Having very random crashes

[mva5580]

This seems to happen in both Beyond the Sword and any mod I use. (Rise of Mankind) I get an unhandled Win32 exception, what happens is the game just totally freezes, and I have to alt-tab out to see the error box showing that the game has crashed. It's like it happens infrequently enough for me to sometimes forget about it, but enough to where it's certainly an issue. I can play for 2-3 hours straight and not have one problem, and then the next time I play after 15 minutes it'll shut down. It's never in the same situation; sometimes it'll be clicking to go into the tech/government screens, sometimes it's just before I'm getting ready to move a unit. My PC is:

- AMD 9950 BE
- 4gb RAM
- ATI 1gb 4870
- Vista Business

I have multiple other games installed on my PC, and never really ever experience crashes in any other game. Spore, WoW, GTA IV, NBA2K9, and a few others.

Has anyone else experienced random troubles like this in Civ, and is there even a solution to it? It seems so random to me I'm not even sure what fix could be attained. Maybe I'll mess around in the config file and see if anything clicks.

 

[ori]

could you post the error log from the windows event manager?

 

[infinitey]

I've been experiencing the same problems the past few months. Using Vista Ultimate SP1 and Intel 945M with the latest drivers. The only difference is that I have no error messages, and it's almost impossible to ctrl-alt-del or alt-tab out. There's nothing in the event viewer either. The things I have tried:

- set IncreaseUserVA to 3072 in boot configuration
- set compatibility mode of .exe to Windows XP or 2000
- those .ini tweaks, such as HideMovieBackground and Bink ones

I cannot pinpoint an exact trigger, other than that the notebook fan starts humming pretty loudly before it happens. But the CPU usage never exceeds 12%. I also never had this problem in XP, so I'm tempted to simply install XP on its own partition for this game. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[ori]

it might be your graphics card overheating - what card do you have?

 

[infinitey]

it might be your graphics card overheating - what card do you have?

Hi ori. It is the integrated Intel 945GM chipset. It's always been a little slower in Vista than XP but I blame it on crappy drivers.

 

[ori]

it *should* work - though a loud fan noise certainly hints at one component getting hot and the graphics card would be my first suspect - does this happen at low graphics settings as well?

 

[infinitey]

it *should* work - though a loud fan noise certainly hints at one component getting hot and the graphics card would be my first suspect - does this happen at low graphics settings as well?

I've only set it at medium. I guess I'll try it at low next. Ah so much work.

Thanks for your advice nonetheless. Will report back.

 

[infinitey]

Unfortunately, putting it at Low graphics didn't help.

Just curious, is it okay that I run the .exe from the old installation? It's the one that was around when I had XP. I remember now that I was too lazy to install BTS directly on Vista.

 

[ori]

the problem with this is that the game does use its registry keys to do some stuff - so while it *should* work, it might be the cause of the problem. I would reinstall the game as below. Make sure to run all installers and patches as admin, i.e. right click on the installers and patches and choose run as administrator - and admin account means nothing in Vista

If you don't have Warlords ignore those parts.

install the most recent version of DirectX 9c from Microsoft

then do the following for a clean reinstall:

Uninstall and Reinstall Civ4 Warlords BtS :

Try to follow this order when doing stuff:
Use Control panel to uninstall Beyond the Sword, then Warlords, then Civ4
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\beyond the sword" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\beyond the sword" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\beyond the sword" manually
(note: application data is a hidden directory so you need to configure windows explorer to show hidden files, also these directories in application data are sometimes removed by the uninstall routine)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}" (Civ4)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{3E4B349F-10B5-4586-9D99-489A90A8B228}" (Warlords)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{32E4F0D2-C135-475E-A841-1D59A0D22989}" (BtS)
(note: InstallShield Installation Information is a hidden directory so you need to configure windows explorer to show hidden files).
Install Civ4, immediately patch it to 1.61 (download it fresh from here)
Install Warlords, immediately patch it to 2.08 (download it fresh from here)
Install Beyond the Sword, immediately patch to 3.17 (download it fresh from here).

 

[infinitey]

Thanks ori. Only playing BtS now. I noticed that you didn't mention the 1.74 patch in your steps. Is there something wrong with it? Having read the patch thread, it looks like everyone complains about it. It's also not on the Firaxis site anymore!

On Vista, the path locations are a little different:

C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\<game>
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\My Games\<game>

Will report back on the reinstall...

 

[ori]

the BtS installer installs 1.74 automatically - however 1.74 fails at time if 1.61 is not present first. Also most people with problems with 1.74 just are fooled by a windows error that wants you to update directx 9c but actually tells you do reinstall the game - which obviously does not work

 

[infinitey]

Hi ori. Re-installing BtS seemed to help for a little while, but then the crashes came back. And they came sooner and sooner. Randomly, I thought about erasing the cache directory in \AppData\Local\My Games\Beyond the Sword and so far, no crashes! I've only played two games since then and chances are, a crash / hang / freeze is around the corner. But at least it seems the problem is a bug in BtS and not a system-related...

Will report back with anything new. Thanks again.

 

[Wreckless]

Having random crashes on my machine too:

P5Q Deluxe
E8400
HD 4870 X2
4GB OCZ DDR2 1066

XP x86/32bit (fresh install)
Catalyst 9.1

Installed BtS directly after installing CIV, updated BtS to 3.17.

Didn't have issues with Vista x64. Not sure wich catalyst, could be 8.12 of 9.1.

 

[ori]

is there any error log in the windows event manager about these crashes?

Welcome to cfc

 

[Wreckless]

is there any error log in the windows event manager about these crashes?

Welcome to cfc

Couldn't find anything...

I've set AA to 4x instead of 8x (16x turns AA off). Had one crash since... That's less than before, but than again... it was pretty random before.

 

[Wreckless]

No more crashes for days for me. Maybe it has something to do with Windows updates...