Civilization 4 problem

oxygene

oxygene

oxygene

Soldato
Joined
20 Aug 2004
Posts
3,115
Location
Bournemouth
Ok heres a puzzler for your noodles! Civilization 4 freezes my computer, causing me to hard reset. All my drivers are up to date, I've tried the game on max detail and min detail. Does it on single player or network games. The time before it happens is random, from 2 seconds in to up to half hour.
Spec:
Windows 7
amd x2 6000 3.2ghz
6gb ram
radeon HD 4890 1gb
res: 1920x1200

This pc should be more then able to handle it so I dont know what the problem can be. I dont have a similar problem in any other game or situation I can think of!
 
I have this problem in a number of games, not just Civ IV. I've seen people mention it on the MS forums as well, but you don't get any help there, just the party line.

My suspicion is that there is some compatility issue between Win 7 and some games which expect to be speaking to DX9, as I think that is the common factor with all the games in which I see this, and it's also been suggested on other forums.

BF:2, Civ IV, Oblivion, FM2010 have all exhibited the same behaviour at various times: they play fine for a period of time (seems random, can be from seconds to hours) then the graphics freeze up (accompanied by artifacting for me) and the sound cycles. Hard reset required.

I'd be delighted to hear any suggestions also.
 
Hmmm I was wondering if my roblem was confined to 1 game. I dont play any of those others yuo mentioned so its probable its the same problem! Its so annoying cause I love a good game of Civ
 
My brother had a similar problem when upgrading to Windows 7.

The computer would hang and require a hard reset. It generally happened on L4D with him and his hardware is totally different from yours and it is a problem that only started when he moved to Win 7.

He never did find a solution for it but I think with driver updates the crashes happen less often than they did.

Sorry I can't be more help. :)
 
d1am0nd g33z3r said:
they play fine for a period of time (seems random, can be from seconds to hours) then the graphics freeze up (accompanied by artifacting for me) and the sound cycles. Hard reset required.
Click to expand...

I had this problem in oblivion. It turned out my 13yo seagate was dying. The crashes were caused by bad sectors on the disc. Which in my case where caused by mechanical failure, the heads must've started scratching the disc judging by the squeeky clicky noise from the HD.
So to you guys a disc diagnostic might be in order, if some of the games files are sitting in bad sectors and the OS simply doesn't know it, you will get those random crashes.

Just an avenue for exploration!
 
Ahhh different problem to mine. I tried reinstalling the game on different drives, and moving the files around some more.
 
jimmy_lazers said:
I had this problem in oblivion. It turned out my 13yo seagate was dying. The crashes were caused by bad sectors on the disc. Which in my case where caused by mechanical failure, the heads must've started scratching the disc judging by the squeeky clicky noise from the HD.
So to you guys a disc diagnostic might be in order, if some of the games files are sitting in bad sectors and the OS simply doesn't know it, you will get those random crashes.

Just an avenue for exploration!
Click to expand...

Funny you should say that as my bro had to RMA his Samsung drive just after getting Win 7. Still crashed on the replacement though so for him it didn't seem related to the dying hard disk.
 
jimmy_lazers said:
It turned out my 13yo seagate was dying. Just an avenue for exploration!
Click to expand...

Not going to be an issue for me I don't think. Brand new WD Caviar Black and I only pulled Oblivion off of Steam last week for a blast of nostalgia!

Luckily the issue doesn't seem to affect LotRO or MTGO so I still got plenty to occupy my time! ;)
 
I've just 100% confirmed it does crash even when moved to other drives. But just incase I'm developing bad sectors like spots, anyone know a good program that can identify and mark them?
 
Parts of the OS could be sitting on a bad sector. I only know chkdsk but that has a terrible interface and doesn't tell you what it did, or didn't, do.

But a quick search suggests loads of people are having problems running W7 and Civ4. So ignore me.
 
Yeah I've found a few googles of people with a similar problem but no solutions. Its very frustrating because its a basic game by many standards.
 
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