe, version: 3.1.9.0, time stamp: 0x4a0c27e6
Faulting module name: nvd3dum.dll, version: 8.17.12.7533, time stamp: 0x4dd734f1
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00535d89
Faulting process id: 0x2764
Faulting application start time: 0x01cc588a58931984
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\nvd3dum.dll
Report Id: bd83bc54-c47d-11e0-b3e6-005056c00008

BSOD analysis:

Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA800C48A4E0, 0xFFFFF88005B40E64, 0x0, 0x2)
Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
Dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\081011-81448-01.dmp
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys
product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33 
company: NVIDIA Corporation
description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33

BTS also tells me, when starting up, that my "system does not meet the minimum requirements"

I find this odd considering I have 2 N250 GTS graphic cards in SLI with an i7 processor and 10 GB RAM.

Any ideas?

EDIT: It's worth mentioning that I have no issue with Warlords or vanilla, and can play numerous other games with no issue whatsoever... it's just BTS that crashes

 

[kiwitt]

Have you tried installing Civ into its own folder as recommended here.

 

[sloosecannon]

No I haven't, but I'm changing folder access rights now (should do the same thing...) I'll post back with the results

 

[sloosecannon]

No joy. Still CTDs... It seems to me like it's driver related... I see no reason, though, why it would crash like this

 

[kiwitt]

I would definitely re-install into its own folder. And follow my advice in my sig.

 

[mintegar]

Are you playing with SLI? Have you tried disabling it, and just playing with one gfx card?

I would have said that another thing being wrong could be your PSU not cutting it anymore, but since other games run without issue that's prob. not the case.