Crashing to desktop?

[CrossTheRiver]

didn't work for me (9550 POS radeon 256)

I'm sure this is a directX or video drive error, where the video drivers just aren't made for civ and ATI or Nvdia need to make a new set, and/or directX is finicky. Either way it sucks and i hope there is a fix soon.

I have the same CTD problem but I *may* have found a solution (for my machine). I disabled FAST WRITE in my video card settings. I will post again if the problem reappears. Like a poster above mentioned, it's hard to duplicate the bug although I found it happened most while panning around the map and zooming in & out.

I also have the hard reboot bug. For me it seems to always happen during diplomacy with other leaders.

Direct X, Video Drivers and BIOS are all up to date.

WinXP SP2
Pentium 4 2.6 GHz (not overclocked)
1 gig RAM
Radeon 9600
SoundMAX Integrated Sound
Logitech MX 3100 Cordless Keyboard/Mouse
No dustbunnies & no problems with other games.

 

[sgtcasey]

didn't work for me (9550 POS radeon 256)

I'm sure this is a directX or video drive error, where the video drivers just aren't made for civ and ATI or Nvdia need to make a new set, and/or directX is finicky. Either way it sucks and i hope there is a fix soon.

If that were the case then a lot more folks would be having the problem. I have been able to play many hours of Civ4 without a single hitch.

My system:

Dell Dimension 8400
Intel P4 3.0GHz w/HT
1.5GB PC3200 RAM
120GB hard drive space in two drives
ATI X800XT PCI-e w/256MB
Windows XP Home w/SP2

Dave

 

[CrossTheRiver]

So you're guessing that because you ar enot having any problems, therefore most people aren't having any problems (in strict relation to my assumption of the problem) And if that is the case I might say you are remakrably short sighted.


If you didn't notice, i haven't seen someone post this problem with that type of card, and oh by the way, drivers can most deffinantly be card specific, meaning simply, 5.10 on yours is different than 5.10 on mine. Know why? because the card hardware and software is different not to mention a host of other inconsistancies. So before you go dismissing me like a five year old at the big person table, lets consider all the factors.

 

[sgtcasey]

So you're guessing that because you ar enot having any problems, therefore most people aren't having any problems (in strict relation to my assumption of the problem) And if that is the case I might say you are remakrably short sighted.

Not assuming at all... I'm saying that if this problem was driver or DirectX related then there would be a lot more folks with the same problem.

If you didn't notice, i haven't seen someone post this problem with that type of card, and oh by the way, drivers can most deffinantly be card specific, meaning simply, 5.10 on yours is different than 5.10 on mine. Know why? because the card hardware and software is different not to mention a host of other inconsistancies. So before you go dismissing me like a five year old at the big person table, lets consider all the factors.

I download the same drivers you do for your ATI card. Unless you mean the differences in the OS versions? I do know ATI offers up different versions of drivers depending on what OS you have. But if you have a Radeon, the drivers are the same.

But at any rate, my intention wasn't to flame. Since you appear to have taken my post as such then good luck getting the game to work!

I'll be over here playing Civ4. Enjoy!

Dave

 

[godochaos]

Thanks dave we appreciate your help!
Let me explain something.
ONLY 3 things have changed on my system in the last 2 days that have cause my system to be unable to play ANY games with heavy 3D graphics.

1). Civ 4 install
2) Directx install off of civ4 cd
3). Nvidia 81.85 drivers

logically 1 of 3 or some combination of the 3 is the culprit.

 

[oxonian2001]

OK, OK, let's calm down.

Dave has very kindly tried to offer helpful advice in other threads. His original post was undoubtedly meant simply as respectful disagreement with CrossTheRiver's theory. It was, however, sufficiently terse that a frustrated person might assume it was meant unkindly.

No one means to be dismissive or condescending; we're all just frustrated and don't know how to fix these problems. Let's just try to work together to figure this out.

 

[launchpad]

I am also having the CTD problem. (9600 w/ 256 and latest drivers). I set the update speed on the task manager to low so that after a crash I could see what had been happening to the memory. I noticed a consistant increase in page file usage. I also looked through the log files and saw a lot of "missing node" and "failed to load script" errors. Don't know what exactly that means... Could be a memory leak... If that is the case, could take a while for the developers to track it down and make a patch. Anyone else seeing the same thing?

 

[troodon]

My computer keeps crashing to desktop as well. It always happens on the loading screen when I'm trying to start a game, when the screen says "loading graphics".

My computer meets all the requirements pretty readily, and I have a Radeon 9600. I did at first have the not initializing problem. I used the fix for that only to get this new problem

 

[CrossTheRiver]

Maybe I was wrong, this is begining to look more and more like a software issue. No idea precisely what that could be, but memory leak seems to be the best theory as of right now.

 

[Tricksrus]

Just had my first crash to desktop....4 hours into an epic game, and all of a sudden, crash. Of course, I am running at highest graphics setting, going to try reducing it to normal to make sure it doesn't happen again. Huge fan of newest drivers....(I burn alot of stuff with my Plextor drive.) Very, very uncommon for me to get CTD's.

2.0mhz P4
786mb ddr
Nvidia FX5500 (286mb)

 

[Penitent]

Huzzah!

I tried everything that was suggested with no success. But I created a new account for windows and it seems, so far at least, to be running fine on it. If only I did this several hours ago...

 

[CrossTheRiver]

BUMP

this is a serious issue which plauges me.

 

[BBallref]

I rolled back my drivers from 81.85 and I was able to play for 3 hrs before it crashed, versus about 15 min before. I might try the new account for windows and see if I have any luck.

 

[Nomble]

Getting CTD, but not as often as when the entire computer freezes and I have to reboot!

Getting very annoying when the entire thing just locks up, way worse then CTDs.

Intel P4 3.0Ghz
ATi Radeon x600 256mb
1gb RAM

 

[nicae]

game worked fine for past hours without crashing to desktop.
solution: changed to windowed mode

p4 2.66 ghz
512 ddr ram 266 mhz
radeon 9600 256mb, catalyst 5.10
winxp no service packs o.0

 

[Kopernikus1979]

Same problem...crashing to desktop without any warning if I zoom out to global view.

2.0 Centrino
ATI X700 (256 MB) with newest drivers
1 GB RAM

 

[Liggs]

How do you run it in Windowed mode? I tried Alt-Enter and that didn't work.

I get the same problem as you guys, just random CTDs, I rolled back my drivers and that made the crashes slightly less frequent but instead of CTDs it was a complete reboot of the system. I am not sure what the problem is here but apparently it's software not hardware. My system is:

AMD Athlon XP 3200+
1gb DDR RAM
GeForce 6600GT

 

[godochaos]

If you are getting screen goes blank and lost monitor signal then lower the clocking on your graphics card.
worked for me.

PS graphics card was NOT overclocked and worked just fine prior

 

[mocker]

I was having this problem too, it seemed to get more frequent the further I made it in the game but I was willing to quicksave and keep on trucking.

But now after the last crash the game wont load at all. I get to the main menu and select my game and it crashes at loading. I've even had one where I crash just sitting at the menu.

 

[Penitent]

Has anybody tried new user account and still experiencing problems? I'm hoping that will help a lot of people.