Screen flickering and Crashes Plz help!!!

[Keatoy]

Hi i just got civ 4 and i have successfully installed it, but when i get to the 1200's my everything except land and roads dissapears for a short time eventually this escalates to my screen going completely black and flickering lighter a small bit when i ctrl-alt-delete my resolution and colors are set way back at which point i have to reboot my computer and start all over again

i have the following:
Windows XP sp3 professional with all updates

a NVIDIA geforce 6200 a le graphics card with all updates
1 gb ram
intel pentium 4 processer
soundmax sound card

i have the feeling that my graphics card switches to the standard safe graphics card installed on most computers and thats whats making it not work and i dont know how to fix it i have tried a lot of things and it's getting frustrating please help

 

[Keatoy]

Here is my DXDIAG again plz help if you can

Time of this report: 12/6/2009, 17:35:31
Machine name: USER1-17EADFE2C
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090804-1435)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Equus Computer Systems
System Model: Nobilis
BIOS: BIOS Date: 08/04/05 00:31:45 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1022MB RAM
Page File: 376MB used, 2060MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

 

[ori]

Welcome to CFC

please post the complete dxdiag results file as a file attachment - you can attach files by clicking on go advanced then on manage attachments below the reply box.
what patch version is this game?
is this just civ4 or also an expansion?

 

[Keatoy]

View attachment DxDiag.txt thanks for responding ori and here is the rest

 

[Keatoy]

oh and this is just civ 4 with 1.74

 

[ori]

all drivers are updated (you might want to check for a newer sound driver - but that is not a cause of this problem).
Does the computer make any louder than usual noises when this happens?

 

[Keatoy]

no and for some reason it only happens during this game all the others are fine

here is exactly what happens:
1.the game starts to slow down a little bit after a turn is done or the camera is panning to a different unit
2. after the first thing happens once or twice the whole control panel thing goes away and all you can see is the land and the road
3.the second thing happens maybe twice and then the entire screen goes black with occasional flashes of a lighter shade like the monitor is attempting to bring me back to the game
4. i press control alt delete and bring up task manager and close civ 4
5. as soon as i control alt delete i see that all my graphics have reverted from 1280 by 1024 to 800 by 600 and the color goes from 32-bit to 4-bit and i have to restart my computer entirely to fix it and if i load up the game i was playing it happens faster then it did before

 

[J4Habs]

I think you have a dying/overheating video card problem. Is the fan on the Geforce still spinning and overall dust-free? You say other games are okay but are they pushing the vid as much as civ?

I burnt out my video card 2 weeks ago playing civ- upgraded and is flying now...

 

[Keatoy]

Actually come to think of it i have checked to see if it is overheating once and it seemed kind of hot the thing is i cant tell if the fan on it is running. How would i be able to get it working? and also your right no other games are pushing it this hard so it very well could be overheating i just need someone to tell me how to get the fan running

 

[Keatoy]

UMM nvm i actually have a heat sink and i think its working fine all though the card still does heat up a lot anyone have any more suggestions?

 

[Zylornck Davis]

use the nvidia control panel or something like hardware monitor from CPUID to check you graphics card temp as you play. you'll probly have to run the game in a window to monitor the temps. If the heat sink or the back of the card is too hot to touch you might have a problem. It sounds like either the video driver or windows itself is throttling your card to keep it running by lowering the resolution and shutting off the shaders. the card has to do less work then and cools off. Have yougot good airflow in the case? civ doesnt need much of a card to play but that 6200 might not be up to it. Here in canada you can get a decent card that'll play civ for less than $50 and in the states theyre even cheaper. Might be time.