Crash to a 800x600 4bit desktop

[Gav]

Which fix?

EDIT:

Gav is talking about the fix in this thread. I tried making the changes described in the .ini file, but I still get CTD when the world starts getting too busy.

yeah, thats the one, sorry.
its worked for a few people describing the symptoms of this thread.

 

[Nightfang]

I have the same problem on an 1.333GHz thunderbird, 1GB RAM and an Leadtek fx5200 (20% overcloacked) with 81.85 driver. I really hope they will come up with a second patch for this problem soon!!!!!!

This is not a CIV issue. If you read this post, there is evidence that in this case it is the driver. If you have an FX series card, you should try to get an older version of the driver, from the 60 or 70 series.

 

[Gav]

This is not a CIV issue. If you read this post, there is evidence that in this case it is the driver. If you have an FX series card, you should try to get an older version of the driver, from the 60 or 70 series.

its not just a driver issue. the newest driver appears to not like the default configuration of Civ very much, but when thats changed it runs fine

 

[JensG]

Which fix?

EDIT:

Gav is talking about the fix in this thread. I tried making the changes described in the .ini file, but I still get CTD when the world starts getting too busy.

That ini edit seemed to do a lot of good for me.

Game has just been running for 3 hours, without any crashes.

 

[Spekingur]

Saying that this is not a Civ issue is very wrong. Something within the game must cause the driver to crash, right? The driver just doesn't crash all by itself - it's cause and effect at play here. Especially when other games run just fine. So the cause is Civ in such a way that the video drivers crash.
Blaming only the drivers is like, err, is like blaming money to cause greed. Or, err, something.

I changed my game from fullscreen to windowed (through the Civ options screen) and voila, no more CTDs. On the other hand I get a Windows error message. I haven't copied this crash yet but it clearly shows a memory fault. Might it be due to on-board video memory on the cards themselves?

 

[Heligrin]

Same thing is happening to me. Before it CTD i get weird flashes where all i can see is the terrain and then boom im in 800x600 etc. I never crashed in civ before the patch, not all my games become scrweed up with weird artifcats(not heat). The patch screwed something up...



6800GT 256
A64 3700+
1gb ram
Audigt 2 ZS

 

[Nightfang]

So, you say -

Saying that this is not a Civ issue is very wrong.

Then you say -

Might it be due to on-board video memory on the cards themselves?

Contradict often?

 

[spa]

That ini edit seemed to do a lot of good for me.

Game has just been running for 3 hours, without any crashes.

I tried the ini fix out tonight and for whatever reason it works wonderfully on my machine. I actually quit the game on my own accord rather than have it crash on me after two turns. Anyone having trouble should definitely go give this one a look.

 

[Roma Victa]

Been having this problem since I got the game. I was finally able to fix it on my system by using the 71.89 NVidia driver. I left the game running for the past 14 hours, playing about half the time. No crashes or any other nastiness.

 

[Spekingur]

Nightfang, do you try to start flamewars often? As it seems like you are trying to.

And no, it is not contradiction. It was just a thought. The game (just as other games) uses the video card memory through the drivers. So I was wondering if somekind of inaccessibility to video memory due to that too much of it is being used could be cause for the video drivers to drop into "safe" mode. That does not mean it is the fault of the drivers themselves although they could play a part in it.
Is the videocard disabled in the hardware profiles for you guys when the game crashes to the 800x600 4 bit color?

 

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

I changed my game from fullscreen to windowed (through the Civ options screen) and voila, no more CTDs. On the other hand I get a Windows error message. I haven't copied this crash yet but it clearly shows a memory fault. Might it be due to on-board video memory on the cards themselves?

I switched to windowed mode in case it helped, but I'm getting the same thing. What would have been a straight dump to desktop from fullscreen became an error message followed by a straight dump to desktop. I've switched drivers three times, from 77.62 to 71.89 to 81.95. Identical problem with all three sets, running a 64Mb GeForce4 MX 440. That's the only problem though. It runs real pretty on all the graphics settings (I keep 'em low out of habit anyway), but I haven't got to a late-game stage to see if there's any slowdown yet

My tears are flowing like waterfalls!

 

[Nightfang]

Nightfang, do you try to start flamewars often? As it seems like you are trying to.

And no, it is not contradiction. It was just a thought. The game (just as other games) uses the video card memory through the drivers. So I was wondering if somekind of inaccessibility to video memory due to that too much of it is being used could be cause for the video drivers to drop into "safe" mode. That does not mean it is the fault of the drivers themselves although they could play a part in it.
Is the videocard disabled in the hardware profiles for you guys when the game crashes to the 800x600 4 bit color?

I was merely pointing out that you had a pair of statements that were contradictory of each other. If I had wanted to start a flame war, trust me, you would know it

Now, back to the subject on hand -

When my system crashed playing Guild Wars to the 8x6x4 desktop, The driver itself had failed. The video card was not disabled, but the driver itself had dumped and so I came back to Windows with a messed up desktop. Nothing short of rebooting the system would fix it. I finally got fed up with it, and loaded instead of my older drivers (I keep ALL of my Nvidia drivers, you never know when you need one to test something with). The odd crashing stopped, and I was able to play GW for hours on end without a single problem.

YMMV, of course. What fixes things for me may no necessarily fix things for you.

 

[MasterMind666]

I solved my problem with the memory leak fix

 

[Malagant]

I was merely pointing out that you had a pair of statements that were contradictory of each other. If I had wanted to start a flame war, trust me, you would know it

Now, back to the subject on hand -

When my system crashed playing Guild Wars to the 8x6x4 desktop, The driver itself had failed. The video card was not disabled, but the driver itself had dumped and so I came back to Windows with a messed up desktop. Nothing short of rebooting the system would fix it. I finally got fed up with it, and loaded instead of my older drivers (I keep ALL of my Nvidia drivers, you never know when you need one to test something with). The odd crashing stopped, and I was able to play GW for hours on end without a single problem.

YMMV, of course. What fixes things for me may no necessarily fix things for you.

Nightfang, I've said it before, I'll say it again...pump up your ego somewhere else. Your posts are inflammatory and do not provide any information whatsover.

The person who pointed out that this is NOT just a Driver issue was dead on...those drivers work perfectly fine for me (and others) in a number of other games that are far more 'video' oriented (eg Battlefield 2). If the DRIVERS were the sole problem, one would think the problem would manifest itself in other games.

The problem is the interaction of the Game with the Drivers.

If the driver works fine for all the games but one, it's really far more likely that the one game is the problem, not the driver, right?



I've still not had success going back to 71.89. I do not have the CTD problem, but the slowdown is extreme on anything but Standard map.

I'll be upgrading my FX5500 to a 6600GT within the next few days, perhaps it just needs more Oomph

 

[Spekingur]

After some questioning I have found that there are indeed Civ 4 players with Nvidia cards that are playing without any problems - so to speak. Never any CTDs and suchlike.
The driver would only be part of the problem. And I believe this all still relates to Civ's main problem - memory leaking. They need to do some serious plumbing for next patch.

On a side note, I play Guild Wars just fine, no crashes whatsoever.

 

[HounddogLGS]

HOLY CRAP!!! I can play my game!

If you have an nVidia card and are having problem with your game, try rolling back to the 71.89 driver. The difference is staggering. I had 81.85 and 81.85, and performance was terrible, with lots of crashes (including the screwy 4 bit stuff). After installing 71.89, with no other changes at this time, I'm finally able to play the 1000 A.D. scenario (huge map, 18? civs, all well established). Not prepared to say everything is perfect, but my game is finally playable. There might be hope for this game yet...

 

[CarbonToast]

Yeah 61.77 and 71.89 are a lot better. The only thing that I am still having problems with is loading a late-game huge map. The loading process takes a long time and the game is usually unplayable when it finally pops up (corrupt graphics and massively slow gameplay). But I can finally play through the smaller maps

 

[sickre]

I tried that 'fix', and now it crashes at 3 minutes instead of about 15.

 

[jstuart99703]

I am having the same issue with an ATI Modbility 9700 Pro. It happens at various times. I had it happen one time when I zoomed out to view a larger area and I zoomed out to the clouds and the screen went black and then changed to lower graphics setting. The time before that a Musketman just started attacking an Archer.

I am running An AMD Athlon 3700+ 64 BIT Processor
1 GM of Ram
ATI Mobility 9700 Pro
Windows XP with SP 2

I also have the patch. Has anyone been able to find a fix yet?

Thanks

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Same deal started happening to me. I just put in a GeForce FX5500 the other day. I can finally see the opening movie and all the wonder movies!

Unfortunately, the get this CTD to 800x400 at 4 bit every few turns also. :thumbdown

I tried the most recent driver first and it seemed to crash every couple of turns. Rolled back to 81.85 and it seemed more stable, but got another crash when I clicked on the minimap to move the screen.

I'm not exactly taxing the system either. I'm playing on a small map with 6 civs, 2 of which have been eliminated. It's about 1950AD, so yeah, the map is busy, but come on, it's a small map!

I should be able to run this. My system isn't a burner, I know this, but everything is above the recommended specs. Starting to get a little frustrated. And also burning up a lot of wasted memory saving my game every turn. I may try rolling back to 77.77 or whatever it was that came preloaded with the card.