I'm guessing that this is because the game is a 32-bit application and so can only see a maximum of 4GB addressable RAM, regardless of the 8GB that your 64-bit OS can see.

Perhaps so, but my game runs flawlessly on my laptop. Considering that my laptop also uses dedicated memory for my graphics card, it means it doesn't exceed 4gb og memory, so it could easily be the reason.

its common with this game.mine crashes too.i used to own this game few years ago and it had the same problem.crashing after 15 min.,30 min,1 hour 2 hours...

Yup, same problems here. It's annoying really, i barely got to 10th level, but i can't take it anymore, it really frustrates me... and still, no fixes, or gog staff answers :(

Great. When I install the 1.01 patch, the game says "please insert CD".
Do NOT install the patch if you're using the GOG version!!

My game also "hung" after playing for only 40 minutes, mission 2.
Could get to task manager to kill it though. XP SP2.

Well, to be fair: I did write that in my post. ;-) And added that it didn't really work out in the end.

I made an app that will kill the process if you can't see your CTRL-ALT-DEL window. Tell me if it works. I've only tested it pre-crash and it works. I'm off to play Desperados now...

Instructions

Run file and run Desperados. After crash - Alt-tab to file then press Enter.

Download

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ge7zk1
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HS4J5ODK

Just dropped in to say I'm getting the crash too. It happened for me right towards the end of the tutorial level.

Also, to whoever said to patch it, it's already at version 1.01 so there's no need for that.

Come on GoG, we need a fix. I really want to play this game.

The game has been crashing on me too, but although it seems like the computer is totally frozen, giving it some time after pressing ctrl-alt-del and you'll eventually be able to stop the game rather than rebooting.

I've found a kind of work-around, though; if I disable the second monitor before launching the game, the game doesn't crash (or hasn't so far, at least). Every now and then the game will minimize for no apparent reason (some other window task/pop-up stealing focus?) and I'm back at the desktop. But when I switch back to the game it's still running without any problems - unless I was in the middle of some complex manouver and the interruption messed it up.

Apart from disabling the second monitor, I haven't done anything else to try to fix this problem; e.g. no compatibility mode etc. It would be interesting to know if only people with dual (or more) monitor setups are experiencing these crashes..?

Edit:
I've been trying to, but I'm unable to attach the dxdiag.txt - it's just showing the ''circular please wait animated thingie'' but nothing seems to happen. The file is only 40KiB so it should only take a second..

I already got used to crashing, so I'm doing often quick saving :(

To help my waiting from GOG to anwer, I don't know better solution.

i also have the same problem :(

Come on GOG support, this is ridiculous! It is starting to annoy me, and I can't play my game relaxed, I'm always under pressure of that random crash :(

Same problem here - crash at the end of the tutorial level :(

/Edit

Ok, game crashes randomly, too. It just happened in mission 4 after I was playing for just 2 minutes :(

i bought the game from amazon.com and it crashed on me, i lost my entire game! i was only a third done but still! i was glad it was on this site, now it is the same problem? any fix yet? i dont want to re install my game and lose everything either. i thought gog made this game compatible with windows 7?