Crashing to Desktop...

[vonGazza]

I think the reason that no-one has come up with a definitive solution yet is that CTDs are happening at any time and for no discernable or repeatable reason. I had one CTD while I was away from the keyboard making a drink!

For me what has stabilised the game is:

1) Turn off Antivirus & Antispyware programs.
2) Run the game in a non-maximised window.
3) Drop graphics down to medium.

By doing these I am now able to finish games & have no CTDs. I have a Geforce FX5700 & latest drivers. However although many posters also seem to have NVidia cards my guess is that the key problem is that CIV4 is a monster system resource hog.

 

[Herzkasper]

I had the same CTD- problem.
My game started to crash , after i exchanged WOLRDMAP with another civilization revealing the huge globe.
Since then, it crashes every time ...i click on a remote spot on the world map .
I guess it is a meomory leak and it should be patched soon.

 

[Fallblau]

>my guess is that the key problem is that CIV4 is a monster system resource hog.

Good guess... ) I've played many games with Standard or smaller maps with only the "usual" problems of stuttering sound and the like, but now that I'm trying a Huge map game, I've had no less than 10 CTD's... And since one of the things I did to "enhance performance" was turn off the Autosave, well... "One step forward and two steps back" is fairly descriptive.

I'm above recommended spec, and all drivers are updated, so I believe we're just looking at a big ol' pig... Hopefully Firaxis can find some way to tighten things up some...

 

[Leepants]

See, thats just it, even WITH the reasonably hi specs my machine has, I haven't played on the HUGE maps yet, but it should be MORE than capable of running it, according to the gumph on the box about system requirements.

Thanks for the input, guys, but it WOULD be nice for someone "official" to come along.

No probs with the sound, though, just the gameplay, and it only happens with about 90 or fewer turns to go....

I'll try it with the autosave off, and AV and anti-spy off, and as suggested, delete previous autosaves and the profile in the "My documents" folder. I can't try this until later, as I am currently at work.

Again, thanks to the public for the resonse, but worrying that no-one "official" has replied......

 

[jajohns8]

Here is a save game that I cant get to load.

Can anyone get this to load?

It crashes immediately to desktop for me.....

Thanks!

My system:
768 RAM
p4 3.0 MHZ
Sapphire Radeon 300 series PCI express x 16 graphics
intel 825xecv2 motherboard

 

[oldStatesman]

<snip>... my guess is that the key problem is that CIV4 is a monster system resource hog.

Not by design. It is most likely a memory address space bug. See this thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137706

Harkonnen, who has done a great job hunting this down ( ) , summarizes in Posts #122 & #123.

Good news is it should be able to be fixed with a patch...

Harkonnen also recommends setting the swap file to 2GB minimum in his posts, as this will help minimize (not solve) the issue until a patch comes out.

 

[Pokurcz]

THis constant CTD mischief is very disconcerting, and right when I needed to play the game the most (I bought it three days ago to cheer myself up).

I now feel like boiling someone (preferebly responcible) in tar.

Being somewhat akward with computers I would like to ask some one to tell me how to get at those "swap file" thingies that are so promicing. Where do I find them?

Gratefull in advance
P.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

THis constant CTD mischief is very disconcerting, and right when I needed to play the game the most (I bought it three days ago to cheer myself up).

I now feel like boiling someone (preferebly responcible) in tar.

Being somewhat akward with computers I would like to ask some one to tell me how to get at those "swap file" thingies that are so promicing. Where do I find them?

Gratefull in advance
P.

Its more commonly known as virtual memory allocation. If you run windows xp, you'll find it under control panel / performance and maintenance / system / advanced tab / performance / click settings / advanced tab / virtual memory / click change and reset to 2048k.

It'll advise you not to do this but it shouldnt cause any major problems with your system.

Hope this helps , I reset mine 4 days ago(cos I guessed it was memory leak allocation problem) to 2gb, and havent had any crashes since

So now just the wait for the patch.....

 

[mrgenie]

After 3 pages of posts and reading, NO-ONE has come up with a solution??? Well, not one that I understand, anyway.

I have CTD with about 20 turns left in a game, but after a DRAMATIC slowdown. EDIT: - Single player only, Terran map, 2nd to largest map.

I have a 3700+ Athlon 64 with 2 Mb cache, 2Gb matched Corsair RAM, an Nvidia 7800GTX, NONE is overclocked and the temperatures / voltages are stable. EDIT2: - and 2 x 250Gb SATA HDDs, with LOTS of free space on them.

So, why the slow down, then crashes? And in laymans terms, please, as I am a luddite.
IF it does it a couple more times after over 5 hours or so of play, then I'm going to HAVE to uninstall it. Which is a VAST shame, as I love Civ.

EDIT3:- I posted on the "other" "developer / tester" forum too. http://apolyton.net/forums//showthread.php?s=&postid=4135725&t=3484#post4135725

well a proper deinstallation of your drivers, and installment of very old drivers, like those from 2004 helps everyone..but be aware, uninstallment often does not work right, so you MUST MAKE SURE uninstallment went right, then install the 2004drivers and it'll work some must use for nvidia the 77.xx others 72.xx other 69.xx etc etc..on ATI some users can use the 5.9 others the 4.12, others the 4.10 but that is bisically the reason why some can play the game while others can't!! i had problems 2weeks long, CTD, REBOOT, etc etc, now i installed drivers from january 2004, and guess what, no problems, huge map with 10 civs, all tech researched, we all now have stealths, tanks etc etc not a single error anymore even some graphical bugs are fixed now ) and oh yeah, with AA on 0 game is laggy..put it on 2 or 4..then the game runs smootly

 

[mrgenie]

Here is a save game that I cant get to load.

Can anyone get this to load?

It crashes immediately to desktop for me.....

Thanks!

My system:
768 RAM
p4 3.0 MHZ
Sapphire Radeon 300 series PCI express x 16 graphics
intel 825xecv2 motherboard

nope, I can play myself without any crashes but your game really crashes!

 

[Leepants]

Mr Genie - thanks for that.

I DO find it annoying that I have to do a MASSIVE driver roll back, though, to get the game to run "normally". I also have AA on 4, so no probs there. I'll try the swap file (page file?) trick too.

In fact, as I rebuilt my system 2 weeks ago (full reinstall of windows etc), I have no "old" drivers.....

EDIT: - and I DO find a nasty taste in my mouth seeing that NONE of the replies are from Firaxis or 2K people. Apparantly this forum and another had a lot of involvement in the game. But when there's support needed (ie the money has been taken from us gamers), then all of a sudden it goes quiet!!!!!

Go on the Official sites, and its all "Look at the reveiw scores - we're great", but in reality, once our hard earned money has been taken, NO-ONE'S interested.

REALLY annoys me, and I thought that these guys WOULDN'T be like EA......

 

[mrgenie]

Mr Genie - thanks for that.

I DO find it annoying that I have to do a MASSIVE driver roll back, though, to get the game to run "normally". I also have AA on 4, so no probs there. I'll try the swap file (page file?) trick too.

In fact, as I rebuilt my system 2 weeks ago (full reinstall of windows etc), I have no "old" drivers.....

EDIT: - and I DO find a nasty taste in my mouth seeing that NONE of the replies are from Firaxis or 2K people. Apparantly this forum and another had a lot of involvement in the game. But when there's support needed (ie the money has been taken from us gamers), then all of a sudden it goes quiet!!!!!

Go on the Official sites, and its all "Look at the reveiw scores - we're great", but in reality, once our hard earned money has been taken, NO-ONE'S interested.

REALLY annoys me, and I thought that these guys WOULDN'T be like EA......

all the reviewers sites are paid by commercials...also firaxis and take two commercials..so..would you with that knowledge expect the reviewers to talk the truth about the game? no, because they are paid to say what they must say..there are independend reviews..they are very rejective towards civ4, because of several reasons:
1) low compatibilty with hardware
2) the requirements needed on the box are incomplete, your system must meet alot of requirements not stated on the box if you buy the game
3) no beta testing was applied
4) print failures on the CD's
5) no support on the graphical bugs(answer is always:"we're busy, thank you for buying our game")
6) oh i quit it, i can write down 100 reasons why it's rated bad on a real review
it has the potential to be a great game, but then firaxis must show a little more respect to the gamers community and talk with us, support us, help us, bring out fixes, tell the truth that they released a beta version as final, etc etc...that would be a great deal on the right track to get this game running as it should

 

[mrgenie]

it's not a global crime if you cheat on someone! and firaxis did cheat on us..but it will become a global crime if you not tell the truth afterwards, something like:"dear gamers, we're sorry for releasing a beta version as final and asking your money for it. but we needed the money for further development. take two, who is in control now, has bad luck with other games, and makes huge losses, they needed your money because of their incompetence of making profit of their other games. we just need that money from you. also we're very sorry we are not supporting you, because we just don't have the money for a good support, we need you all to buy this buggy software to at least give us some air to breathe to fix all the problems, but before you can drive your car, you must first pay it, before we can put the engine in it"
with that statement, i could at least live and know they are up to fixing things.

 

[Pokurcz]

Thanks for the help Drew Bledsoe will try it shortly.

 

[rchddap]

Had a crash to desktop myself. Was playing on a larger map...getting towards the end of the game....and wallop...back to the desktop went I.

 

[Pokurcz]

Nothing works.

CTD every turn no mather what I do.

Going back to CIV II.

 

[Leepants]

I'm not about to debate the good / bad on reviewers!!! Its NOT what the issue is here.

IIRC, the people from this forum and another one were involved in testing prior to release......

The annoyance is that there are OBVIOUSLY issues, and no support is forthcoming. I appreciate that the announcement of a patch by a certain date is also a nightmare, due to people then clamouring IF its late. I'd MUCH rather just a quick "yes, we realise this problem now, sorry, and we're working on it. Patch(es) WILL follow as soon as we think they are right."

NO-ONE is perfect, but people REALLY need to stick their hands up when they have made errors, and then inform their customers of the issues, and address said issues.

Good analogy with the car scenario too.

 

[mrgenie]

I'm not about to debate the good / bad on reviewers!!! Its NOT what the issue is here.

IIRC, the people from this forum and another one were involved in testing prior to release......

The annoyance is that there are OBVIOUSLY issues, and no support is forthcoming. I appreciate that the announcement of a patch by a certain date is also a nightmare, due to people then clamouring IF its late. I'd MUCH rather just a quick "yes, we realise this problem now, sorry, and we're working on it. Patch(es) WILL follow as soon as we think they are right."

NO-ONE is perfect, but people REALLY need to stick their hands up when they have made errors, and then inform their customers of the issues, and address said issues.

Good analogy with the car scenario too.

100% agreeing with you

anyway, everyone who has still problems, with CTD..just try drivers..it's only a matter of WHICH drivers...everyone I know personally had CTD and we all installed different driver versions, and everyone has found a version on which civ4 works without CTD..i don't know WHY!!! please, don't ask me which version is good for you, and i don't know IF for everyone there is a perfect driver..i just know, that everyone I know of it worked somehow..so, i'd say, tray...or what does PnP stands for? Plug and Pray?

 

[Alvesang]

@mrgenie: It's off-topic, but the German in your signature should read "Lang lebe die Bundesrepublik Deutschland". Just thought you might want to correct that...

 

[jajohns8]

Hopefully the patch will fix this problem.