Late Game Computer Freeze in Warlords (Windows XP)?

[tranceboy]

I often have this problem. It happens late/r in the game (say, 1700 or later) but I can't see any specific graphic or action or whatever that would cause it. While playing Warlords on Window XP (could be a MOD or a regular game or whatever), the screen will suddenly freeze. The graphics are not at all diminished, and I can still move my cursor around the screen. However, I can't select any actions (either with the keyboard or by clicking on the icons on the screen). The screen then just hangs there and can't recover. If I try ctrl+alt+del, nothing happens. I'm forced to reboot manually.

Anyone have any idea what might cause this and how I can solve it? Thanks in advance for any info you have.

 

[GoodGame]

Try ctrl+alt+del and leave it alone a while to see if the Task man ever pops up.

You might be having problems with your video cards ability to handle that heavy a graphics load (more units on screen, more load) and it's causing a memory bug called a MAF. Might want to turn off unit animations, stack attacks, and set the graphics lower.

Might also be a thermal problem, but I think the effects would be more random and the computer would reboot automatically sometimes.

Might also want to upgrade to 2GB ram if you don't already have it.
What's your system specs by the way?
What size maps do you play and how many civs?

Most cases is the system can't handle the workload.

 

[tranceboy]

Hi goodgame and thanks for the reply. I play normal size maps with "normal" number of civs, so it's probably not that. I agree w/u that I think it's just a lack of RAM/my system can't handle it. I've lowered all the graphics and tried to scale the game down to bare bones and I still have the problem. So yeah, I think you're right -- maybe I'll stick some more RAM in there and see if that helps. Thanks very much!

 

[GoodGame]

Did you try to see if the computer was really frozen (getting Task Manager to pop up), or if the game was just overloading your system? In the first case, it might be a fault of the video card (getting old, bad settings, bad driver), because in the case of a video problem the system will lock up (until you reboot it) without Task Man popping up. In the second case it probably would be too high settings, too low combined ram/CPU/video power. Along the lines of the second case you might try some advice on eliminating non-Windows processes from your Startup configuration.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Did you try reducing settings?

Also, what are the recommended specs (not miminum, I found mimimum specs is what can be used to barely get the game to even start up) on the box vs your computer's specs? (To check computer specs, Run >> dxdiag)