Civ5 Crash: Possibly my new video card?

[somabrandmayo]

This just started today, out of the blue. I installed a new video card a few days ago and have had no problems playing Civ V until today. Randomly the game will completely freeze, along with my cursor, and Ctrl-Alt-Del won't even bring up the task manager. I have to do a hard reboot. I've noticed artifacts in the background of leader screens that look like pastel colored patches. I noticed that the steam.exe file was set to just Windows Vista compatibility so I changed it to Windows SP 2 compatibility. No dice.

Anybody have any clue what's going on?

Specs:

Windows7 64bit
2 ghz
ATI Radeon HD 5700
4 gb RAM

 

[Sjru]

This just started today, out of the blue. I installed a new video card a few days ago and have had no problems playing Civ V until today

Have you installed something very recently?

Randomly the game will completely freeze, along with my cursor, and Ctrl-Alt-Del won't even bring up the task manager. I have to do a hard reboot. I've noticed artifacts in the background of leader screens that look like pastel colored patches.

That sounds like a bad OC to me. Have you updated drivers?
Alternatively, perhaps the new video card eats more power than before, and that's maybe causing trouble.
It could also be overheating. Try checking temp.-

Also you forgot to provide your CPU (not just speed). Just askin' because I've got a similar problem.

 

[somabrandmayo]

Sorry it took me so long to respond. Completely unrelated computer problems.

Only thing that I recently installed was Batman: Arkham Asylum and then the new video card. Haven't tried Batman with the new card yet though. And yeah, they are the most up to date drivers.

CPU: AMD Phenom 8450 Triple-Core Processor.

Probably a newb question but how do i check temp? On my PC or the video card?

 

[Sjru]

Then it might be temperature related or power related (I don't really think that the game is not compatible with that card).

The best thing I can suggest to check your temp is to download SpeedFan, a free utility which I use to check all the temps. Search google for it. Alternatively you can use Gpu-z, which is a free software to check all about your video card. Also search google for it.

Check the temp while playing, if it's about 80ºc or higher, you might got the cause.

The other one is check the supply power you got. It should be fine if you got about 500w, but It may vary. I used to have power issues and got the same problem, It was solved when I bought a better power supply.

 

[somabrandmayo]

Ran GPU-Z while playing tonight. Temp never got above 67 before everything froze. I'm attaching the log file. Is there anything out of the ordinary on there?

Power supply is only 300w. Could this really be the problem?

 

[tokala]

The PSU could be a problem, if it's either a cheap one a older one (those have not enough juice on the 12V rail). A modern, quality 300W PSU should be capable of powering your system. What's the rating for the 12V rail?

Edit: Uups, forgot that the older Phenoms were power hogs, your system will probably draw around 250W under load, that's already borderline for all but the highest quality PSUs. Suggest to replace it with a good 400-450 W PSU, even if your present problems turn out to be not PSU-related.

 

[Revoran]

In that case your power supply could indeed be the problem, 300w is a little low especially for a DX11 capable card. Also depending on how many cores your 2Ghz processor has it could draw a significant amount of power.

Am I mistaken in thinking the 5700 is a laptop card in which case your power supply might be difficult to replace?

If not, desktop PSUs can be found fairly cheap at 400w and above (I have a 600w with my GTX460 and a 2.3Ghz quad core CPU) which is what you will likely need if it's a power problem.

 

[somabrandmayo]

Bought and installed a Corsair GS700 PCU. Game still froze on me. Any more ideas out there?

 

[somabrandmayo]

Alright. Tried the game using DirectX 9 and I was able to play an entire game all the way through. Could this have been the problem?

Looking at the video options, most everything was set to Medium so I'm going to try the game with everything bumped to High and see if that makes any difference.

 

[Sjru]

Alright. Tried the game using DirectX 9 and I was able to play an entire game all the way through. Could this have been the problem?.

Probably, or perhaps a combination of both. Do not discard that lack of power could have been part of the problem.
Other options are that something is wrong in the Dx11graphics.ini. To better try that theory, try deleting (or moving) that .ini to reset to default the settings.

Also it might be the CPU, as far as I know there are some complains that AMD causes trouble on Civ5 (I got a similar issue, and I got an AMD processor too).

 

[The_J]

Looking at the video options, most everything was set to Medium so I'm going to try the game with everything bumped to High and see if that makes any difference.

I suggest that you don't turn the graphical settings for leaders to "high", because that will probably stress the engine quite a bit more than the rest (not sure if you even can, because it would require DX11).