most common CTD causes?

[jkk]

I've had three CTDs in Conquests this evening under XP. The machine is much newer than the game, so I don't think it's due to using old drivers. I'm patched through 1.29f, though in game for some reason it says 1.22, no idea what that means.

I've read though here a little and I don't see a lot of other people reporting CTDs, so it makes me wonder what's up. The crash usually happens when I happen to click--for example, to reposition a city's population on a new tile--and is immediate with no other feedback. I save often but this is getting frustrating. I have restarted XP to get a fresh session, same result.

 

[Turner]

Well, if you're playing Conquests, you can't be patched to 1.29f. That was the final Vanilla Civ3 patch. The final Conquests patch is 1.22. PTW would be 1.27f. Interestingly enough, there is no 'f' at the end of 1.22. Wonder why....

As for the crash, no idea. Post a save, maybe we can reproduce it.

 

[jkk]

As for the crash, no idea. Post a save, maybe we can reproduce it.

Okay. If the problem is with the file, this game should CTD in a few turns, maybe five, maybe more, maybe less.

View attachment Gilgamesh of the Sumerians, 1790 AD.zip

 

[Turner]

I played until 1804, and didn't get a crash. I thought it might have crashed when you finished Universal Sufferage, but it didn't.

 

[jkk]

I played until 1804, and didn't get a crash. I thought it might have crashed when you finished Universal Sufferage, but it didn't.

Hmm. Well, in that case it's pretty elusive to determine what it might be, but at least you've ruled out a bugged savegame. Thanks for taking the time to download and test it out, much appreciated.

 

[Turner]

No problem. Let us know if you figure it out.

 

[jkk]

One thing that seems to trigger it with consistency is multiple clicks on a single specialist. That isn't the only thing, though. I have an idea or two I can experiment with here, will let you know if I find the Silver Bullet.

 

[Turner]

Click on a specialist? Are you trying to use smiley popheads?

When Conquests first came out, and I got it, I had this problem where it would CTD. Turns out I was using the popheads from PTW, and not ones for C3C. Since Conquests added two new specialists, they weren't part of the old PTW popheads I copied over. There was no specialist for them, so it would crash.

I would check and see if that's what it was.... You can find conquests pophead over in the Graphics Modpack section.

 

[jkk]

Well, I am trying to use the smiley ones, but the thing is, the problem was happening in this game well before I could use specialists beyond clowns/scientists/taxmen. It was often happening when I would click the circle to okay a dialog box, so the first time or two I did the specialists I realized there was an issue and reverted.

Right now I'm continuing to play to see if that was the source of all problems (perhaps each time it crashed, it was because my click brought into play some aspect of game that depended upon the modded file). If I can get through several play sessions without a CTD, I'll begin to believe I found the cause; then I'll go looking specifically for the right modpack image, thinking that I had the wrong one.

 

[Turner]

This post has Conquests mood badges. It's the one I use. Simple and easy to read.

 

[jkk]

Thanks. In the meantime, I'm just about positive it was the wrong mood badges. Those are the only thing I restored to original, and I haven't had a CTD since. So what I should have done originally was revert from all graphics mods and start adding them back until I started seeing the symptom again.

 

[Turner]

It certainly sounds like it was just the mood badges. Do you still have the old ones? Install them, and see if it crashes.

 

[jkk]

It certainly sounds like it was just the mood badges. Do you still have the old ones? Install them, and see if it crashes.

That is really what I ought to do, if I could get motivated. That would take us from 98% sure to 100%, on the principle of add it back and reproduce the failure. However, you know how it is when you get past a problem and you mainly just want to play.

Even so, though, I think we've still added to the list of CTD causes. It would not surprise me if any buggy or misapplied graphics mod was capable of causing them.