nVidia - Fix for Crash to Desktop possibly found

[PennHead]

Chalk me up as another for whom this worked. Previously, I could play with little issue on Normal sized maps, but it became unplayable late in the game on Huge ones. I'm running an FX5600 256MB.

After reverting to the 71.89 drivers, I loaded the huge game that used to crash 2-3 times a turn, and ran flawlessly for 3 hours. The memory leak I used to have appeared to be gone; I'd guess it was some kind of interaction between the game and the new drivers causing it.

I heartily recommend trying these drivers to anyone with a GeForce card who is having problems.

 

[spa]

I'm using old drivers (61.76) but I ran into the CTD problem in one of my late games. I was leery of doing the driver upgrade as I hate messing with that kind of stuff but I was getting ready to suck it up and do it when I spotted this thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137706&page=13

The very bottom post has instructions on changing the Civilization Ini. file. I followed them and the CTD has disappeared. I was having them every two or three turns making for three crashes an hour by the time the computer rebooted. Now they're gone. Last night I played for three hours and then quit on my own instead of being booted from the game. For anyone still having problems after a driver downgrade/upgrade or for anyone who is leery of messing with that stuff you should give this a try. It has worked for me and many others, although like all fixes, it has failed for some. Still worth a shot for sure.

 

[fragsausen]

thanks WarX, good work.
No more crashes for me.
Hardware:
GF6600 128
AMD64 3200
1GB RAM
Soundblaster XYZ (civ:use system settings)

 

[Westphal517]

Well this should be made an official fix for all users of FX graphic cards.

I have a 5600FX and was having CTDs every hour playing on standard maps. I can now play on a large map with no problems and am even going to try a huge map soon. My old P1.6 with 512 will probably run it slow, but the CTDs were killing all the fun.

Hopefully the developers will see this and realize they have a problem with some graphics drivers and make fixes to adjust. Obviosly the testing the did on the game used these old drivers.

 

[Raven236]

Used To lag alot on large maps and hang every 2 hours or so i installed the old nvidia drivers warX Suggested and it worked its not laggy any more and i played for 4 hours straight(with graphics on Max)^^

Thanks warX



PC Specs p4.2.8ghz

1 gig Ram

Nvidia Geforce FX5700 LE

 

[ZouPrime]

These drivers fixed my CTD problems too. FX5700 256mb. At last Civ4 runs flawlessly on my box.

 

[Edratman]

The driver rollback sounds promising, but how do you remove the existing drivers. I've searched my C drive and can not find find them, in fact, I can't even find a file that they might be in. I'm not a technogeek, but I do not consider myself helpless either.

 

[Daddy War$]

I just wanted to echo what others have been saying:

Changing those lines in my ini file really made a difference.... sure, the wonder movies still stutter, but that's a small price to pay for no CTD!!

War$

btw, still using the 81.95 drivers.

 

[HounddogLGS]

HOLY CRAP!!! I can play my game!

The difference is staggering. I had 81.85 and 81.85, and performance was terrible, with lots of crashes (including the screwy 4 bit stuff). After installing 71.89, with no other changes at this time, I'm finally able to play the 1000 A.D. scenario (huge map, 18? civs, all well established). Not prepared to say everything is perfect, but my game is finally playable. There might be hope for this game yet...

P4 2.4 Ghz / 533 Mhz FSB
1024 Mb PC-2700 DDR
BFG FX5600 Ultra 256mb
Win XP Home Ed.

 

[HounddogLGS]

The driver rollback sounds promising, but how do you remove the existing drivers. I've searched my C drive and can not find find them, in fact, I can't even find a file that they might be in. I'm not a technogeek, but I do not consider myself helpless either.

go to "Add/Remove Programs", uninstall "NVidia Display Drivers", reboot, then install the new driver.

 

[CarbonToast]

The older drivers, both 71.89 and 61.77 (tried both) work a lot better than the 81.95 ones on the GF5900 I have.

However, I think all these fixes do is postpone the onset of the problems that I was having before. I have played through a bunch of small and medium maps, and they work great but the huge ones still pose problems. I can get to about the 1700AD range before things start getting funny now, as opposed to 1500BC before when I crashed whenever I tried to end a turn with 81.95.

The good thing is that with the older drivers it is no longer crashing, bad thing is the game still gets unplayable. When I load my 1750AD game, the graphics are sometimes corrupt (really bright) and the game slows to an absolute crawl. Talking 20 minutes to complete a turn. I find this strange since the game was running really smooth when I saved it.

I can play most of the game now though, which is good I hope they can fix the rest of the issues very soon.

 

[jrosiek]

Yeah, this is a Public Relations disaster. Sid has plastered his name all over these games, enjoying the positive regard that game with having his name associated with such good products. He should consider taking his name off of this one, because it is a train wreck.

 

[Ninja2]

Another positive report coming in...

I started out playing CIV with 81.85, and performance was okay, although I would have the odd glitch when zooming, also the minimap would become corrupt, and I couldn't really play at 1280x1024. So I updated to 81.94, and it was a mess! This happened on top of patching to 1.09 and getting new motherboard drivers. So I wasn't sure what exactly was upsetting CIV.

So I stumble on this thread, and I've just recently gone back to 81.85. I can now play the damn game again, although with the same quirks as before. So I'm going to try to go back to 77.72, and see what happens.

Bottom line: DON'T update too many drivers at once, or you won't know what hit you, and STAY AWAY from 81.9x drivers! They are no good for CIV'ing.

EDIT: Oh, this is with 6800 GT, by the way.

 

[syphy]

Any ideas for someone who doesn't want to revert to old drivers? I play games like F.E.A.R. and GTA: San Andreas etc etc and don't want to use old drivers just for 1 game. What's more I shouldn't have to.

 

[SlowDyingGimp]

I'm running a 7800gtx oc and am unable to backdate my drivers. Any thoughts?

 

[Edratman]

Changing drivers worked for me also. Not perfect, still get occasional crashes, but they are reduced about 95%. I have about 8 games on huge or large maps saved at the point where crashes occured every turn. Now on the huge maps I can go about 10 turns between crashes and on the large maps I get in 30 to 40 turns.

It is sort of sad to be so happy about minimizing crashes. I still maintain that all these problems are related to the individual tile animations; mine cars scooting, pastured animals prancing, fish leaping, etc. These dopey little animations add nothing to the game itself: they were cute the first the first time I played, but at normal game playing perspective are not noticable. I think that it is the cumulative effect of a hundred or so of these animations occuring simulteneously that is chewing up and gagging the memory.

Anyway, I am grateful for the progress I've been able to achieve rolling back the drivers.

 

[eldnac]

I have a problem I havent read yet, someone please tell me if they have had the same issue and if they have solved it. I am still trying to install civ4.

It keeps telling me that setup has determined that you need to install directX.

Im am running an amd 64 3500+ , nvideo geforce 6600, and have directx9.0c installed. ive ran dxdiag and everything checks out fine. any suggestions?

 

[HounddogLGS]

I have a problem I havent read yet, someone please tell me if they have had the same issue and if they have solved it. I am still trying to install civ4.

It keeps telling me that setup has determined that you need to install directX.

Im am running an amd 64 3500+ , nvideo geforce 6600, and have directx9.0c installed. ive ran dxdiag and everything checks out fine. any suggestions?

It seems that Civ4 is very particular on DirectX. Several people have had this problem, with 9.0c already installed. Reinstall Civ4 and let it reinsall DirectX. You would thing you wouldn't need to do this, but it seems to work. I'm just wondering where this will leave us when an update comes out for DirectX. Good luck.

 

[Mr Chomp]

hi there, i'm new to this site but you look like a helpful, friendly bunch!!!
Like most people here, my system is easily capable of running civ4, but it ctd constantly, perhaps every 5 turns.
My 6600gt is currently running latest drivers (81.98) and I read with glee at the high success rate of warx's fix.
so, i installed 71.89 drivers, it seemed to be a good install, and ran the game. it initially ran fine, but then crashed - only this time it was the nv4_disp.dll BSOD!!! this happened 5 or 6 times, till i reverted back to new drivers where it is CTD again!!!
Why did swapping to 71.89 cause such problems?? I'm not too savvy with this stuff - is there anyone that can tell me where i've gone wrong. it seems the old drivers are the way to go, but they cause my system to go nuts!!
please help if you can, i have waited for civ4 for, well, as long as we all have...

xp home, sp2
amd athlon xp 3000+
6600gt agp 128
1 GB ram
soundblaster live! value

 

[Sir Elric]

*My Specs:
P4 3.0 Ghz - 1GB DDR RAM - nVidia gForce 6600gt 256MB - WinXP Pro SP2
(almost the same as the original poster except cpu)

Fyi I have had no crashes at all and am using the latest nVidia drivers (81.98)

SE