Things I have noticed...

[MasterOwnage]

Hi. I dont know if all these are problems or not, but they are things I have noticed

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The movies for the completion of wonders or any other little movies that happen due to a discovery, will stutter/freeze when i set my resolution of the game to 1024 x 768. But works fine when I play it at 1280x1024.

Whether I change my desktop resolution to 1024x768 or 1280x1024 gives me the same problem... I could very well just play it at 1280x1024 (but things are too tiny for my likings)

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Also, when moving the screen (scrolling left/right/up/down)... there will be flickering with weird colors and sometimes messed up texts when playing at any resolution. This happens more in the late game as more details is added. I noticed that this happens A LOT MORE frequently when I have MIPMAP Detail Level to a higher Quality (moving the slider from Performance to Quality) on Catalyst 5.12. Playing CivIV with low quality is unbareable.

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Furthermore, game will often freeze for an extended period of time (Graphics only, sound plays through still) and then normal play will resume after a while (say 60-90 seconds later). All these problems seem to increase as gameplay increases. The level of details positively correlates to the amount of crashing that will occur.

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Changing any graphic options while playing the game will freeze the graphic for a loooong time. (As compared to changing the graphics before starting the game where it only takes a few second).

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My System:
- Intel P4 @ 3.2 GHz w/ HT
- 1024 DDR RAM
- 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW w/ latest drivers and Catalyst v5.12
- Win. XP Pro SP2

 

[Rodatam]

try to keep all the graphics in LOW (ingame only) and in the VGA options (under the driver) all in high quality
it wont change almost nothing in the graphics (!!!) but the gameplay will be really better
try to clean the game cache, update your motherboard BIOS, your AGP bios
do a defrag with DISKEEPER (dont use windows own defrager)
use TUNE up utilities, to clean your registry, clean your HD, shut down not needed windows graphics.... and to defrag your registry (can only do with diskeeper)

Now to the windows services, shut down the most you can
use this guide to help you

http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm

Hope it all helps

ps: do the all time anti virus and spyware too

PS2: get motherboard monitor and report the voltages at the 3.3, 5 and 12 lines, and tell us the temperatures, will help to isolate the problem

 

[MasterOwnage]

My CPU (Intel P4 3.2C) has a Zalman Large Copper Heatsink + Fan added to it

CPU Temperature when not gaming: 45 C
CPU Temperature when gaming: 60 C
Motherboard Temperature: 40-50 C

Data from ASUS PC Probe
===================
+12V = 11.855
+5V = 4.865
+3.3V = 3.216
VCore = 1.6

VIRTUAL MEMORY (Custom Size)
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Initial Size: 1536 MB
Maximum Size: 3072 MB

OTHER DETAILS
============
IO Page Lock Limit: 512 MB
Paging Executive: Disabled

1) I also thought that maybe the heat had something to do with the graphics... but when I load the saved file say the next day (after it starts showing the funny colors as I scroll), it will still show it... but when I start a new game, things are just fine.

2) I have the latest drivers for my motherboard, CPU (Intel INF), Video Card. I have the latest updates for everything from windowsupdate.microsoft.com. I use CCleaner (latest version) to do a thorough cleansing of my hard drive and Registry.

3) I will try DISKEEPER and let you know if I see any improvements

 

[Rodatam]

Hmmm weird your artifacts...
is the GPU being well cooled?
do you tryed another game?
=]

 

[MasterOwnage]

You know damn ATI Radeon 9800 series get VERY HOT quickly! But they are damn good in terms of quality! But like I said, the weirdness in graphics as I scroll recurs after I load the SAVE GAME on a different day (when all parts are nice and cool).

Ah well, I can still play it

DISKEEPER has a lot of claims.. I would need to benchmark my computer to see if I got nay significant improvement.. not worth my time... time for me to Build n Conquer .. muahaha..

Thanks for the (emotional) support .. although the problem still exists

 

[Rodatam]

you will get improvements from defrag, trust me XD
get diskeeper lite and defrag, give it a try, its pretty quick =]

ps: get some adicional cool for the card, i did it here, i will try to get a photo