Crash on large scale battles??????? Anybody had this happen, too?

[Gothic Revenge]

I bought myself a nice new pc for the Kingdom Add-On. You can see from the stats below that it is quite capable.

Now.... after having seen 1 or 2 crashes on large scale battles on a siege (i.e. 2 enemy armies + 2 freindly armies) my pc hung itself up... i.e crashed and the picture just freezed... music still running but that was it... even waiting for 10 minutes did not help and bring back the game..... I thought ok, things like this happen and as my computer is brand new and the specs are well over the requirements of Kindom I thought to myself it must have been a one-off situation due to the game itself.

Now, this has happened last night again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What the +++++ is happening???????

I am playing on "high" details, but as my pc can handle that there should not be a problem....

Anybody else experienced this?????? Any advice???
It would be a shame and waste if I had to set everything back on low!!!

[AlfonsoVIII]

How many men? Use fraps.com and post the fps. Have you optimized your dual core for gaming? What drivers do you have for your 8800GTS?

[SSJPabs]

Ah that happens to me sometimes though I have a much lower end system. In fact, it happened to me yesterday during the Teutonic Campaign. It's something fairly random I've found, just try to keep the temp. down on the comp and don't play too long at a stretch. It usually only happens to me if I've been putting in a marathon session with occasional exceptions (yesterday). Sometimes if I eject the disc and insert it again it will jump start the battle, but usually I just restart and have to try it again.

Also please use less punctuation, I know this is important but taste and etiquette and all that.

EDIT: You said it happens on sieges? Then try out the Reduced City Textures I discussed in this thread. Works wonders on sieges with very little drop (IMHO) of graphical quality on buildings as long as you don't zoom in.

[Spurius]

Sometimes if I eject the disc and insert it again it will jump start the battle

That's a good one, thanks - will try that next time. I've had it a couple of times at random, too.

Could mean it's the copy protection crapping out somehow.

[Heskey]

Noticed you have an nVidia;

Try turning Automatic Restarts off and see if you get a BSoD about nv4_disp.dll when your game hangs.

If you do, download nTune and underclock your card on both sliders (but not the fan) by 20 mhz

[Spurius]

I have an ASUS which is Nv4 compatible, but with its own driver. No BSOD, ever, BTW.

[Heskey]

I have an ASUS which is Nv4 compatible, but with its own driver. No BSOD, ever, BTW.

You won't get a BSoD if Automatic Restarts is switched on (Which by default it is). You PC will just lockup, or shutdown without showing you anything.

Turning AR off will show you a BSoD of the problem, and I read that having an nVidia card AND nVidia driver'd motherboard (Like me) heavily increases the likelihood of getting nv4_disp.dll errors.

[Spurius]

You won't get a BSoD if Automatic Restarts is switched on (Which by default it is). You PC will just lockup, or shutdown without showing you anything.

Turning AR off will show you a BSoD of the problem, and I read that having an nVidia card AND nVidia driver'd motherboard (Like me) heavily increases the likelihood of getting nv4_disp.dll errors.

I thought I had that turned off, but sometimes windows update screws with those settings, IIRC. Will check that, and play a few hours, should do the trick - it invariably happens later on in campaigns with more armies on the field, and *always* when I just clicked an enemy unit in order to attack it. Thought I'd mention that.