Please help! Crashes!

[Ankorafeonix]

For some reason, my Civ is screwed - at least when I try to use mods. Many crashes >.> Note: Civ works absolutely fine WITHOUT mods - even if I play in Mod mode using no mods. As soon as I install just a single mod - it sometimes crashes on the first turn.

Things I have tried:
- Updating video drivers
- Reinstalling game
- Verifying Game cache and re-downloading new data files
- Ensured latest version of mods
- Lowered all graphics settings to minimum (I've still had crashes even on strategic mode)
- Restricted players to only having 3 maximum workers (to try and reduce number of units needing path-finding attention)
- I've tried contacting 2k/Firaxis with details of my problem, but they only suggest to me the things I've already tried to do and they are unwilling to help me further.

Clues about crashes:
- Sometimes I've had stable modded games up to a point. Civ usually starts crashing at a particular turn, and regardless of how many times I try to reload the old save, it will keep crashing at that exact turn.
- IGE seems to cause more crashes than other mods (but I've had crashes without it too).
- Crashes seem to happen when I click areas on the mini-map to jump to a location, or if I try to exit to Main Menu or to Windows
- Because of this problem, for a long time I've played by editing the game files themselves, and Civ has never crashed while I've done that - so it must be something specific to having mods installed. (I always verify game files through steam and restore old data files before trying to play with mods)
- Edit: My video card is NVIDIA GeForce GT 530, not a great gaming card I know, but if it was the problem, then why can I play without mods at medium graphics?
- The Map size doesn't have anything to do with it. Crashes even on Duel sized map.

I'd really appreciate any comments or ideas about the issue - if you've had any similar problems. There are so many great mods and I especially want to play with this Cultural Diffusions and Revolutions mod!

Thanks!!!!

Edit: Is there any kind of error file or debugging tool that I can use to see WHY the game crashes?

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Edit: Is there any kind of error file or debugging tool that I can use to see WHY the game crashes?

Absolutely. In fact, there's a whole folder on your computer chock-full of them. They're called logs.

Check out modding emperor whoward69's tutorial on how to enable logging then try playtesting your mod again. It only needs to be a turn, or if you can't get that far, to the civ selection screen, or if it crashes before that... who knows?
And when you've done that, exit civ5 and check your database.log and lua.log for errors.

You say the game crashes at a specific turn... would this happen to be, say, when any civ enters the renaissance era?
What mod is it anyway?

 

[LeeS]

What operating system, ram, etc.?

 

[Ankorafeonix]

They're not my own mods I'm using:
- Cultural Diffusion
- Advanced Setup Screen (for Revolutions & Culture Tile thing)
- Revolutions
- No GDR/XCOM/Atom weapons
- Info Addict
- IGE (though I sometimes leave this one if I don't feel like cheating lol)

@LeeS:
OS: Windows 7 Home x64
RAM: 8GB
Proc: Core-i7 3.40 GHz

I'll have a look at the logging thing though - thanks!

 

[LeeS]

Your machine ought to be ok,unless if your graphics card/drivers is just not up to it. I only asked because your problem sounded very similar to a problem a someone had posted to the steam discussions. That turned out to be a computer problem because the player was trying to run CIV5 on a computer that just didn't have enough oomph. He refused to believe it, though, since it kinda was able to run CIV5. Kinda but not really because he kept having crashes on anything but small maps after his games had filled-themselves-in with a fair total number of cities and units.



FWIW, I've used IGE a lot, mostly to speed testing of something I'm trying to create in a mod, and I've never had my game crash because of anything I did in IGE, or when IGE was active.

I pulled out my retail copy of CIV5 vanilla and the box is really hard to read but for graphics card it says 256MB ATI HD2600 XT(orHD26000, the tiny print is hard to read), 256MB Invidia 7900 GS, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics. But I would need a darn magnifying glass to be sure that's what it actually says.

 

[Ankorafeonix]

Well, thanks for the ideas. The only reason I don't think it's the oomph is because it plays fine without mods even on much higher graphics levels and even with Gedemon's Giant world map, and without a single crash. Yet with mods I get a crash even on the duel-sized map.

 

[LeeS]

I wonder if your problem might be related to #9 in the list of common (or vanilla) mod problems shown in this thread