Game suddenly crashes

[onedreamer]

AMD 3200
9800xt 128
1g ram

Crashes to desktop, sharding pixels, blackened terrain.


One crucial thing I've noticed is I can play just fine for about the first 50 turns maybe? An occasional crash, but still a playable game.

But once I hit the Modern Era and start rolling out Tanks, Gunships etc, I crash almost every turn. Leading up to that I see the crashes starting more and more frequently.

It also seems people are having the same 'late civ' crashes based on the posts like 'I can play a few hours and them BOOM starts crashing'


Bottom line---it's either the other civs and you have so much going on late in the game it's too much to handle or it's some unit/terrain combo that's causing it to dump out.

I notice the same "frequency" of random crashing in any era I play. It's plainly and absolutely random here.

 

[marius4143]

First of all, what you quoted was not an answer to your post, and I find it extremely unpolite to use it in this way.

What are you talking about? What I quoted was exactly what you said, and exactly what I was responding to.

Second, I don't care how long have you been a programmer, and I might add that it's well known here that programmers are not exactly geeks in systems administration.

Generalization is dangerous.

An OS freeze is quite different from a program crash that is blatantly OS-independant since it doesn't cause any error, or a system reboot.

This was adequately addressed in a previous post. Whether you believe it or not makes little difference to me.

The problem that I experience and that the original poster as well as many other experience, is definitely not an OS freeze

And these are the EXACT SAME problems I was experiencing as I tried to clear up in my previous post. And these EXACT SAME problems stopped happening when using my proposed solution. So what's wrong with posting it in a thread that talks about the EXACT SAME problems?

, and anyways it's been already proven not only by me that your proposed solution works only for your own problems.

I believe one other person in this thread mentioned that the solution helped them, rendering your statement false and uninformed.

So why the heck do you insist in trolling this thread ? Please open your own thread where you describe your own problems EXACTLY, and the solution that you found for them.

Is it trolling to respond to you? I think it could be argued that you're the one doing the trolling. You're completely ignoring what I'm saying here, that my problems are EXACTLY THE SAME as those of the original poster! Why do you refuse to accept that? I know what my problems were, and I know that they match the original poster's problems. Apparently you just want your own pet thread to watch. In any case, I've wasted enough time on you and I'm off to try to help those who don't have a corn cob stuck up their a**.

Thank you.

Indeed.

 

[阿里巴巴]

I have exactly the same problem.
but hey guys, why are you trying to fix your no-buggy system?
It's the bug of CIV4, not yours! Let Firaxis fix it!

 

[aquavit]

One crucial thing I've noticed is I can play just fine for about the first 50 turns maybe? An occasional crash, but still a playable game.

But once I hit the Modern Era and start rolling out Tanks, Gunships etc, I crash almost every turn. Leading up to that I see the crashes starting more and more frequently.

It also seems people are having the same 'late civ' crashes based on the posts like 'I can play a few hours and them BOOM starts crashing'

Bottom line---it's either the other civs and you have so much going on late in the game it's too much to handle or it's some unit/terrain combo that's causing it to dump out.

Same here but maybe a bit earlier in the game for me. When I started my current game I played for hours at a time. Not until a little before I got oil showing up on the map did the crashing start.

It's amazing, I've never seen a blue screen of death on XP before Civilization 4.

 

[atc_chief]

Might as well chime in so anyone checking the forums can see how extensive this issue is.

Game ran GREAT with no issues whatsoever until around 1570AD. At this time, the map is starting to be pretty well populated with cities, improvements, units, etc.

When I use the edge of screen scroll with the mouse, the map goes completely blank and only shows terrain for a short period, then it draws in improvements. It's almost like the video can't keep up with the amount of activity on the screen.

This occurs a couple times, and then the game just shuts down. No BSOD, just a shutdown. On one occurrence, my monitor was flickering like it was trying to change resolutions and I had to reboot.

As an aside, these types of crashes are often caused by driver conflicts for what it's worth...

AMD64 3200+
1GB extra low latency dual channel RAM
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI board (single video card though)
Onboard Soundblaster Live! 24 bit sound
MSI Nvidia PCI Express 6600GT w/ 128 MB RAM (latest Nvidia drivers)

 

[Angi]

Hi everyone,

I am having a particular problem that I can not track down. I seem to be able play the game just fine however, twice now I have had a problem with the game shutting its self off. I go to look into the event viewer and find this error after it happens

The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( 0) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event:7.

Has anyone run across this error? This is rather odd since it does not happen every time that I play the game.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Angi

 

[Sgt.Keel]

[...]
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( 0) cannot be found. [...] The following information is part of the event:7.

Has anyone run across this error? This is rather odd since it does not happen every time that I play the game.

That's the error I always have in my system log whenever I'm "lucky enough" to have the game crash to desktop instead of taking the VGA driver down with it (in which case I get an "ati2mtag entered an infinit loop" entry in the sys log) or rebooting the PC right away (in which case I don't get any log entry).

yours
Markus

 

[Arkayne]

I'm having the same problem with random crashes to desktop. Most of the time it happens when I'm randomly clicking on various parts of the globe, in the middle to late stages of a game.

Celeron 2.0, 1 gig ram, geforce 128 meg agp, latest drivers, no viruses/spyware.

 

[clem]

Same here, started getting more and more frequent CTD's as I got into modern era in the Earth map with 8 Civ's and started churning out more and more units. Later in the game now, almost all of Earth is covered with cities / units and it crashes to desktop almost every other turn Of course, other games run fine on my rig.

Specs:
AMD XP 3000+ / 1 GB Ram / GF 6600GT 128mb / Terratec Aureon Space 7.1.

 

[JB1]

Having exact same problems,

- Random CTD's
- Blue screen hardlock (not a BSOD) followed by system reboot
- Wonder movies stuttering
- ATI VPU Recover sometimes resets the graphics adapter (game keeps running)
- Also getting the same event in my log as you guys, since there is no source mentioned it probably won't help much

Don't have problems with any of my other games (Quake 4, Far Cry, HL2)

Specs:
P4 3.0 / Radeon 9800 Pro / SB Audigy 2 / 2GB RAM

Software:
WinXP SP2
Directx 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) ATI Driver 8.18.0.0 Audigy Driver 5.12.10.1162

------------------------
Looking at the system specs everyone is posting and the fact that other games do run flawlessly rules out the fact (for me at least) that this is some hardware or driver issue. Obviously other people are running it fine thus it leads me to conclude this game has some conflict with another piece of software we have in common (which we can check) or a system setting we have in common (hard to check)

Can you guys check to see if you have any of these running?

- MSXML 4.0 SP2 Parser and SDK
- MSXML Parser

 

[Arkayne]

I might have a bit of a tip here - at least it's worth trying for you GeForce folks.

I rolled back my driver from the most current to the second most current, and the game has run without a crash for over 2 hours now, when before it was crashed every 3 turns or so. I made no other changes besides the rollback.

The drivers I rolled back were the lastest Nvidia ones, from 81.85 to 77.72.

Although after only 2 hours I'm not convinced it's "fixed", but it is running fine. I'll want to put more hours into it, start new games and reboot at least once. I'm curious if this helps anyone else as well.

 

[atc_chief]

...the game has run without a crash for over 2 hours now, when before it was crashed every 3 turns or so....

Can you get into the mid to late stages of a game (beyond the 1600's)?

The reason I ask is because my Nvidia card was running awesome, wonder videos and all, until I got to the point where there were a lot of items on the screen. I was able to run for a few hours at a clip no prob...

If you can get a lot of stuff on the map and still not crash then maybe you've found a more stable driver. Could you create a custom map with a bunch of cities and units on it and run it for a bit (like a little stress test) to see what happens?

Hope it keeps working for ya'!

 

[Arkayne]

Can you get into the mid to late stages of a game (beyond the 1600's)?

The reason I ask is because my Nvidia card was running awesome, wonder videos and all, until I got to the point where there were a lot of items on the screen. I was able to run for a few hours at a clip no prob...

If you can get a lot of stuff on the map and still not crash then maybe you've found a more stable driver. Could you create a custom map with a bunch of cities and units on it and run it for a bit (like a little stress test) to see what happens?

Hope it keeps working for ya'!

This map I'm currently playing on seems as good a stress test as anything.

Huge map, year 1682AD, 11 Civs alive, a few minor wars going on but everyone seems to be scrambling toward a recently discovered continent now that Galleons have been researched. The main continent doesn't have a single square left unclaimed.

 

[Angi]

I have searched the internet for the error. One source says to upgrade your video card or install more RAM. This does not make sence since i installed a new video card and installed a Gig of RAM into the machine before I purchased the game. Hmmm....anyway....I am still searching....I do have Windows XP corporate edition installed maybe its that. I am off to read more on this. I will post my findings.


Angi

 

[Arkayne]

I have searched the internet for the error. One source says to upgrade your video card or install more RAM. This does not make sence since i installed a new video card and installed a Gig of RAM into the machine before I purchased the game. Hmmm....anyway....I am still searching....I do have Windows XP corporate edition installed maybe its that. I am off to read more on this. I will post my findings.


Angi

I have XP Pro and a gig of ram as well.

I just retired my game in 17something without a crash. I'm going to reboot and start a new game.. we'll see how that goes.

 

[vodkamattvt]

I have had the same problems. I have since fixed the problems. See this thread : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137255

 

[Scabby]

Yup..I just got the game this morning,and it played great up until around 1700 AD (large map) and BAM..random CTD's that are becomming more frequent..

I have a gig of ram and my vm is set at 2 gigs.

This is too bad,I really like this game alot and just started my first war.I hope this issue can be resolved.

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

Same problem here with a GeForce 4 440 MX Graphic Card.
Only happens on wonder movies, it seems. Gives me a full system restart. It's annoying as I've yet to be able to complete a full game due to this.

Other than that, it's a great game. Just wanna see this one bug fixed so I can was...devote more time to the game.

 

[Alvesang]

I just registered to this forum because of the technical "difficulties" of Civ IV. So, first off: Hello everyone!

Among the (sadly) "usual" back-to-desktop-crashes I experienced a very weird one today. My monitor went dark and kept switching on and off, and only a hard reboot solved it.

My system:
AMD Athlon 3200+ 2,01 GHz
1GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 SE (drivers 8.1.8.5)

 

[broken_sword]

Hi all, another first post here.

I was also having seemingly random CTDs and system reboots, usually within 60 seconds of leaving the main menu and entering the game. I was also having similar problems with a couple of other games that I installed at around the same time (Pirates!, Fahrenheit and Pro Evo Soccer 5). Strangely, I had no such problems with other, more 'graphically demanding' games like F.E.A.R or the Call Of Duty 2 demo. I tried all of the suggestions I found in here to no avail. I even tried doing a fresh install of windows XP on a spare hard disk (with just the latest chipset and graphics drivers) only to find the same problems. Turning down the AGP settings helped in one of the other games but not Civ4.

My setup is:

Athlon XP 3000+ (333MHz)
2x512 generic DDR RAM (in dual channel mode at 333MHz)
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Mobo with onboard Realtek AC650 audio (nForce 2 5.10 driver)
Radeon X700 (256Mb) with Catalyst 5.10 driver
Windows XP Home with SP2

I then had a look at the ASUS support site and found a couple of suggestions that *touch wood* seem to have solved my problems.

1. It was reported that although the nVidia nForce 5.10 chipset drivers are the latest for nForce 2 boards, they can be unstable as they were designed primarily with nForce 3 and 4 in mind. The previous (4.27) driver was the last to be properly designed for nForce 2 and 1.

2. The Mobo can be unstable when running 'low grade' RAM in dual channel mode especially if they aren't matched models.

So I'm now running the RAM in single channel (no obvious performance hit) using the nForce 4.27 chipset driver and haven't had a crash in 2 hours whereas before I couldn't make 2 minutes. And I can now run at 8xAGP with all the other graphical whistles and bells attached.

So whilst the dual channel thing may be more specific to my case there hopefully may be some on nForce 2 or nForce 1 boards that have success with the chipset drivers.