Game crash problem

[AlpacaNotLlama 0]

***Why won't my post create new paragraphs on its own? I apologize for the horizontal rules!***

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I've got regular old Sim City 4 and tonight I played it for the first time. I had been playing for, eh, about an hour or two and then suddenly the screen went blue, the music skipped, the screen flickered black and blue, and then my computer restarted itself. What gives?

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Here are my specs:

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Windows XP

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ATI Radeon 9600 Pro, 256 MB, 128-bit

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1 GB RAM

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Anthlon 64 3000+

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What could be the culprit here? Anyone got any ideas? Thanks!

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P.S. Why did they stop with the llamas? I miss them!

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[HunterIrked 1]

When that happened to me, many years ago, I e-mailed EA technical support and they told me it was my graphics card...

[DPMorse 2]

How many saves had you done, up to that point?

[AlpacaNotLlama 0]

I hadn't saved my game at all. And it isn't when I do certain things either, it can happen anytime. So I just bought a new Radeon 9600 Pro to upgrade my GeForce 2 and now it doesn't work with some games? The programmers are EA need to get it together! It plays The Sims 2 just fine.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

New graphics cards have toys that kill SC4 dead. If you have it on, turn off anti-aliasing when playing SC.

Since you have a big, fast machine, you could run in Software rendering. It is an option in the graphcs options of the game.

[DPMorse 2]

Originally posted by: AlpacaNotLlama

I hadn't saved my game at all. And it isn't when I do certain things either, it can happen anytime.

So I just bought a new Radeon 9600 Pro to upgrade my GeForce 2 and now it doesn't work with some games? The programmers are EA need to get it together! It plays The Sims 2 just fine.quote>

The reason I asked is because I have found that SC4 is much more stable if you save often. If I wait too long it will crash, but if I save often it very seldom does. Usually I will save the city every 15-20 minutes.

[AlpacaNotLlama 0]

I don't think anti-aliasing is on. Or, at least, the application determines whether to use it or not. I read the official system requirements at EA's website. It listed the supported cards and named some Radeon ones but left a LOT out. I have a Radeon 9600 Pro which was not listed -- does this mean I just can't play the game? Has anyone with this card been able to play the game? I also got this from my crashes, if anyone can decipher what it means: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x100000d1 (0xf7cb3f8e, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xeb8249b3). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini031906-03.dmp. Oh, and I tried Software Rendering but it crashed pretty quickly. It gave me blue screen that said something about SQL LESS OR EQUAL, I believe.

[greyveil 37]

I have used Both a ATI Radeon 9600 pro and 9600 AIW with Both Deluxe and Rush hour in the past with no issues at all (related to the graphics card).

I have 1 question and 2 suggestions....

First, have you ran a full virus and spyware scan on the machine with up to date files? if so and the machine is clean.....

Check to make sure your machine is running minimal (tsr) programs in the background, there could be a conflict between programs...

also, check to make sure you are running the latest catalyst drivers (you can get these from www.ati.com)

hope this helps....

[locolobo85 0]

First post.

I'm new to the SC4 circle.  I just finished a new computer build and loaded up SC4 Deluxe that had been sitting around for a while waiting for a computer to run it on.  The first run throughs were a little rough with some video problems.  After updating drivers and the game software, it ran even worse with very choppy scrolling and crashes during the Rush Hour missions. 

The solution for me turned out to be creating a hardware profile specifically for this game.  The profile approach worked out great.  I created a Sim City profile and dissabled all un-needed services and hardware.  There was simply some process running in the background that was causing the problems. 

My guess is that your system will run this game hands down once the background clutter is cleared out of the way.

Good luck.

[locolobo85 0]

I now notice some of the local guru's do not suggest messing with your profiles as it may cause a good case of the jitters for the game and gamer. 

Therefore, proceed with caution and let your comfort level be your guide.