64-bit Vista: what worked for me
 

Like some of you guys, I've been crashing so much in the land of the undead that I had to stop playing the game. That battle with the Ent, right when you enter the area, would crash every single time.

I had a friend run my save game on his system, and he finished the battle with no problem (he has 32-bit Vista). So I asked him to send me a screenprint of the active processes he had running (from Task Manager). He also sent me his exact settings in the game (everything on high and 16-bit AF selected, as well as anti-aliasing and vsynch).

I noticed he wasn't running Sidebar, so I disabled it at the desktop. Then I started the game, enabled 16-bit AF (I was using 4-bit)--and finished the battle with no problem.

Here's the flaky part. I exited out, turned on the Sidebar, and went back into the game (loading my old save). It crashed. I then turned off Sidebar, but selected 4-bit AF instead of 16-bit. Crashed again.

I tried again with Sidebar off and 16-bit AF selected in the game, and finished the battle again with no problem.

It's only the combination of turning off Sidebar, and selecting 16-bit AF in the game (I already had AA and vsynch turned on) that lets me get through that battle.

I know, that's bizarre, but it worked, so if you're having crashes with 64-bit Vista, you might give it a try.

Your selection "sidebare and 16-bit AF" is in Option Menu ?

You turn off the Sidebar feature at the Vista desktop. The anisotropic filtering setting gets changed in the "Options" menu in the game.

I've played the game many times on 64 bit Vista. Once or twice the game has crashed in a battle. I'd reload, fight the same battle, do the exact same thing and it would crash again. Reload, fight, change what tactics I was using and I'd have no problem.

Wierd.