PC turns off a few turns into the game

[Magusti]

Hello

I just bought the game, installed it and started playing. I took perhaps 3 turns then my laptop suddenly went blank. Same thing happens every time when I run it, though the amount of time differs from 2 minutes to maybe up to 10... I have an emachines laptop with Athlon64 , 512 Mb ram, Ati mobility radeon 9600 64mb.

It's so annoying, so I thought more people must have experienced it but I didn't find any post of it on these forums. I don't get any error messages or anything, it just shuts down.

I have upgraded display drivers, cpu driver, chipset driver, soundcard driver and civ4 to 1.52. No change. Can anyone help?

 

[Gyathaar]

The most common reason for computers to just shut down is that they are overheating, and then they shut down to prevent damage to the hardware.

 

[Magusti]

Yup, so that would indicate a heat problem. However, I have played other demanding games, as Mafia with no shut down. I downloaded Speedfan to check cpu temp, but the program couldn't recognise any fans or temp sensors.

Is civ4 really more demanding than 3D shooters, thus causing overheat?

 

[Gyathaar]

Well.. fps games usually get limited by the graphics card speed... I am guessing you theoretically could get so high fps in civ4 that your cpu get problems keeping up without overheating.

You could try to change this value in the ini file:

; Set max frame rate clamp (0 means none)
SetMaxFrameRate = 0

and change the value to say 40 and see if that helps

 

[Magusti]

Incredible, it worked! Thanks! I have played for more than 30 min now without a shut down.

 

[Gyathaar]

Incredible, it worked! Thanks! I have played for more than 30 min now without a shut down.

Glad it helped

 

[jac0001]

thank you.. seems to have solved my problem too
set to 60

civ4 was causing it too reboot randomly thru every game...
(which is rock solid for civ3 and everything else i use it for)

 

[Sammy Kipper]

Hi (I am a new user, and new to this forum)

My laptop (a Sony Vaio that is a few years old) has also been switching itself off a few turns into the game too, and the suggestion about overheating sounds spot on. Windows isn't crashing, it is something much more 'primal', and the overheating explanation seems to fit the bill.

However, your suggestion to make a change to the ini file is something that is beyond my scanty technical know-how. Could you please elaborate and tell me where I am likely to find the ini file that I need to make the amend to?

Thanks.

 

[MrCynical]

Look in Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4 and you'll find a shortcut to the ini file labelled _Civ4Config. The ini file itself is in Documents and Settings/*Your Username*/My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4, and is simply called CivilizationIV.ini. It is a hidden file though, so the shortcut is easier to find. You can simply edit the ini file with notepad.