Lag/Random Freezes

[Kadazzle]

Hey there. I have had Civ 4 since it came out, and I have all of the expansions. I currently run BtS on my Acer computer, and I'm having a freeze problem. I have played Civ for over 2 years without a problem, but recently I've had these random freezes happening every 1-2 minutes which are really starting to effect my gameplay. The freezes appeared when I switched monitors. The only other things I have done other than switching monitors, is I upped my resolution to fit my new monitor, downloaded the BUFFY mod and recently updated my nvidia drivers (as I thought that may have had to do with the problem).

My old monitor was a regular size Acer monitor (20 inches?) and when I moved houses, I switched monitors to my Sony 32 inch TV, and upped the resolution. At first, the game worked fine and everything was working as usual, but then one night the game got extraordinary laggy. I couldn't do anything, so I had to reboot my computer. Upon restarting my computer, it turns out that my desktop manager fails whenever I turn on my computer (this is now fixed by updating my nvidia drives).

So now I have no clue what the problem is, as nothing except my monitor has changed. Only Civ 4 lags (which isn't that odd, as it is the only game on my computer, which is otherwise used for the internet and other forums).

Specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium
Duo 4850 AMD Athlon Processors
3GB DDR2 Memory
640GB SATA hard disk
GeForce 9300 GE 32-bit Videocard

I have over 2 Gigs RAM still free.

Should I try running it on a smaller res and see if it helps? (I lowered all the graphic levels and still no-go)

Should I try my old monitor?

Does it have nothing to do with my monitor?

 

[ori]

please post your dxdiag results file.
when it freezes are there any error messages in the windows event manager?

 

[Kadazzle]

Not exactly sure what you mean by dxdiag result file (I'm a computer noob), but when I typed that into the Run.exe it propped up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Info from that:

Current Date/Time: October-06-09, 9:09:37 PM
Computer Name: Michael-PC
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
Language: English
System Manufacturer: Acer
System Model: Aspire X1200
BIOS: Pheonix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Athlon Core Dual 4850e ~2.5GHz
Memory: 2814MB RAM
Page File: 1379 used, 4464MG available
DirectX Version: DirectX 10

I clicked all tabs and it stated that no problems were found.

(Sorry if that's not what you were looking for)

When it freezes, no error message pops up. It seems to be a system freeze, but it only happens when I'm playing CivIV (But I presume it would happen in any other game). Everything freezes out, and sometimes the screen goes completely black. The Audio plays for a bit, then cuts out (The freezes last 30s-1 minute).

I looked online and it said that there was an update issues by Windows that might effect my Nvidia drive, so I uninstalled it, update KB952287 (It said to do this if a "display driver has stopped working" error pops up; no error popped up, but it seems like I was having the same problem as the other people).

I also changed back to my old monitor to see if it had anything to do with the resolution or the graphics, which it then froze again. Windows regularly updates my system by itself, so could an update I installed be the problem?

I am starting to believe it is an error with my system rather than anything else, as everything on my computer should be able to run CivIV, and everything I have is more or less up-to-date.

 

[ori]

that program was the right one: now please when it opens: click on save results and attach the saved file to a post

 

[Kadazzle]

Here ya go.

 

[ori]

I guess its 32bit vista:
try a slightly newer driver: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_32bit_191.07_whql.html
also: service pack 2 for vista might be generally advisable (don't think it has to do with the problem).

 

[Kadazzle]

I tried the service pack and the newer drivers, and everything was running fine until turn 15 or so, when it then began to lag again. It's getting better, as before it would lag every single turn, but it is still unplayable. Do you know if there is any newer driver I could download? Or any other way to fix this?

 

[Zylornck Davis]

I tried the service pack and the newer drivers, and everything was running fine until turn 15 or so, when it then began to lag again. It's getting better, as before it would lag every single turn, but it is still unplayable. Do you know if there is any newer driver I could download? Or any other way to fix this?

i can't tell if this is a notebook or laptop but if its a normal desktop pc you could try the following experiment cuz this sounds like hardware to me

first of all, turn off cool and quiet if its on. your probly gonna have to do this in bios and if you don't know how, get somebody to help you who does know. cool and quiet can do some weird things to you cuz its continually throttling the cpu depending on load. it really doesnt work all that well anyway, so it's better if you turn it off.

make sure that the graphics card fan isnt set to low speed in your nvidia control panel. you want it to run at 100%. then try to play a game and see if you still have a problem on the small monitor. then try the big monitor. if it still doesn't work then post again and tell us what happened

 

[Kadazzle]

My computer is a normal desktop.

Cool n Quiet is not on my PC. I fiddled around with all of the other power options but it still freezes every 5-7 turns or so. Where can I find the Nvidia control panel?

 

[Kadazzle]

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[crunch]

From the symptoms, I suspect that your system is overheating.
* Did you move from Alaska to Hawaii?
* Can you measure temperature of your graphics card? Consider running civ4 windowed and having temperature displayed in parallel. Any interesting observations?
* Are your fans rotating properly? Perhaps during moving something bad happened with your hardware.
* Can you open up your computer and vacuum clean it? Perhaps there's dust in there.

 

[Kadazzle]

From the symptoms, I suspect that your system is overheating.
* Did you move from Alaska to Hawaii?
* Can you measure temperature of your graphics card? Consider running civ4 windowed and having temperature displayed in parallel. Any interesting observations?
* Are your fans rotating properly? Perhaps during moving something bad happened with your hardware.
* Can you open up your computer and vacuum clean it? Perhaps there's dust in there.

At first I thought this was 100% the problem, as I normally wouldn't turn my computer off for weeks at a time (yeah, I know I'm bad..) and when I was trying to find out the problem I turned it off and turned it back on, but instead of turning back on only the fan would turn on (really, really loudly).

May I ask how I could open up temperature control?

 

[Gumbolt]

Have you tried memtest on the memory. When i had issues with this game the issue was always memory. I guess if it was memory you would get lots of memory dumps. Its worth looking at the vista event log for system errors.

When you go into msconfig from the run menu. How many surplus apps are you running when the pc starts. I normally shut down any unwanted startup apps.

Have you tried installing the old graphics drivers? If at first you dont succeed try what worked in the first place!!

I normally look through windows task manager for unusual applications that should not be running in the background. viruses etc.

Do you play any other games beyond civ 4 that are system intensive?

It might be worth trying a reinstall of civ4 worst comes to worst.

If it was your mains board I am sure you would be having more issues. memory would probably cause the system to restart now and then. If you updated the graphics card did you check your power supply could handle it?

Lots to think about!! I am sure you will solve this. We need you back in Trash Team!!

 

[Kadazzle]

The only game I have installed is Civ IV, Warlords, BtS and Civ IV: Colonization. I regularly clean my computer of any programs/images/whatever that I don't use/need anymore, so memory is not a problem. The only other things I use my computer for is scrolling the internet.

When I go to msconfig there are around 14 or so apps running, but it seems like they're all things I more or less need so I don't want to disable any of them in case I do actually need them.

I might try un-installing then re-installing Civ IV, but I'll do that once I rule-out over-heating as an issue.

 

[coasterpiglet]

I started having the exact same problems that you are experiencing and just about at the same time period too. I am wondering if its a windows update thing- like last year when MS Word kept shutting down because of a corrupted update. I have had the game on this laptop for over a year and never had problems until last week. Same thing- it slows down to where it takes 2+ minutes for one unit to move (or die) even when I changed the graphics down to single units.

 

[Kadazzle]

Huh, I guess it was a fan/overheating issue.

I opened up my computer and cleaned it with q-tips and a vacuum (there was a ridiculous amount of dust near both of the fans). After that I restarted my computer and opened up civ and... it worked! I got to turn 55 and no lag/freezes or anything, which is good! Another thing that is good, is I can actually hear the fans running now

 

[Gumbolt]

Excellent get posting a PPP!!