Okay, your post on the
Impulse forums clarifies that your entire machine is locking up, not just AI War. That changes things more than a bit, because AI War is a .NET-based program, which means that its runtime is heavily isolated from the operating system. It is virtually impossible for a .NET program to lock up the entire computer unless it is making "unsafe" calls (we are not).
However, that said, unlike non-game programs, AI War does make API calls into other parts of the system: specifically DirectX, though a .NET wrapper called SlimDX. And then DirectX makes further API calls into graphics card drivers, audio drivers, and so forth. Almost certainly what is happening here, unless this is a hardware problem, is that AI War is triggering some sort of bug or glitch in one of those external components. Things I would try, in order:
1. Make sure that your graphics card driver is up to date.
2. Same deal with your audio driver.
Then, the next question is this: do you play a lot of other games on this computer, and do they have any problems? Assuming that you play other games and they work fine, and the graphics/audio drivers did not fix the issue, then that is a serious clue that the .NET framework itself is corrupted, since that's the component of windows that AI War uses that most other games would not. In that case:
3. Uninstall .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5, then reinstall them. Repair operations on these don't tend to do the trick. This step is a pain, and is almost never needed (usually external issues revolve around the graphics card), but it's a much larger problem with your computer than just AI War.
Alternatively, if you normally use a lot of .NET apps without issue, but AI War is one of the few games you play, then your problem is most likely in DirectX. In that case:
3. Reinstall DirectX 9.0c, usually it can install over top of itself just fine but you may need to do either a repair install (which tends to work in my experience), or just uninstall it and reinstall it if you want to be on the safe side.
Or, the problem could be hardware related. Generally the first places to look are the hard disk and the RAM with something like a lockup. Doing a scandisk can check your hard disk, and doing something like memtest86 can verify that your RAM doesn't have any issues. In XP and up, generally a system lockup is indicative of either hardware problems, some sort of spyware/malware, or some seriously malfunctioning software of another sort. Given the nature of AI War itself, it's the sort of program that isn't able to malfunction to the point of causing a system lockup directly -- it could trigger that sort of issue through the software it sits on top of (drivers, .NET itself, DirectX), but those would be the places to look.
Hope that helps!
