Originally posted by Count de Change
Kootznoowoo is right about this. If I try to play Europa after using the internet I crash about every 10 to 15 minutes. It always crashes to desktop and its always a page fault error. I don't know what's making it so unstable but the work around is to reboot. (800 MHz P3, 128 Mb RAM)
Well, page faults are *ALWAYS* caused by the OS kernel. In case of Windows 9.x (any version), it is usually caused by too little physical RAM left. Remember, Windows itself, especially those versions with Internet Explorer 4 or higher installed, use and permanently lock a huge chunk of memory, leaving a lot less than 128 MB free for other applications.
Also, video drivers and sound drivers (especially Creative Labs Live!) also use and lock large amounts of memory. The default for the Live! driver, for example, is 12 MB.
It is very common for the virtual memory manager in Windows 9.x to lock itself into a catch 22 situation where it needs some memory to perform a swap to the swap file, when that same piece of memory currently resides in the swap file! This is exactly what causes the processor to throw a page fault exception.
The usual remedy is to:
1) Reduce the memory load for drivers, plug-ins, systray apps, etc.
2) Add more RAM to the system, giving the memory manager more room to play with.
To check out your system's current memory configuration, start the system monitor. This, when installed, usually resides in Start->Programs->Accesories->System Tools
Add the views for total allocated memory and locked memory, and check out the numbers. Don't be surprised if most of your 128 MB is reserved and locked by the OS itself.