I've got the same problem. I'm running the 1.6 version with 2gb of ram. I've also increased my page file sizes to 3 to 4 times my physical ram. It seems that the game just gets too big for the available memory and freezes up. I'm also playing a gigantic map but not online.

Maybe I just don't stay in the game as long as many of you, because the only time the problem occurs is when I do way too much in a single turn.
If I destroy several hundred ships, then go on to take 15-20 planets all during the same turn - then it will happen.
And I always know when it will happen prior to the error message, because I will lose ground textures in the invasion window - it just shows as solid black.
If it gets to that point I know it is already too late.

So I tend to always save a backup copy that I know won't get deleted if the problem does crop up, and I save very often during the same turn if I know I am going to be doing too much.

And I tend to exit the game every hour or so because I don't like to minimize this game. It just never seems to work just right trying to get back in. It always works much better (on my machine, anyway) to exit and reload the game from scratch. And it really does not take that much more time than waiting for it to come back from an alt-tab.

Have you ever programmed? Even a very simple program can become so complex that figuring bugs out can take days. I just spent a week getting a #^$@&#$@* 100 or so lines of code to calculate path distances from a simple text input file. Granted, part of that was getting used to a new language.

I'm sure that the guts of GC2 must be godawful complex, and tracking down some of these problems may be well-nigh impossible, especially if their expression depends on your system architecture. From what I understand of the program, it is pretty modular, but there are some parts of it that you can alter pretty easily using plug-in code and adjusting parameters, and some parts require going in an re-writing large chunks of code. Worse, some of those large chunks may be the most UNMODULAR (i.e., kludgey) parts. And, of course, the less modular it is, the more likely it is that alterations will have unpredictable consequences. My guess is this is why things like the Galactic Privateer bug and your memory issue haven't been addressed, while "improvements" are being made constantly in other areas.

Not to be rude here, but it seems that the 'bulk' of many player's issues is in fact the 'memory issue'. Although I love a good argument I will yield to what you say as far as the 'difficulty' involved in programming/tracking bugs so that there will be no issues, but nonetheless, it must be said that the memory problems far outweigh some of the 'minor' issues that are being resolved. This game has a problem somewhere with regards to how physical RAM is managed and it causes a great deal of grief in the form of CTD's.
Faulty percentages I can deal with, off type defense bugs, a bigger issue for sure but it can be worked around by the player... CTD's due to memory issues, regardless of how much or little physical RAM you have, regardless of how much or little virtual memory you have it set to, are pretty much a game stopper. Stopped game=no play. No play=unhappy gamer.
As others have posted, using RAM freeing utilities 'seems' to do the trick. If that's the case, then this needs to be looked at as I know of no other game that 'requires' system management software to be running in order to run a game.

I got to agree with Stormbringer, the memory proble s a game breaker error that needs to be corrected. the fact they are still working on the minor issues is nice to know since it all should be looked at, but I have not played GalCiv for almost two weeks now because of the main problem.

I also can't in all honesty praise the game to my friends until the error is corrected because who in there right minds is going to spend hard earned money on something that has a known fault in it until that problem is fixed.

I will of course not give up on stardock as I have confidence they are doing there best to find and provide corrections.

Angelon

I set my autosave to 2 turns due to game crashes. Every time I tried to Alt Tab out the game crashed, and sometimes the game just...stopped, requiring a hard boot of my PC.

When I upgraded from 512MB to 1.5GB RAM and increased my SWAP file to 4GB all my problems went away. I can Alt Tab out, and when I go back in there is only a small delay. Performance improved significantly with the new RAM.

I guess I'm lucky that the increased RAM seems to have solved the problem. It looks like others aren't so lucky.

My question is why? Random error is always much more difficult than systematic error to resolve. Is this likely due to different machines? Mine is a standard issue 3GB Dell (now with more RAM). How can Stardock fix this problem is all they have is a symptom and not a cause?

Hydro

I have 512 MB RAM and I haven't had any problems, well so far anyways.

Comments like this are what baffle me. Are you finishing this game in as little turns as possible? I have wondered if my play style isn't what hinders me and possibly adds to the memory issues and CTD's. What I mean to say is that I like to play long and drawn out games if possible, mainly because I enjoy reaching the end of the tech tree and getting the opportunity to use all of the techs... as well as bully my enemies for a few more turns before doing them in.
My Meta games submitted under the first build were only six or so years long... i.e. very short game for me, but no problems with how things ran.
My sandbox games, on the other hand, last a LONG time if I can help it, as I had stated above. Could this be the issue that I miss when players who have rigs with 512mb say that the game runs fine for them?
I've ruled out galaxy size (although I do know huge/gigantic are asking for problems)mainly because I still get CTD's with a medium galaxy, but that is mid to late game when a lot of things are going on so I guess I can 'accept' that as well.
It's all very strange indeed.

I play games with these settings:
gigantic maps,
medium graphcs level,
common to abundant habitable planets,
scattered star density,
abundant anomalies,
technology rate fast to very fast,
abundant # of stars,
abundant # of planets,
with the most amount of minor and major races possible,
sometimes using a lot of custom races,
and I don't play Metaverse games

I have an HP Pavilion a620n with a ATI Radeon 9550 AGP 4x/8x (the graphics card is on its lowest settings).

Having everything maxed out (except graphics) doesn't seem to cause problems, though I have extremely long loading times for saved games which is probably common.

And to answer you question, Evil Stormbringer, ("Are you finishing the game in as little as possible?") I usually end up doing a lot of turns in just 1 game.

Have 750MB Ram and have late game out of memory errors on huge maps. I don't even bother trying to play on Gigantic Maps. This is only in DA though, used to play DL without any such slowdowns or problems on Huge.

My Paging file is set to about 3.5 gigs too.

Ive never had this happen to me. I have 1 gig RAM, and the only problem ive had, was if I play for a LONG time, the game closes(Ive had it happen once) and say "Gal Civ 2 Gold Edition.exe has encountered a error, and must close...blah blah" But I just loaded my autosave, and It worked fine after that.