1.06 Crash in 1.04b Scenario

[Orange46]

While playing Los Angeles, the screen went colored boxes, then went black, while the music kept playing but all other game sounds stopped. Upon rebooting, it did the same thing when I tried to load auto save. Actually, the load game screen is what went weird and eventually, darkness. But, when it crashed the first time, the game was at least 6 months beyond auto save. LA is a 1.04b scenario and I'm playing it in 1.06. Any thoughts before I reboot tomorrow and try to load the game? I have experienced saves that couldn't load, but never a save that did not occur as a part of the crash - hmmm, could it have crashed at the end of the year and I did not realize it. I'll see tomorrow when I try again.

[General_Popeye]

I think that i had a problem similar to that after i installed a lot of different mods that probbly should not have been installed together but it only affected specific maps at the start. As for it crashing 6 months after autosave im not sure why it would do that. Did you add any mod recently because that might be the problem somehow.

[Orange46]

The crash occurred again out of RT3 (just on AOL), so I think it's PC related - probably the Video Card, based on a message that popped up while it was trying to recover from the latest crash. With this PC being a Vista machine that is 2.5 years old, I'm now wondering if it might make more sense to use it as an impaired backup and buy a Windows 7 PC. My older backup has worse video problems, making it hard to use even on the internet.

[Blackhawk]

My older backup has worse video problems, making it hard to use even on the internet.

If all you want to do is use a computer to browse the internet and you don't want to reinstall video card drivers and windows to make it run smooth again, you might want to just make it a linux computer. There's one distribution of linux that can run off of a usb/flash drive, and several others that can just run off a cd (although the cd version will be slower than if they were actually installed on the hard drive) I've used the distribution Knoppix several times in the past as it just runs off a cd or dvd. Back when a virus on the college network shut down my copy of Windows from working, so I popped in the cd and was able to load up Firefox/IceWeasel and browse the internet to fix my problem.

As for Vista, I don't know what your PC specs are, but I also have a laptop that runs on vista from 2 years ago, which would likely perform much better if it had XP on it. One of the biggest improvements you can probably make to it, and one of the cheapest, would be to buy more RAM for it if you haven't already maxed out your RAM. In my limited experences with Win7, I'm not particularly thrilled with it so I don't see buying a new computer just to get rid of Vista as a cost effective rememdy. In my opinion, I think you should focus on whether or not you need a new computer for the increased speed/processor power (possibly a quad core) and a better graphics card rather than just getting a new computer for Win7 instead of Vista.

[Orange46]

I pobably want all of the stuff that would come with a new pc - probably an i5 processor with whatever a Geforce GT220 or G310 video card gives and this is my gaming machine. Vista32 don't take more than 3GB of memory and that's what I got.

My current PC works ok in RT3, but does get sluggish late in big scenarios. I've had constant problems with Vista, and the VM problems I had came about after 2 Vista reinstalls necessitated by Vista Total meltdowns. Normally, I try to go for 4 years on a PC and add small stuff to keep things going, but needing a new Video card and wanting W7, make me think that maybe getting a new PC plus all of the other upgrades that come with a new PC would be a good idea. Oh, not that it matters much, but SMR still crashes on this PC and I never added any scenarios not developed by Pop top. (Their Xmas present was the only added scenario). Prior to Vista, I never had to install an operating system.

Edit: It was my graphics card. 2 cards later, the problem is fixed. Best Buy was helpful and took back one card that was not compatible with my PC.

[Hawk]

Actually there is no more Pop Top. SMR was created by Take2 and Sid Meier. Take2 bought out Pop Top and Sid went to work for them.
As a matter of fact it's now called Firaxis and not Take2.

[Blackhawk]

I think Take2 acquired Firaxis and then shortly thereafter PopTop. PopTop was then merged into Firaxis, making the PopTop name defunct. During this time Sid was likely using his own company Firaxis to work on Railroads, and during production Take2 acquired Firaxis and PopTop. The Firaxis name still exists as a subsiderary of Take2 which is the main company.

[Hawk]

Ah! I stand corrected.