Game display garbled and locks up after 5 minutes.

[Raefin]

3.2 ghz p4
2 gig ram
nvidia 6800 gt w/ 256 m ram
windows xp
Sound blaster audigy 2 zs gamer edition

The game works for a few turns and then the screen becomes garbled with green or white pixels and you can no longer use the game. The mouse will move for a short period of time as a larger box of pixels but eventually it will freeze up as well. This requires a hard reboot of the machine.

I seem to recall a similar problem occurring with Rome: Total War. Could these issues be related?

[Runmymouth]

i never had that problem with Rome Total War. Have nvidia 6800 GT as well and it crashes like no other every 5 minutes. Im reduced to playing it on my labtop, 1.5ghz p4 mobile, x300 ati, 1g DDr2 ram..... want my desktop back.

[Vyshka]

You should be able to find other threads about this here. I have the following setup:

AMD64 3400+
2GB RAM
BFG 6800 GT OC
Audigy 2 ZS

I have had that problem with Civ4, and also occasionally
with other games such as BiA, and AoE3. It seemed I have solved it for BiA and AoE3 by updating the Audigy drivers, but perhaps I just hadn't played enough since then to hit the problem again. I appear to have solved it finally with Civ4 by adding fans to my case, and a pci slot fan to go beneath the 6800 GT. Once I added those I was able to complete my game, where before I would last about an hour before it crashed. I still get the funky mini-map, and messed up visual if I zoom way out, but I don't get the funky pattern on the screen and a system lock anymore. I will have to try playing another game from the beginning tonight and see how the system handles it. I would make sure that you have adequate ventilation and cooling for the system, and make sure you have updated the Audigy drivers as there have been a couple of updates for that.

[Raefin]

I went ahead and installed the latest drivers for the 6800 and for the audigy 2. I will check the cooling issue, but really not sure how it could be the problem with my setup. I will go ahead and clean it out now though.

[Raefin]

Went ahead and cleaned the entire system with compressed air and rags. Might have helped a little bit but was only able to get through 3 turns now prior to the crash.

[Runmymouth]

dont think its a system problem, i believe with this many problems that i have heard of, its an issue with the game.

[mbelembe]

same problem

i have exactly the same problem...

my system:
xp prof
1gb ram
amd64 3500+
gf 6800gt

[Raefin]

mbelembe are you using an audigy 2 card?

[DJ]

I haven't had the problem yet.

xp prof
1 gb ram
p4 2.6 Ghz
gf 6800gt

[edit]
DirectX9c (October 2005 Update)