Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

My screen flashing seems to have stopped since I deleted a very old version of MS Works I had installed to open some files from an old computer. It appears that it had an update function that was constantly running.

Probably not much help to others with this problem, though.

Still get the end turn flashes sometimes.

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

I get some white flashing form time to time. I also have the map go black for a second when the AI moves. the rest of the screen stays normal.

..full screen mode BTW

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

The screen going black between the AI and your turns for a brief moment is normal

Don

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

OK just doesn't happen all the time. didn't think it was a problem.

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

I've had a problem with crashing in both Full and Windowed mode. It seems to happen less often in Windowed mode, but still happens. In Full mode, the crash seems to lock up my whole system but in Windowed mode I can escape out of it.

I am running Win98SE, 256MB of RAM, 64MB Geforce4 video (which I've tried rolling back the drivers on), using DirectX 9.0c.

Please let me know if you guys need any more information or come up with anything -- I'm dying to get into this game but it's just too frustrating having to reboot so often.

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

Press the START button then RUN then type DXdiag and check every tab for conflicts. If there are none turn off as many background programs as you can. The game requires a great deal from your CPU. If there are an abundance of programs running before you start up the game a sudden increase in requirements from the game during play can push you over and cause a crash. ( NOTE: There may be things running in the background that you don't even know about )

You didn't tell us what sound card you are using either. Try running the game with sound off in Preferences for awhile. If that solves the problem then that points in a different direction

Don

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

OK I checked all tabs (and ran all tests) using DXDiag and no conflicts or problems were found. I had already checked background tasks and closed everything except for Explorer and Systray before running it.

I'm using an on-board sound chip, looking in my device manager it just says "Via AC '97 Audio Controller". All DirectSound tests run fine in DXDiag.

I will try running with sound off for a little while and see if it helps. I guess I should've clarified earlier that I am usually able to play a few turns before the freeze-up happens. It generally seems to happen after I've played 3 or 4 turns, but it has also happened 3 separate times when trying to play a single PBEM turn...

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

I'm not 100% sure yet but it looks like turning sound off has fixed the problem. I even went back to full-screen mode (which seemed to freeze more frequently) and so far have made it about 20 turns into a battle with no problem. I will follow up if the problem reoccurs, but for now it appears the problem is sound-related. I know I have the latest driver for this chip, as one hasn't been released in quite awhile...

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

Play a few times with the sound off then save a game and turn the sound back on again. Remember if you do crash the autosave will catch the last full turn so you won't be losing your games completely. If you can establish that sound off = Good and sound on = Bad let us know. You may be one of the few who has a problem with the MP3 sound files. If that does indeed turn out to be the problem the patch ( which will be released in a couple of weeks ) has instructions on how to convert the MP3's in the game to WAV format. This may not sound like a great solution but a full set of WAV files in an equivalent sound quality would be an 80+ MB download so converting is quicker and easier for everyone all the way around

Don

Re: Game Crashes and flashing screens
 

OK I'll let you know how it turns out...

Thanks for the help.