What fixed it for me (Maybe Useful)

[camsmith]

Took me a week or so but what fixed it for me was (might be useful for someone) :

Tried every fix going.. no joy. Constant CTD's, Reboots and BSOD..

So..

1. Cleaned out the PC! No joke. Found my CPU was running at 87c!! Funny it didn't explode actually.. (Safe would be 50c to 60c). So dust and stuff insulates the CPU and causes it to reheat and consequently reset itself or shutdown entirely.

That was the biggy.. Now it runs at 52c. Well cool..

2. Formatted both Hard Disks (2x80Gb). Got rid of all the clutter.

3. Reinstalled XP on one and updated it (through windows update) thoroughly.

Didn't choose to install .Net 1.1 and went straight to .Net 2.0 - That might be an issue.

Used Windows to update my graphics card (Sapphire ATI 9200 Atlantis 256mb). Assuming it's now at 5.11 (No Control Panel).

4. Before I put any more crap on it I installed Civ.. Express Install, on same HDD as XP. Played it for 3 hours =) then patched it.. Ain't stopped playing since. No crashes, no graphical glitches, nada..

That's it basically... Far as memory goes.. just 512mb RAM.. windows managed page file (about 384mb), runs like a dream..

Only issue I have is that the specialists seem to stop discovering advances after a certain year.. but that is one teeny, tiny lil problem that'll no doubt be sorted soon..

So that has stopped me tearing my hair out and I gotta recommend cleaning out the actual comp to anyone having problems... Seems obvious now but didn't at the time...

=)

Thats just on a mediocre setup :

Athlon XP2000+ (1.67MHz)
512mb RAM
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200 Atlantis 256mb

And I reckon the biggest thing was getting rid of all the dust and stoor in the inside of the case - hadn't done that for at least 3 years..

Dunno if the reformat and clean XP install was necessary but it worked.. might be just as good with a defrag. Though a defrag on an 80gb HDD probably takes longer than just wiping it all and starting again..

And it was well worth it.. off to play an epic Earth 1000AD game and make Britannia rule the waves again.. =)

[Guy Saults]

This is a good quarterly maintenance program, plus the annual re-install of Windows that keeps the system snapping. I am glad you too are enjoying this excellent game!

However, it does not explain why people who have completely clean systems are still having problems...I keep mine clean and cool, running around 22 degrees C and streamlined software configs.

Based on my experience with two machines that are similar to yours, I think it may be a driver or memory leak issue. Your system's hardware is good enough, and has been around long enough for the designers to find stable drivers. Like you, I have a one-year-old system on which CIV IV works quite well, but on my nearly identical but brand-new system, the game CTDs on any save file over 500KB. Ergo, maybe it's the new card's driver....

The main difference between my two systems is the video card. The game runs great on my XFX GeForce FX5200 128MB card, but crashes on my new eVGA GeForce FX5500 256MB card. Other than these cards, my systems are practically identical, with a 10 month age difference.

Do you have a sound card in your machine? Both of my systems have on-board AC '97 chips.

TIA,

[PhillipAWyllie]

Camsmith, could you post the frame rate you are getting? I use FRAPS (http://www.fraps.com). My sytem is about your specs and my frame rate is about 15fps at the start of the game

[Raion]

Besides cleaning out your computer, you also have to know how to set a computer to play video games. Video computer games are not general purpose use of a computer -- and video cards can be and have to be set differently.

Using constant memory swap size (Virtual Memory) is also important, as well as not starting up little start-up programs that take more memory out of main memory but just seemingly make the real program start a little faster -- all started by Microsoft to appear to make their OS run faster!

I never would have a hardisk only one partition of 80gB. If you are going to redo your computer - then why not make more logical partitions on your harddisk in the first place. Although done in ms-dos by fdisk if using Microsoft's version of anything, using a program like Partition Magic can do it anytime -- although it may take a long time to do so in the first place, especially if making some of the menu items!

But knowing that you are not generally-purposing using a computer in the first place, or expecting that a computer can do everything without slowing down is only the fault of the user. Expecting too much out of a computer may be the first reason that people get crashes to desktop or anything else.

In other words, the game of Civilization IV has never crashed on me - although I am using an FX5200 Geforce, but still anytime anyone does something with their own computer -- things have to be thought about - as to how the computer will respond -- especially playing computer games.

[camsmith]

Phillip - no idea wot fps I'm getting (can't be bothered finding out at the moment ) but it ain't bad.

It slows down a bit at end game (but then everyone's complaining about that.. I just put up with it.

Only running at 1024x768 with everything at high - still looks fine (I got 19" screen and play from my bed or my big comfy chair a few feet away with cordless kb and mouse so that's fine).. Zips along for the majority of the game and then slows down once you research satellites and get every city on screen.. Still bearable though.

Played the odd huge game but gotta say it's a lot better on standard sized maps - doesn't bother me.. just gets annoying on huge having to micro-manage 20-30 cities.

So, that's been 18 days or so and it's been fine. Re-filled the comp with all my usual crap and it still runs great.

Had a bit of a heart attack today with my first crash but I had a few other things running at the time and it could've been any one of them that caused it. Been fine since then.

Only issue I've had is that I was about to win the Space Race and accidentally changed one of my cities off of one of the Thruster thingy's... couldn't rebuild it anywhere else (was 2 turns away from completion).. built the rest of the parts but couldn't launch 'cos I didn't have that one part.. nothing helped at all - even World Builder... so that was a pisser - first Space Race Victory that would've been

I'll check FPS some day.. but not right now

[Cephalectomy1]

I, too, am using a 5200 FX AGP 128 mb video card. The game... Plays horribly. It will start fine, but the graphics will soon begin to degrade... And by degrade I mean... Tiles will disappear into blackness, units will disappear along with cities, and then the fuzzyness will begin along with textures being misapplied to terrain, and then, ultimately... The infamous crash to desktop at 4 bit color and minimum resolution.

I took the advice of disabling AGP acceleration in DXdiag and since it has been -considerably- less buggy. Still buggy, but the graphics seem stable except for the leaders not showing up in video, and the game running generally slow as all hell. At least it's playable now, though!