Civ4 crashes my new laptop.

[FrustratedCiv]

Hi,
I recently purchased a laptop to play Civilization IV. It has 4MB RAM, ATI Radeon 4570 card, Windows 7 64-bit, etc. System requirements isn't the problem.

I first had Windows Vista 32 bit OS. I installed Civ4, the Civ4 1.61 patch, then Warlords, then the Warlords 2.13 patch which patched Civ4 to 1.74.

I then ran Civ4, it started ok, I choose random scenario and other settings and then got to the game. So far, so good. My leader greets me, I click ok and then WHAM. A hard crash. I need to restart my computer.

Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can build my first city and then it crashes.

Then, I wiped out my hard drive, installed Windows 7 64-bit and repeated the installation. And yet, the same thing happened. A hard crash.

If anyone can suggest a way to get this game working, I'd be eternally grateful. Jusy Civ4 would be fine.

P.S. I don't know how ro access error logs.

I even disabled the Auto Restart in Windows in case of error and still, my laptop crashed as soon as the game began or after the first turn or in rare cases, after about 5 turns. I changed the screen resolution from 1366*766 to 1024*766. Still crashed.
No luck with Warlords either.

I've crashed my laptop about 20 times. Everytime, it was a hard crash.

I'm at my wits end. My brother has installed all three on his (old) desktop which has Windows Vista and it runs fine.

 

[bakshi]

Try running civ4 in administrator? Just right click the civ4 shortcut and select run as administrator.

 

[FrustratedCiv]

Tried that too. No dice. One thing I haven't tried is to try INSTALLING as administrator. But i have a hard time thinking that would solve it since I;m able to start the game fine and play one turn (or get close)

 

[Silu]

Are you sure 4MB of RAM meets the minimum requirements of Civ4?

Ok, on a serious note... If you are sometimes able to play for multiple turns and the crash occurs at a random point, to me that seems like a hardware issue (especially if it occurs on multiple OSes on the same computer, if I got that right?). If it was a desktop I'd advise to check for overheating and to airdust the fans, but not that many laptops ship pre-overclocked. What do you mean by 'Hard crash'? Frozen unresponsive screen? Black unresponsive screen?

Have you tried other programs and games that put serious load on the system? Maybe part of your RAM is faulty or you have bad sectors on your hard disk, resulting in wonky behavior if they are accessed.

Anyway, check the Civ4->Support forum here for Vista/7 related threads, for all I know this could be a well documented issue with a known easy fix.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Run memtest86+ for a few hours to test your memory. You'll probably need to run it from a thumbdrive, but there are a couple of different versions with different executable options. I don't have the link atm, but just use Google to find the download.

 

[sabo]

It's probably having problems with the 64 bit OS, check the properties of the program and see if there is an option to run it 32 bit compatable. It should as my 32 bit Vista machine has an option to run programs in 16 bit mode if necessary.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

It's probably having problems with the 64 bit OS, check the properties of the program and see if there is an option to run it 32 bit compatable. It should as my 32 bit Vista machine has an option to run programs in 16 bit mode if necessary.

Both my desktop and my laptop run 64 bit OSes (7 and Vista, respectively), and I have no issues running Civ whatsoever. Most 32 bit programs will run in a 32 bit "mode" of sorts without doing anything special. You can force compatibility in Windows for older programs that require it, but if Civ is patched properly (Vanilla to 1.74 in particular), it will run just fine on any flavor of Windows 7 or Vista.

Civ4 will not run properly on Windows 7 or Vista if "Vanilla" is not patched to 1.74.

That I can guarantee. Microsoft's compatibility website even said as much for Vista users (32 bit and 64 bit), and 7 is very much the same in that respect.

 

[sabo]

Civ4 will not run properly on Windows 7 or Vista if "Vanilla" is not patched to 1.74.

That I can guarantee. Microsoft's compatibility website even said as much for Vista users (32 bit and 64 bit), and 7 is very much the same in that respect.

That must be it Lemon, good info!