The computer freezes during the game

[babthooka]

Hello. Civ IV freezes the computer completelly, and forces me to reset. I tried waiting a half hour, since I've seen that there's a problem where it temporarily freezes, but this is not the problem here (the mouse pointer freezes as well). If I run Civ IV in 1680x1050 resolution, it will freeze 5 or so turns after I start the game. If I play in 1024x768, I'll be able to play the first 30 or so turns.
My computer has plenty specs to run the game:

- 1,5 gig RAM
- 3.2 GHz P4
- gforce6800 w/128Mb
- Plenty of HD space

The gfx card has the manufacturer's driver installed (and not nvidias generic). I am running v1.61 on WinXP SP2. The game runs fine on my laptop, which isn't as powerful. I've tried disabling virus programs and anti spam and firewalls, and every background app on my comp, and still the problem persists.

Plz help?

 

[crunch]

this is unfortunately rather common behavior on 6800 series cards... it is usually attributed to too much heat, not enough power, bad card... a workaround solution that helps to delay the inevitable crash is to use the ini file setting SetMaxFrameRate=30. other than that:
- use the latest patch
- experiment with various graphics drivers
- try different GPU settings
- fullscreen / windowed mode
- closing unnecessary apps can help
- ensure that the computer is well cooled
- underclock your GPU
...