Game keeps freezing

[dosage0]

I dont CTD. My game I get a slight scratching noise for about a second, and then the game freezes entirely. I have to reboot. This only happens later in the game 1400 AD +.

Specs:

6600GT Nvidia
2.6 GHz A64
Audigy Z2 Creative Labs
1 Gig ram Mushkin Redline
DFI Lanparty

Most threads I have been reading are crashing to desktop. Anyone else run into this and find a fix?

Thanks,

Rob

 

[Luv_Muffin]

My game freezes too.
On the positive side, it seems to do this on higher end PC's, so take it as a compliment.
Is there a fix? Not yet. Waiting for a patch is all I can do.
You could email company support, with your dxdiag and msinfo text's (as recommended by customer support). I have done so, recieved no reply as of yet, but I hope the info and detailed discription makes it way to the tech's, just to let them know they have a problem to be looked at.
Sorry, I can't tell you any good news. This doesn't seem to be a driver issue, so nothing you can fix. We have to wait.

 

[Chopperhead]

My game freezes too.
On the positive side, it seems to do this on higher end PC's, so take it as a compliment.
Is there a fix? Not yet. Waiting for a patch is all I can do.
You could email company support, with your dxdiag and msinfo text's (as recommended by customer support). I have done so, recieved no reply as of yet, but I hope the info and detailed discription makes it way to the tech's, just to let them know they have a problem to be looked at.
Sorry, I can't tell you any good news. This doesn't seem to be a driver issue, so nothing you can fix. We have to wait.

Bad news guys dame things happening to me except it happens after about 4 minutes of play. I was on the phone with 2k for over 2 hrs last night and they couldnt help and my case was sent to thier enginnering department to see if they could figure it out. I was told the patch would be in about 2 weeks so dont get excited about it just yet.

 

[thedrew999]

dosage0 (aka Rob),

Do you happen to be running the AGP version of the 6600GT? If so, you may be experiencing 'fast writes' issues. Basically, some motherboard chipsets do not 'play nice' with the GeForce 6600GT... particularily if you have 'fast writes' enabled. Disabling this feature may work for you.

First off, you have to disable it in Bios. You'd think doing this alone would turn it off, but from my experiences this is not always true. It looks like Windows can turn it back on via registry settings. To make sure it is completely turned off, disable fast writes in bios then use RivaTuner to disable the registry setting.

RivaTuner is a tool that can make registry and driver modifications that users can't usually make through the display driver properties. You can get at the link below. Oh, and be sure to read their disclaimers before you download and install it.

http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner&menu=8

See post #6 in the following thread. It has an image that says exactly what settings to change to turn off fast writes via RivaTuner:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=1159

I found this thread because I was getting lockups in World of Warcraft. Since quiting WoW, I've done a few driver upgrades. I'm guessing one of those upgrades re-enabled fast writes, because I started getting the same kind of lockups in Civ IV. Using RivaTuner to disable fast-writes worked both times for me. Just remember... any changes you make are at your own risk.

Here's my setup in case you're curious:

2.4 GHz Pentium 4
Asus P4S8X Motherboard
MSI GeForce 6600GT w/ Forceware 81.87
1GB PC2700 Ram
Sound Blaster Live Audigy
60GB Hard Disk (don't remember the manufacturer)

- Andrew

 

[chrissicom]

I think this problem might be causes by the Audigy. I have an ATI graphics card (9700 Pro) and no issues with it although since I re-installed Windows yesterday Civ IV doesn't start anymore. When it comes to point 3 (Audio Init) it just stops loading and the process is gone from Task Manager. Before I re-installed Windows the game "worked" but it crashed extremely often the whole computer when many sounds occured. A red line half through the screen could be seen in the upper left corner and then the PC bootet itself up again (no BSOD appeared) Civ IV just froze and nothing worked anymore and after a few seconds the PC rebooted. I have the latest Audigy drivers installed.

Here's my complete setup:

3.0 GHz Pentium 4
MSI Neo-FISR Platinum
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
1GB PC3200 Ram
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
300 GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 and a few other Maxtor drives

One thing I see we have in common is an Audigy soundcard. So our problem can't be the ATI (graphics card) issue.

 

[Chopperhead]

Well I solved my problem. It was a heat issuse for me and I suspect that Heat might be the problem that you are having also. I moved my sound card over 2 PCI slots to make room for good air flow and it dropped the Vid card temp nearly 30 degrees and no Freezing since I did this. Can't hurt to give it try.

 

[randomuser]

I dont CTD. My game I get a slight scratching noise for about a second, and then the game freezes entirely. I have to reboot. This only happens later in the game 1400 AD +.

I also have a 6600GT and had a similar problem. I'd get the slowdowns and choppiness on large maps and then either a CTD or a complete reboot.

I solved it by doing a driver rollback. I went to ForceWare 71.89 and all the problems were gone. No more choppiness, no more slowdowns and no more crashes or reboots.

I haven't tried with the latest driver yet so I don't know if that one helps, but for me the old one worked like a charm.

 

[docbates7]

I have the same problem, and I've even reinstalled and the game won't start. Saw on some other threads that heat might be an issue. I'm going to try to shoot some compressed air through and clear some dust out, which might be an issue. I'll let you know if that helps.

 

[chrissicom]

Sorry guys but heat being an issue for one single application is rubbish. Either your computer is unstable overall due to heat or heat isn't an issue for anything. If Civ IV doesn't work on your computer because it overheats then many other things especially games and encoding applications won't work as well.
I have 3 problems so far on my computer of which I can solve 1 1/2...

1) ATI render problem. This isn't an issue when I installed Civ IV with the DX9c from the Civ IV CD and installed Catalyst 5.10 or 5.11 after I installed the game (Note: it doesn't work when the Catalyst driver is installed before the DX installation from the Game CD)

2) Driver issues with Audigy 2 ZS and probably other Audigy series sound cards (as they use the same drivers). When I turn off audio in the civ4 config file (which isn't really a solution) the loading process skips audio init, otherwise it just quits with no error message (also when logging is enabled in civ4 config)

3) finally the game crashes with ~100 XML errors. I have a pretty fresh Windows XP SP 2 installed with MSXML 3-6 with the latest service packs installed.

The weird thing is that I had the game running on my computer already, since I re-installed Windows the Audigy and XML problem turned up. The only thing that was different before was that I installed the game with another audio driver and I had IE 7 Beta 1 installed. I will post here if I can solve my other two problems.

 

[Chopperhead]

Sorry guys but heat being an issue for one single application is rubbish. Either your computer is unstable overall due to heat or heat isn't an issue for anything. If Civ IV doesn't work on your computer because it overheats then many other things especially games and encoding applications won't work as well.
I have 3 problems so far on my computer of which I can solve 1 1/2...

1) ATI render problem. This isn't an issue when I installed Civ IV with the DX9c from the Civ IV CD and installed Catalyst 5.10 or 5.11 after I installed the game (Note: it doesn't work when the Catalyst driver is installed before the DX installation from the Game CD)

2) Driver issues with Audigy 2 ZS and probably other Audigy series sound cards (as they use the same drivers). When I turn off audio in the civ4 config file (which isn't really a solution) the loading process skips audio init, otherwise it just quits with no error message (also when logging is enabled in civ4 config)

3) finally the game crashes with ~100 XML errors. I have a pretty fresh Windows XP SP 2 installed with MSXML 3-6 with the latest service packs installed.

The weird thing is that I had the game running on my computer already, since I re-installed Windows the Audigy and XML problem turned up. The only thing that was different before was that I installed the game with another audio driver and I had IE 7 Beta 1 installed. I will post here if I can solve my other two problems.

What your saying makes sense, But from my own experiance It's not really true. My Vid card was indeed over heating whenever I tried to play and so it froze up after a few minutes. This did not affect anything else on my computer which is why I didnt know there was a heat problem at first. It was just a matter of moving my Sound Card over one slot and BAM temp dropped some 30 degrees and it works perfectly now. Im not really comuter tech savvy So Im just saying this from my own experince and I say again this DID NOT affect any other programs at least not signicantly enough to be very noticable.

Why might this only affect Civ4? Maybe because Civ puts alot of strain on your vid card with all the tiny moving terrain features and all that well whatever i dont know but Hey it fixed the problem for me so It really can't hurt to try moving your cards around to give your Vid card some more breathing room or adding an additional fan.

 

[chrissicom]

Well it's ridiculous though to say the game can't even load because of graphics card overheating. I mean the graphics card isn't even utilized in 3D mode when the game isn't run. Also I have a temp sensor installed directly on the heatsink of the graphics card and it reads 50-55 °C while playing Doom 3, Battlefield 2 or Far Cry in very high resolutions (1280x1024). The graphics card vendor said the chip can hold up to 90 °C on it's website in the technical details. As I said I am really confident that heat isn't an issue. Also the game worked on my computer before I re-installed Windows, now suddenly the game starts quitting on Audio Init if Audio is enabled which is really strange because I still have the same audio card and have installed the same driver as before including the same way I updated it I am a little bit frustrated. I paid 70 USD for the game (shipping from the US to Europe) and I have an unloadable game now

 

[Chopperhead]

Well it's ridiculous though to say the game can't even load because of graphics card overheating. I mean the graphics card isn't even utilized in 3D mode when the game isn't run. Also I have a temp sensor installed directly on the heatsink of the graphics card and it reads 50-55 °C while playing Doom 3, Battlefield 2 or Far Cry in very high resolutions (1280x1024). The graphics card vendor said the chip can hold up to 90 °C on it's website in the technical details. As I said I am really confident that heat isn't an issue. Also the game worked on my computer before I re-installed Windows, now suddenly the game starts quitting on Audio Init if Audio is enabled which is really strange because I still have the same audio card and have installed the same driver as before including the same way I updated it I am a little bit frustrated. I paid 70 USD for the game (shipping from the US to Europe) and I have an unloadable game now

ok Well the only thing that I can suggest might be to move your sound card to a diffrent PCI slot. Not because of heat but something similar happened to me a while back and this seemed to rectify it don't know why but it did.
Other the other hand it's possible that your sound card is maybe fried and you need to get another one. they are only like $40-$70 for a decent card.

 

[dosage0]

still freezes the exact same way with 1.09.

Play for a while just fine.. then screeching noise and frozen game (not crashing to desktop).

Ugh...

Rob

 

[Pistolero]

Before the patch I could not start the game - it froze when I was selecting a leader. Now I can play except I have to allow a random leader to be chosen for me (If I select one it freezes). I am playing tiny world and have come across my first AI civ and it has frozen again. So for me the problem appears to be the display of the leaders. Is there a way to turn off the leader graphics? (I am playing with my DIrect3D settings all at performance, Civ IV in window mode, low graphics settings.
Computer spec: Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop. 2.2Ghz, 640MB RAM, ATI RADEON 9000 32MB memory. I know the memory is below spec, but the patch does not complain. I can play RIse of Nations on this computer - why would Firaxis make this game so tough on graphics requirements. Grrr.

 

[Chopperhead]

still freezes the exact same way with 1.09.

Play for a while just fine.. then screeching noise and frozen game (not crashing to desktop).

Ugh...

Rob

Well I said it before and I'll say it again. that sounds EXACTLY like what was happening to me and for me it was a heat problem.

Whats your cards temp running at?
Start/Control/Apperance and themes/Display/settings/Advanced/Click on the tab with vid card name/temperature settings.

 

[Knyx]

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.2 GHz
Dual 512 Crucial SDRAM
Radeon 9800 Pro
Western Digital Caviar SE 200GB 7200 RPM

I have bought several cases but finally settled with a thermaltake. It has damn near 6-7 fans running. Its loud as hell but well worth it since my computer is always very cool.

Without fail I have been crashing whenever the game hits the mid-game spot. Even when I load the game back up and start from my last save, it will usually crash about 10-20 minutes into that game.

I've played several online games, from WoW, to Shadowbane, to Counterstrike, etc etc and have never, ever had issues like I'm having with civ4. I'm usually able to pinpoint my problems when I do, but here I'm clueless. There is no way that my vid card is overheating. I have sensors in the case which tell me how hot it is, and its no different from any other game that I've played.

I've upgraded all my drivers, made sure I had the latest directX and even looked inside my box to make sure there wasn't something physically wrong with the video card, heh.

I have no idea what the problem is, but unless someone can think of some solution that I haven't been able to even comprehend, I'd say this is a software issue. I don't want to lay the blame on the game, but I have no idea what it could be if its not a problem on the game's side. I don't even have a soundcard, I use the standard one that comes on the mobo so it can't even be that(I know its not great for quality, but I only use headphones so I decided to skimp on that part)

Bad news is, the latest patch didn't help it at all. So I've had civ for about a month now and have not yet been able to complete one game. I realize whining isn't going to get my problem fixed, but honestly after being a huge fan of the game and having my faith and love of the game completely shattered due to stupid technical issues, I can honestly say that I wish I hadn't gotten it.

 

[chrissicom]

still freezes the exact same way with 1.09.

Play for a while just fine.. then screeching noise and frozen game (not crashing to desktop).

Ugh...

Rob

That sounds very much like the Audigy compatibility issue. Moving to another slot doesn't help btw as I expected. I never moved the card around anyway and I was able to play Civ IV with my old Windows installations but my game crashed all the time due to sound scratching and with a red bar in the upper left corner.

 

[Chopperhead]

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.2 GHz
Dual 512 Crucial SDRAM
Radeon 9800 Pro
Western Digital Caviar SE 200GB 7200 RPM

I have bought several cases but finally settled with a thermaltake. It has damn near 6-7 fans running. Its loud as hell but well worth it since my computer is always very cool.

Without fail I have been crashing whenever the game hits the mid-game spot. Even when I load the game back up and start from my last save, it will usually crash about 10-20 minutes into that game.

I've played several online games, from WoW, to Shadowbane, to Counterstrike, etc etc and have never, ever had issues like I'm having with civ4. I'm usually able to pinpoint my problems when I do, but here I'm clueless. There is no way that my vid card is overheating. I have sensors in the case which tell me how hot it is, and its no different from any other game that I've played.

I've upgraded all my drivers, made sure I had the latest directX and even looked inside my box to make sure there wasn't something physically wrong with the video card, heh.

I have no idea what the problem is, but unless someone can think of some solution that I haven't been able to even comprehend, I'd say this is a software issue. I don't want to lay the blame on the game, but I have no idea what it could be if its not a problem on the game's side. I don't even have a soundcard, I use the standard one that comes on the mobo so it can't even be that(I know its not great for quality, but I only use headphones so I decided to skimp on that part)

Bad news is, the latest patch didn't help it at all. So I've had civ for about a month now and have not yet been able to complete one game. I realize whining isn't going to get my problem fixed, but honestly after being a huge fan of the game and having my faith and love of the game completely shattered due to stupid technical issues, I can honestly say that I wish I hadn't gotten it.

Call the support people for Civ4 ( Toll Free )

For Canadian Support
Phone: 1-800-638-0127

For US Support
Phone: 1-866-219-9839

They should be able to help you out.

 

[chrissicom]

And what's the toll-free number from Germany? *g* luckily I have VoIP but what about those who don't? It's pretty expensive to call a landline in the US.

 

[Chopperhead]

Im pretty sure there isnt one at the moment. they dont even have a Number for UK support which is kinda funny seeing as how the calls go to a company that is located in the UK.