Random crashes - possible solution

[hilson28]

Hi - i had been getting random crashes like a lot of people here. Tried a few things which didnt work & was on the verge of giving up.

Then i tried 2 things which seemed to help greatly.

I turned graphics down from high -> medium & set audio to EAX2

(Have a 6600GT AGP & an SB Audigy 2)

At this point the game (which had been crashing after 3 or 4 moves) was playable for about an hour (only crashing when i tried to make contact with another Civ leader) BUT i had no sound.

Then last night i tried MONO audio - which is the default for some reason - and played for a full 2 hours with no problems.

I may have just been lucky - but i had such a high frequency of crashes that i'm pretty hopeful. Need to start a game from scratch & see what happens.

Who knows - may help someone else out there.

 

[crunch]

well, you can also turn off audio completely in the ini file: EnableAudio=0

 

[RevelationTravi]

I just tried it, and it hasn't crashed yet (it normally crashes after about 3 minutes)! I have to leave for work right now, so I can't give it a good endurance test. I'll update this reply later and let you guys know. I just did as hilson28 suggested - turned graphics to medium and audio to mono. Just so everyone can know that my system does more than meet the requirments (as far as I know), I've also attached my specs in a previous thread at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=188273

Update:
I've been running Civ IV for several hours now and it has not crashed. I had to make some adjustments to the game's settings though. With the graphics on medium and the audio set to mono, it still crashed. So I turned the graphics back up to high and just turned all sounds and music off. Tada! I now have several hours of non-interrupted (albeit mute) gameplay! It's annoying to not be able to enjoy the sounds of the game and the music, but it's less annoying than the game crashing my entire PC! So if anybody out there is having troubles with the game crashing thier PC, try turning all the sounds and music off. I hope this helps.

 

[Azalnubizar]

Hi - I have had a similar problem (even though Mono didn't help me).
I ran with regular crashes until I turned sound off in the ini-file.

later I found that I can put the audio-settings to "adopt windows settings" - getting an error, that voice emulation does not work - but since I don't want to voicechat during my game there is no problem...

...works fine now...

my system config was
- Intel Core 2 Duo E 6400
- Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT (256MB)
- 2GB DDR RAM 667
- Gigabyte motherboard
- Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy SE

maybe we should include this into the fix-sticky...

Azal

 

[RevelationTravi]

Well, my computer just went back to crashing again, so what I thought was a fix was only temporary. How do you put the audio-settings to "adopt windows settings"? I don't see that in the menus.

For details on my system info go to http://members.cox.net/revelationtravis/Computer_Information.html

 

[willybeer22]

Managed to improve performance somewhat by clearing my cache each time before starting the game and setting the max framerate at 30.

no crashes yet *knock on wood*

-w

 

[Azalnubizar]

I found these option in Civ/Options/Audio - there is a combobox (dropdown-list) where you can select mono/stereo/5.1/7.1/surround etc - and one option there (at least in my civ) is to use windows settings (don't remember the exact wording).

from your post you seem to have the same troubles as I had...
...if it doesn't help you might want to check your sound-card-settings in windows... maybe there is an interupt-problem or something like this...

 

[jinishans]

Hi

Ive assembled a new system now as below. But, in this also, with 1.52 patch, i was able to paly the scenarios full, but after installing 1.61 patch, the game started crashing at 1220AD itself.

Intel E6300
FaxCon 975xAB motherboard
Corsair 2GB RAM with 4GB pagefile
Connect3D ATI Radeon x1900 XT 256 MB
Seagate Baracuda 240GB SATA 2 HDD

I just installed XP with SP2, DirectX 9c and the Game.

Kindly suggest me what to do now.

Tx & Reg
JiniShans

Update:
Even in my previous system config with P4, Intel 845GLVA board with ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card it was crashing at the same 1220 AD after installing 1.61 or even after installing Warlords. But, Warlords was working fine. Only the original maps like Earth maps crashes during 1220 AD.

 

[Azalnubizar]

this seems to be a different problem than I encountered, since my where more or less random crashes (not allways at the same time)

have you tried to initialise the debugging information in the ini? Maybe that help analysing the problem...

 

[buddhahimself]

yea, I always crash at 1220 AD as well

 

[jinishans]

I got the screen shot of the error: http://forums.civfanatics.com/upload...ror-1220AD.JPG

 

[Azalnubizar]

well, when I try to follow your link to the error-msg it says "file not found"... but never mind.

you should really go into the ini-File of your civ and enable logging. This might give us a hint what is happening... the fact, that it just crashes at 1220 isn't enough info for an error analysis...

 

[jinishans]

Pl. find attached log & saved files

 

[Azalnubizar]

the file PythonErr.log contains the following:

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "CvAppInterface", line 69, in preGameStart

File "CvScreensInterface", line 70, in showTechChooser

File "CvTechChooser", line 101, in interfaceScreen

File "CvTechChooser", line 140, in placeTechs

RuntimeError: unidentifiable C++ exception
ERR: Python function preGameStart failed, module CvAppInterface

having made a search on google with this, returns a bit...
...we r (btw) having several with this problem... and since all of them have different system configs, this doesn't seem to be a hardware problem.

Further, some have tried to use the saves and run it on their systems and it works fine - therefore it is no problem with the save-game-file.

(found this under http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=186294)

this leaves only your installation(s). It might be a problem with your windows-installation (and the many many sub-prgs) or with your civ-installation...

...do you have any mods installed? Have you installed from an original-cd? do you use a no-cd-hack? seems it has something to do with your warlords installation...

might also have to do with the 1.61-patch...

I think the 2.08 patch is now available ( http://www.2kgames.com/index.php?p=support_patches ) and they say they fixed a few possible crash-bugs... maybe give it a try?

otherwise I would suggest reinstallation...

 

[buddhahimself]

HAH, the 1220 AD crash.. yea, get a different crack... that one is bad. ITS EVIL!