v1.52 Game freezes after about 2-15 mins of gameplay!

[Scalpel]

Alright, I tried to find a posting about a similar problem, but can't quite find one that matches my plight:

I have talked to Take2's tech support until they told me they'd have to "escalate me", and someone would get back to me in 2-7 days!!! Here's the problem:

My game hard locks up after 2-15 minutes of gameplay, if I'm lucky. Sometimes it even locks up in the menu system just setting up a game! Here are my specs:
P4 2.4
1GB RDRAM
Nvidia GeForce 6600GT
SBLive! XGamer 5.1
More than 15GB free HD space
If you need any other specs, feel free to ask.

I have Windows XP, SP2, the latest drivers for Bios, Vid card, Sound, DirectX, the 1.52 patch, and NOTHING has worked at all. Tech support had me disable all startup items, that got it to last for 15 minutes (just long enough to hang up with them thinking everything was cool) once, and then after that, my average game is 3 minutes, or about a turn and a half. I have tried deleting my cache folder, changing autosave to 0, memsaver to 1 (tech support's idea again), my virtual memory to 1500, and then 2000, like I have seen several ppl suggest on these forums, tried disabling AGP Texture acceleration and sound card hardware acceleration in dxdiag, have tried playing with no sound, low graphics settings, all to no avail. I tried reinstalling, playing without the patch, installing under a different Windows user, and almost anything else short of witchcraft you can think of.

I have not come across anyone dealing with this exact situation, so I thought I'd start a new thread. I never get an error message, never CTD, no graphical artifacts, and no rebooting, just a hard lock, no mouse, no keyboard responses at all. My computer runs many other games (BF2, HL2, etc.) with zero problems, so I really am at the end of my rope! If anyone out there can help, I would be so appreciative!


Sincerely,

Scalpel

[lingchihmoo3]

Sorry about the goofy username. I haven't posted here since I was playing MOO 3.

Yes, I have the exact same problem as you do, and have tried many of the same fixes. A little background though. I played the game out of the box, not patched, for about 6 to 8 weeks with not one problem. Then, the system shutdowns started. Mine crashes all the way out to a black screen, with no video signal, and I have to reboot the machine by turning the power off.

I then took my machine in to a shop, thinking CIV 4 had killed my video card. The tech said the machine was fine, I took it home, and after a few days off, tried playing CIV again and it has worked great for about two weeks. Today it started crashing again. I finally went and got the newest patch(1.5.2 I think), but that did no good. I have not been able to get past the game creation screen since then.

No answers, sorry, but you are not the only one with this problem.

[CeeBee]

Similar problem here and tried pretty much every fix known to man. Some days it will run for an hour, other days 5 minutes. Some times I can close it out in task manager when the graphics go crazy but most of the time it does a hard crash and reboots the pc for me.... how very thoughtful
What I'm wondering is how many people have thrown in the towel or not even bothered to post on any forum? I suspect the complaints we see here are only a very small tip of the iceberg and thats not a good thing
sorry my first post is so negative but in all my years of gaming I've never come across such a buggy game and unfortunately it is one that I want to play so badly. Guess I could go back to Civ3 but I don't really have the desire to do that after tasting 4.

[lingchihmoo3]

Well, I figured out my problem. The game burned up my Radeon 9800. I pulled it out after the last lockup, and it was hot enough to melt plastic, and the fan was frozen. I hate to blame the game, but the card worked great on everything including World of Warcraft, until I started playing CIV 4. Time for a new video card, and time to take a long break from this game. It's getting a little too expensive.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by lingchihmoo3
Well, I figured out my problem. The game burned up my Radeon 9800. I pulled it out after the last lockup, and it was hot enough to melt plastic, and the fan was frozen.

I don't think you need a replacement, you only need to get the fan working again. Cleaning it should do the trick.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: v1.52 Game freezes after about 2-15 mins of gameplay!

Originally posted by Scalpel
I have Windows XP, SP2, the latest drivers for Bios, Vid card, Sound, DirectX, the 1.52 patch, and NOTHING has worked at all.

A couple of things worth checking:

1. Make sure your CPU fan is in proper working order
2. Use memtest86 to test your RAM

Originally posted by Scalpel
I have not come across anyone dealing with this exact situation, so I thought I'd start a new thread. I never get an error message, never CTD, no graphical artifacts, and no rebooting, just a hard lock, no mouse, no keyboard responses at all.

I have exactly the same problem and I think it has something to do with the graphics (not your card).

My solution:

1. Run patch 1.09 (you should still be able to find it on Apolyton) together with Hark's memory fix (there is a thread on it in the General section). Vid_memory = 80 and insane_mode = 1 works fine with me. This involves completely removing Civ 4 and installing it again.

2. Use RivaTuner to force pixel shader to 1.3 and vertex shader to 1.1. Or maybe it's the other way around.

3. Drop colour depth to 16-bit

4. Set resolution to 1024x768. Set graphic details to low (you can retail the animations and special effects). Use low resolution textures.

If this works for you, then you can slowly increase graphical details if you wish.

[Scalpel]

I tried your ideas...

Hey man,

Thanks for all the suggestions, and after doing every last bit of it, the game locked up after roughly 8 turns! No idea, I've tried everything I could possibly find on every forum, and the longest I've played without a hard lock (NEVER any other kind of error) is roughly 30 mins. It's driving me crazy. But once again, if anyone has ANYTHING, I'm willing to try it.

Scalpel

[Urban Ranger]

If it still doesn't work try turning off insane mode (insane_mode = 0). Once I tried turning off pixel and vertex shaders but the game looks really ugly without shading

Also take a look at LSystem.log (in My Games folder) to see if there are any errors.

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by lingchihmoo3
Well, I figured out my problem. The game burned up my Radeon 9800. I pulled it out after the last lockup, and it was hot enough to melt plastic, and the fan was frozen. I hate to blame the game, but the card worked great on everything including World of Warcraft, until I started playing CIV 4. Time for a new video card, and time to take a long break from this game. It's getting a little too expensive.

I doubt you'll need a new card, if you can use the computer, and are still getting a picture in non-game use. If that's the case, then I don't think your graph card is damaged, it's just the fan that's dead, and this is why the card overheats in game-use, causing the freeze/crash.

Happened to me recently too - the fan on my ATI Radeon 9600XT died.

You probably can't get a replacement fan identical to what you've got, but you CAN get a third party cooling system that's going to be much, MUCH cheaper than buying a new card.

See the thread here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147438

I've got my experience written down there too - I think the same cooling system (with a price at around 20 euros) should be compatible with your system too. Have a look at it here: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=36

Though do be warned that although my card was listed as compatible, the power cord plug didn't match the power socket on my card. Was in a hurry to get it working, so I resorted to some tinkering of my own to resolve the problem: cut the wires on the new system, and my old fan, stripped the wires, and attached the old plug onto the wires of my new system. Works fine, but of course no more guarantee...

In general, this kind of a crash problem would suggest to me problems with rising graph card temperatures... so my suggestion to everyone with this problem is to check your graph card temperatures, and open up your computer to check to see that your fans are running. And also clean the insides of dust.

[Scalpel]

Sorry, but you were replying to someone else within my post, I haven't burnt up my card, and as far as temp goes, my vid card temps have been roughly 60 right after a hard lock and reboot, so I don't think that's the problem... Anything else?

[Jack_www]

I had a similar problem but it was not exactly the same. I had one game where I had two cities building two world wonders at the same time. The first world wonder video played, but showed no video and just sound and started to use up a lot of memory. Then the second wonder video tried to play but could not and then the game locks up and I have to force it to quit or it crashes. After I turn the graphic settings to low it works now just fine. But the patch seems to have made things worse not better.

[Scalpel]

Fixed!

Well, strange as it seems, I think I finally fixed it! It kept seeming like an overheating problem, but every time I checked, my video card would be reading 50-60, not a heat problem. So I thought about power. I have an Antec 430 watt PS, so I thought, no way, but I had tried everything else, so why not? So I cracked open my case, and come to find out, I had the power cord feeding my mobo also feeding my video card. So, after switching each of those to differing cables, AND disconnecting my 2nd HD, I have been crash free ever since!

Obviously the next step will be to bump back up my settings, and then eventually reconnect the 2nd HD, but for now, I couldn't be happier, as I'm successfully kicking Julies Ceaser, Tokigawa (?sp), and Saladin's butts around my continent!

Hopefully this will help someone else out as well!

Scalpel

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Fixed!

Originally posted by Scalpel
So, after switching each of those to differing cables, AND disconnecting my 2nd HD, I have been crash free ever since!

Your mobo is ATX, right? So the power cable for the mobo should be a dedicated one, while the one for the video card (fan) is a regular 4-pin thing.

However, I am glad that you have it sorted out.

[SuperSharp]

This is excactly the problem I've got, random freezing, between 5 and 20 mins into games. No problems with any other games, never had UT2004 freeze. Not much simular with your system

Athlon 2600 XP
Nvidia 5900 XT GC
MSI Via K6 Series MoBo
1 Gig of DDR400

No overheating, the CPU and graphic card heatsink are hardly warm at all (I don't overclock).

Glad I found you post because I have two harddrives, one of them shares the power cord with the graphics card.

So I will try what you did!

[omcmr]

I've had the same problem, and after trying to get this game to run for the last month or so, I have officially put it back in the box and will wait until things finally get fixed. It's a damn shame that such a great game is ruined by this problem. I like all of the new additions to the game, but the graphics are just not necessary. They could have put these changes in a mod for Civ3 and everyone would have been happy!