game crashes
 

My game crashes regularly, about once in every 3 hours of gameplay. It freezes completely, except that i remain able to move the cursor (but not the map), and the only thing the computer reacts to is a cold reset.
Anyone have an idea how to prevent this? I still like this game very much, but eats into my enthusiasm a bit.

I'm using zonealarm (a firewall i think), but turning it off didnt help (as one of my friends suggested). Perhaps if I turn off ESET smartsecurity's firewall too? Not easy to test this, because of the long and random timeintervals between crashes.

thanks a lot for any help.

Re: game crashes
 

What system?

If the forum doesn't have an answer I'd open a ticket with Shrapnel support. They were pretty responsive on other issues I've encountered.
-ssj

Re: game crashes
 

I'd also try to update your video drivers. That's worked in a number of cases.
And is unlikely to hurt, even if it doesn't fix the problem.

Re: game crashes
 

im using "windows xp professional".

Re: game crashes
 

hmmm. how can i do that?

Re: game crashes
 

You need to know what brand/model graphics card you have, go to the brands webpage and look for the update drivers button. Search for your model and download the driver. Double click on the download should do the trick.

Unless you have a Dell Inspirion laptop with an ATI mobility card, in which case you will learn Dell took ownership of the graphics card updates and have released zero updates. Sorry for the OT rant but I find this silly ;)

Re: game crashes
 

Control panel
system
Hardware
Device manager
Display adapters
----- your adapter will be here -----

ssj

Re: game crashes
 

thanks. I found there (under "display adapters"):

"-mobile intel(R) 4 series express chipset family
-mobile intel(R) 4 series express chipset family"

(yes, two times)


tried to update them, but after a ittle searching it said it was up to date.

Re: game crashes
 

I'd open a ticket....
-ssj

Re: game crashes
 

Sounds like overheat. Try to monitor your CPU and videocard temperature.

Re: game crashes
 

yeah, it's an overheat problem. Turn down your graphics settings in the game preferences. For such a seemingly simple game, Dom uses a lot of graphics resources at the default settings.

Turn off Animated backgrounds, fade effects, and lighting effects for a start.

Those settings are under your "Preferences"-- "Video Preferences", btw.

Re: game crashes
 

It only happens with dominions. Althou it seems a very good guess, I had overheating problems before.

Re: game crashes
 

As said by Lingchin, Dom tends to load the system unnaturally high. On one old laptop (produces around 2001 or so) it was practically impossible for me to play Dom2, even with lowered settings.

Re: game crashes
 

Or only play the cold races... ;)
-ssj

Re: game crashes
 

Especially the detail level is important. Turn off all the grass effects on battlefield, as that is the biggest culprit. Depending on detail level, Dominions will draw every blade of grass up to a certain distance, even though you would need a 10k x 10k resolution monitor to even see them. And if it draws it to a distance of 10 km, as it does on the aptly named "Too high" detail setting, well, your graphics card is not going to like it. Even the lesser levels can easily drive it to exhaustion.