Game Locks Up

[Argoth]

On occasion, the game will just randomly lock up. I can move the mouse, but the screen won't scroll, and I can't select any tiles. However, I can click on buttons like the Financial Advisor button, but once that opens, I can't close it, the mouse freezes, and I need to reboot. ??? It's done it twice in game, and once in the civilopedia.

Athlon 2600+
512MB RAM
ATI Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis 256MB with the 8.2 driver package from ATI
Windows 2000
Civ IV is version 1.52

Any ideas?

 

[Argoth]

Anyone? Need more info?

 

[Zanmato]

Sounds like a memory problem. Try closing down some background processes and any AV that is running. Increase the pagefile to around 1gb and see if it helps at all. Failing that, that it might be a video card problem - is it a old one? I'm not really in the know about ATI cards though.
At a last resort, I would at least double your main system RAM to 1Gb.

 

[Argoth]

My pagefile is set at 768-1536. Should I boost the 768 to 1024? I should also point out it doesn't do it very often, but I don't think it should do it at all...

 

[auldian]

Some other simple things to check would be

• Set audio settings in game's options to "System Configuration"
• Have your video card set to "balanced" settings before starting Civ4
• Use minimal settings in the Civ4 graphics options
• Clear your XML cache frequently

There was a discussion in a thread HERE regarding freezing that may give you other ideas.
Good luck.

 

[Calder]

I've just had a crash which for the first resembles Argoth's crash. Usually the game just completely freezes up with no cursor movement, just requiring hard boot. This new crash developed after contact with Take2 support where they suggested I change the memsaver configeration from 0 to 1. After doing that, loaded my current auto save, after which I get a Windows XP 'critical stop' audio sound. Cursor was able to move, but no response from game. For the first time in 2 months I was able to activate the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys which took me to the desktop where a Error message read:
Fatal error: Using the MemorySave option in your configeration does not allow device loss. Exiting program.
I've just emailed Take2 with this info along with the appropriate MPLog event.
This was at least a much 'softer' crash than any of my previous crashes where I'd get a loud noise through the speakers. Hopefully I might be getting somewhere now, though i'm not holding my breath til the new patch.

 

[Argoth]

When mine crashes, I can Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but when I then click on task manager, nothing happens, and I hard boot from there.

It crashed again in the techtree BTW.

 

[Invocator2k]

When mine crashes, I can Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but when I then click on task manager, nothing happens, and I hard boot from there.

It crashed again in the techtree BTW.

I have the same problem with my Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 PRO 128 megs. I can play for 5-10-15 minutes and sometimes up to 1 hour, but it always ends up crashing/freezing, even in the early stages of the game. It's either a problem with the ATI driver or within Civilization IV. I've played the game on a laptop with a AMD Turion 1.6 Ghz processor/512 megs RAM/X200 Ati chipset without problems though, so I figure it may be a problem only with specific ATI cards.

I know it's not a motherboard, memory or DirectX issue because I can play the game fine with my ASUS GeForce 6200 256 megs card on the same system. It's a bit slower with this one, but at least it doesn't crash. I bought the ATI because it was supposed to be slightly faster than the NVidia 6200 chipset (it is indeed when I can play the game), but perhaps I should have kept my money and invested in a more powerful Nvidia card.

Any other ATI cards owners experiencing this problem?

Thanks!

 

[Zanmato]

Any other ATI cards owners experiencing this problem?

The only suggestion I could make is try the Omega drivers. I've heard that Catalyst can help too but I don't know enough about ATI cards to say anything more than that. The game did and might still have big problems with some ATI cards, there is a massive bug in it with some of the nvidia 6800 cards.

 

[BadHorsie]

Yes, I have an ATI Radeon 9000 64MB which I've upped to 128MB of shared memory, in my laptop. It has been fine since I got the game about a month ago, but has suddenly started freezing. I can't even get past 30 secs of gameplay on my saved game before it freezes. I can't do anything and just have to reboot. The same happens if I try to start a new game, etc. I have reinstalled twice and it does nothing.

With the problems people are having, has it been freezing since you got the game? It's seems random that mine is suddenly doing this.