This might be a hard question to answer due to the number of variables but here goes.

Two games that I have recently purchased, Port Royale and Vietcong, continually crash. It can be 5 minutes into the game or even 5 seconds. When they crash there is no message why, the game just closes down.

I am running a Athlon 1800xp, Leadtek Winfast TI4200video card. 512 megs of DDR ram, 1 256meg stick and 2 128meg sticks.I have a Hercules Forissimo sound card. I have the latest drivers for both the video card and the sound card. The computer only crashes in these two games nowhere else.

I have tried the game with direct x 8.1 and also 9. and it still crashes, I have tried rolling back to previous drivers as well.

I am thinking I will have to test all the hardware to find out if there is a problem with any of it.

Is there one piece of hardware that is more likely to be at fault or could it be something else

Thanks

David

Re: Game crashes

Hi David,

Before you go running off pulling your machine to bits, do the following.

Check the official websites for the games you mention to see if an update patch is available for them.

Check any links to forums about the games to see if other users have had the same problems.

Are you using Detonator XP drivers from nVidia's website? Have you tried an earlier version?

Those games are quite new, and I'm sure others will also have problems.

I've come across similar problems with other games, and it's usually programming related or incompatibility with drivers.

Cheers.

Re: Game crashes

Terry is quite correct.

Some games will have problems with some hardware (usually the Video card, occasionally the sound card, joystick, etc) or their drivers.

Check the game's websites and the "Read Me" files for known issues.

Turn off your anti virus and any other programs running in the background (many will be indicated by icons in the task bar).

"Turn down" any settings/tweaks you may configured in Windows or the Game i.e. lower resolution, fewer colors, lower refresh rate.

Still no improvement? Download a "benchmarking tool" and see how your system performs.