Looks to me that you got some kind of a hardware problem. Did you try to increase memory timings? This could also be caused by CPU or memory undervoltage, overheating or crappy PSU.

no you got him wrong ... its no harwareproblem ...
there are SOME games that will crash this way ... its definitiv a gamebug ... especially if we look at those JoWooD games that have those bugs in nearly any game ....
it has something to do with memory management I think ... because this bug does not apper always it only does when you played the game for a while ... but not the time is important ... I think ist a kind of memory usage bug
lets take "Die Gilde" for example ... ppl. in forum report many crashes and think its the year ... but it has always something to do with ... how far are you ... I had same bug ... I played game for quite a while without a single crash ... got really far until - in game - my wife died and I got lotsa new buildings and other stuff from her ... since then the game got instable ... randomly crashing
but its only in those games ... who will end this way .... other games can be played many many many hours .... without a single crash ... and btw since XP crashes are in general very few ...
also Warcraft3 can be played 12hours without a single flaw.... and believe me this game will crash as soon as there is a single problem due OC or whatsoever ....
and the problem occur on any system with those buggy games ...
I think its a memleak or something like that which lets XP just end it to prevent from beeing killed, too

Tuckwit, exactly with what games you had problems?

if the windows installation is OLD , then run SCANDISK and keep "auto repair" checked

Well in particular at the moment it's with X2 - The Threat. It happens between 1/2 an hour to an hour, but very few people get this so I don't think it just this game. If I new it was just a bug I could live with it until a patch is released.
I happens with too many to mention. But I really want to know what is it about the XP or even 9x/2000 that kicks a game back to desktop, is it the game itself that decides it's going to quit or does the OS decide to kick it, and why?

Cheers.

huh waiting for patch can be fatal ..... Die Gilde and some other games are from 2001 and still not fixed

I always crash to desktop with BF1942.
Ive been through so many sets of drivers too.
So, ive ruled it to the game being stupid.

Why do so many games just Crash back to Desktop, no error message, nothing, under XP.
I mean isn't there something fundametally wrong with an OS/Game code when they can do this without showing an error message to give you at least some indication of what caused it?
Despite turning off overclocking, changing drivers, installing patches etc. they still do it,
I know software today is mind bogglingly complex but for christ sake just give me some kind of error message!!!

If any one knows of some good articles about the main causes of this phenomena, or even apps that trap the cause please let me know, it be driving me nuts!

what I recently thought off ... do u have report crash feature disabled ?
I do ... maybe thats the reason why you do not get any error msg

If you mean the 'Error reporting service', I turned that back on but it still CTD just the same.

hmmmmm
maybe there is no real crash for windows maybe it just ends to prevent WinXP from beeing shut down or the app itself sends shutdown command ... who knows ..
but better CDT then BSOD

and the best is nothing of both...

if my apps/games are crashing, than i o/c´ed, but Tuckwit didn´t....
or, my PC is getting too hot!

maybe or PSU is too weak?

(sorry if i post stupid things @sundays)

nope not a OC or PSU problem since it only appears in speacial apps at special points ... You can play other games without a singly crash all night and day and THIS (whatever it may be) crashes from time to time to desktop
I really think its kinda softwareproblem

ahh...sorry....i didn´t understand
so i don´t have such probs anymore, i can´t help, sorry....
i´ll shut up now

It seems that I have found one big reason for CTDs
I played sacred for quite a while and I never had a crash ... while my sister had the same symptomes like I had in "die gilde" first working without any problem and after some time CDTs get more and more more frequent ...
the only thing I can imagine here is the swap file size ...
I still have the default one, which was due 1gig RAM 1,5GB to 3GB
while my sister has due low disk space only 200MB
I am trying to verify this ... I gave her my 120gig disk and I will set it to 1,5GB there, too lets see if it helpes or not.
I have seen many games crashing because of swap size ... its BS but games do need one ... if ya try to deactivate like I did when having 512MB RAM first ... many games crashed that often ... even WC3 which is simply rock stable