64-bit Vista: what worked for me

[billharris44]

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.