[FIXED] Civilization 5 Crashes and Freezes

I’m one to talk — I’ve been a hardcore Civ 4 gamer and right now I’m very disappointed with Civ 5 due to its fundamental glitches. Here’s what you can do to try and get it to play smooth. A combination of these, with Patch 1.0.1.135, has been successful enough for me.

Problem #1: Civ 5 Crash To Desktop (CTD)

Try running the game in windowed mode. Here’s what to do in order to get it working:
- go to the installation folder (normally Documents\My Games\Sid Meier’s Civilization 5\) and edit the GraphicsSettingsDX9.ini with any txt editor (like notepad). Find the line fullscreen mode and change it to 0
- Delete all the .db files in the cache folder
- Run the game, it should be in windowed mode

Problem #2: Civ 5 Intro Movie Freezes

If Civilization 5 freezes during the intro movie, you can skip it by doing the following:
- go to the installation folder and edit the usersettings.ini file, changing the line SkipIntroVideo to 1 (instead of 0).

Problem #3: Civ 5 Windows 7 Issues

Windows 7: Click on Start and then right-click on Computer and select Manage. Drop down Event Viewer, then Windows Logs, then Applications and then click on one of the most recent crashes of Civilization V. In this information you may well see the problem, you might see nothing you don’t already know but its worth digging around, looking for a faulting module or a .dll file that may be causing the problem.

Problem #4: Civ 5 won’t launch via Steam

For some, launching Civ 5 directly from the .exe file in the game folder not through Steam did the trick!

Problem #5: Civ 5 Crash To Desktop right at the start of the game

Lower the game’s settings (especially FOG of WAR) and try running it in 1024×768 mode. You can also try a tweak to make the videos run at a lower resolution, but you have to once again edit a game file:
- go to the game’s installation folder and edit the GraphicsSettingsDX11 (or whatever DirectX version you have), search for the lines: WindowResX = #### WindowResY = #### and change them to this: WindowResX = 1024 and WindowResY = 768

I hope the above tips could help you. Should you have problems outside of these 5, please post them below and I’ll try to help!!