I received a PM from ES (on another site) regarding an NVidia utility called nTune. He has apparently had some decrease in the occurrence CTD’s on his PC running DA after using this utility. I have no personal experience with this utility myself and so I can make no independent recommendation, but I’m posting this here in case it may be of use or interest to others. This utility is available for download here and the User’s Guide is available here.

The following is the text of ES’s communication to me with minimal edits for "political correctness". Clearly whatever anyone may say about him there is no doubt in my mind that he loves this game and cares about the GalCiv2 community.

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Good morning on this fine June Saturday! Just thought I would drop these few little tidbits of information to pass along in some form to the people over at the GCII forums if you find it worthy enough... remember, I don't know a lot about PC's but I've been trying to learn! Okay, so here goes. You probably already know all of this but I am going to share anyways as this info might help some people out.

First of all, there are still memory issues, period. This hasn't changed although it may have gotten a little better, but the beast is still there (you can take my serial but you can't have my game!). In searching for more up to date drivers for my nVidia card I 'stumbled' across the free download from their website called nTune. It is basically a system spec/overclocking program that has quite a lot of good features for being free. Anyhow, this was the info that I think I might have 'learned' as I used nTune for the first time.

If you have upgraded your RAM or your graphics card and your system wasn't COMPLETELY hand built and picked by yourself, you may have some unknown problems once making the upgrade. For instance, my PCI-e slot was only 'drawing' 2500Mhz from the factory. Using nTune's system tuning application I found that my PCI-e actually needed to be bumped up to about 2950Mhz for 'proper and efficient' graphics card functioning. The same help true for my upgraded RAM, which had specs of tRAS 7/tRCD 5/ and tRP 4. After tuning the settings for the RAM went to tRAS 4/tRCD 3/ and tRP 1. It also bumped my FSB(CPU Bus) from 201Mhz to 216Mhz. All of these improvements were 'somewhat' noticeable but that isn't my point.

My point is this... there is something inherent in this game that 'draws out' all of the little nasties that are hiding within your PC, be it memory, graphics... whatever, this game will find them, period. People who have upgraded their PC's with what I like to call "install upgrades", meaning all you have to do is be savvy enough to open your case and 'pop in' that shiny new RAM or graphics card and that is pretty much it as far as the technical difficulty level. True, you may have to install a new driver or something but it is pretty much cakework and therefore most people aren't intimidated by doing so (besides, who would pay Circuit City $30.00 to install their RAM for them? Heck that can get you a new game!). Here's where I think some people get into problems.

If you have made some upgrades with better, non factory parts, you may not be utilizing your new hardware to its fullest capacities. Your graphics card slot may not be 'pulling' enough juice or your RAM might need 'tweaked' a little, if it has the capacity to do so that is (mine can be clocked to a good degree... thanks OCZ!). What good is a $200.00 graphics card if it isn't being used to its fullest potential? Or your RAM?

After I tuned, I did get a good bit of graphics performance and the RAM issues, although still there with this game and the infernal 'memory leak' or whatever it is, weren't nearly so bad as I could get away with longer play times before CTD's (remember, I don't ALWAYS get them and they seem to have no method to their madness, whereas some people have noticed that they get the RAM errors only during certain activities like saving or invading). I still refuse to 'bow down' to some who would say it's my PC as I KNOW it isn't at this point. Sure, this may seem like it was my system, and in a way I guess it was since my PC NEEDED to be told what to do, how to compensate, etc. for the new things which I upgraded... beyond new drivers of course.

Please excuse my ignorance in these topics as I am a 'gearhead' not a PC guru. What I've learned these past two years or so has been due in part to you guys and the forums as well as my own interest in PC's, and I thank you both for the former. If you do feel that anything I've written here should be shared with people over at the forum (I think it is worthy enough considering how many people have posted about upgrades they've done) please pass this along, even if you need to re-write it as I think it could possibly 'help' out those still having problems... and even if they aren't, maybe this info would be new to them as well.

Well, have a good one and let me know if I'm right or wrong with my newest 'epiphany' if you don't mind. You should know what I'm about by now and my efforts to try and 'help' (although at times a bit overboard) were and still are truly genuine.

Later,
Evil Stormbringer