Seemingly random crashes

[Moonlapse]

I'm running:

Windows XP Professional Edition - Service Pack 1

AMD Athlon 1700+
GeForce 4 MX420
512Mb DDR Ram

I've noticed with both v0.623 and v0.632 that I seem to get random crashes now. I find it really odd because I got the game a few months ago and back then I had absolutely no issues. Now it seems after a few minutes of play the game will lock up and a popping sound will repeat itself through both speakers. The computer becomes unresponsive and I have to restart it... The crashes don't seem to be triggered by anything as far as I can tell.. no particular menu screens, inventory, party screen etc. They just kinda happen.

Help appreciated,
Thanks.

 

[Moonlapse]

Update: Well I've tried it with version 0.70 and it still happens. It's really strange because the game runs quite well then seemingly at random intervals the game just decides to lock, the whole system hangs and I start getting a sort of scratchy sound looping itself through the speakers, almost like the sound when a CD skips because of bad sectors.

I'm really baffled here. The game used to run fine a few months ago.

 

[Shoobs]

I suggest you defrag and free up space. That usually causes what you're refering to.

 

[Moonlapse]

Alright, I'll give defragging a shot, but the drive I have the game installed on has 19gb free space. Surely it's not that demanding. Cheers.

 

[Shoobs]

That may be true....but sometimes things just happen. You may need to reformat the drive. COuld be some virus or some files that got corrupted simply because your drive has been in use for a long time. It happens.... thats why there's maintenance options built in. It helps...but soemtimes the only way to fix is a complete wipe.

 

[Nairagorn]

Make sure you update your video drivers if you haven't in a while.

Also, check to see how hot your graphics card is getting...

 

[Moonlapse]

I think the defrag has fixed the issue. Thanks for the advice.