Try this if you have crashes...

[Solver]

If your Civ4 crashes, try setting your Windows pagefile to a permanent pagefile with a pretty large size. By default, Windows manages the pagefile - it's possible that setting a permanent pagefile might resolve some of the crash issues.

[snoopy369]

This at least should decrease the fragmentation of the pagefile. A fixed pagefile size is usually a good idea anyway on systems that have adequate harddrive space.

[andyp1964]

Hi Solver,

I always run with a fixed page file. Still get crashes, even once a BSOD. This is with NV5700. I did turn down the graphics, turned off all the animation stuff, turned off most sound, even Mr Nimoy!, killed movies, etc. Games plays longer for sure, but inevitably will crash. I have not done much more testing, blue screens scare me.


ap

[Solver]

Gee :S.

[snoopy369]

Andy, I don't think fixed page files will fix it for *everyone*

5700 should support this game fine. Have you done things like run a memory test, checked your HD for errors, and made sure your board/video card aren't overheating? All of those things can cause BSODs with a memory intensive game like this one.

[M Bison]

I am running this on an AMD64 3200+ with 1GB of Ram and a Radeon X800 256MB vid card and the game crashes for me as well.

[mrs_c]

Where do you turn off the animation? I've turned off the movies, set the opening map to be visable (otherwise it's all black). THe game starts ok but after an hour or so, the labels for everything a just lines and soon after that the game crashes. I've got a fairly new Dell that is well above the min specs.

[2manyusernames]

what fixed size would you recomend? I believe it is x times your memory?

[WhiteHowler]

Didn't work for the hardlocks on the diplomacy screen.

[Solver]

I generally recommend 1.5 - 2 times your RAM for pagefile size. For 512 MB RAM, that would be 768-1024 MB, and for 1 GB RAM machines a 1.5 GB paging file really should suffice.

[Guynemer]

Er... what is a pagefile?

[2manyusernames]

It is Virtual Memory. The default is to let Windows decide how much virtual memory to use. You can select the size yourself.

There is some controversy, but it is suggested that for Civ at least, you might want to try and set a high number for the min and max size of the page (virtual memory). Selecting the same size for min and max assures that the page won't defragment.

You can right-click on your "My Computer" icon, select "Advanced" then click on "performace" settings. Click on the Advanced tab within the performace settings. Bottom of the page will be marked "virtual memory". click on change and select a number as suggested by Solver. I have also read that even 2.5xYour Ram is good. All this is dependant on you having a big enough hard drive of course.

[snoopy369]

1.5x your ram is more than fine, 2.0 is the most i'd go with; over 2x your ram is actually too high, and may cause it to actually perform *worse*. From what I recall, 1.5 may be all it ever uses anyway (there is a upper limit to what it would use, either 1.5 or 2.0 i think...)

[alva]

* Turn off!! your page file
* restart
* defragment your drives
* turn on page file (fixed!! eg: min = 500MB*, max = 500MB*)

Normally if you have plenty of RAM - more than a Gig - you should turn it off completely. Windows likes filling your virutal memory, so in the end, you hardly make use of your RAM.

* or whatever you want it to set, just make sure the numbers are equal.

[Cambo67]

Set a fixed-sized pagefile, so you have about 2Gb total of pagefile+physical RAM

Use PageDefrag from www.sysinternals.com

Set it to defrag your pagefile on your next reboot.

Reboot.

Your system should then run a bit smother ;-)



Cambo