I was having the same problem with rise of nations, and i did this and i got rid of the freezing up of the game. Here is what i did.
my computer specs:
asus a8n-sli deluxe motherboard
amd athlon64 processor 3700+, mmx, 3dnow,~2.2ghz
Nvidia geforce 6200 turbocache video card 256 mb
sound blaster 2 audigy sound card
Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 1GB DDR400 XMS3200 Memory,latencies of 2-3-3-6
seagate 250 gig sata hard drive
Let me first state that it is important to ensure that you have the latest graphics and directx drivers. and this solution refers to people who have a nvidia graphics card;
1. Right click on your desktop and hit properties in that box.
2. You will now see the display properties box, chose settings and in your "color quality" section chose (highest 32 bit).
3. Next hit the "advance" button that is just below the color quality option. A new window opens up and you will see an option tab with the name of your video card, hit that tab.
4. You should now see some information about your processor, etc. there is a little tab on the left about midway on this window, hit it, or if by default it is already open, you should see this bit of info; + 'name of your graphics card' and + desktop management and then below that you will see menu editing.
5. hit the plus (+) that shows the name of your graphics card, and you will see a list of options, chose the option that states "performance and quality settings."
6. on the botton of the big window you should see a box with a check mark in it that says - application control. you must uncheck that box.
7. Just above that uncheched box you should see "global driver settings", in the section that says 'view', by default it is set to basic, chose the option for advance.
8. just under that option box you will see a list of options to chose from, select the option that says- Antialiasing settings.
9. you will now see the options of the antiialiasing settings at the bottom of this same window which should look like this:-
off___________2x_________2xq_________4x.
move the slider to 2x or 2xq.
10. next in the section for the 'global driver settings' hit the "image settings" option.
11. You should now see some options at the bottom of the window which should look like this:-
high performance________performance______quality____high quality.
by default it should be quality, move the slider to the performance option.
12. Now hit the apply button and then hit ok.
This should remedy your pc game freeze. by chosing the performne option more of your computers resources will be used for the games, but if your computer isn't powerful, you might have to chose the "high performance" option.
