I am trying to play my game "Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2" but have some problems. The game's main menu has the same cursor as my normal one so it has a blur around it. I have the car detail and screen resolution at the lowest setting and the car is just a blur of colours coming from the top-left corner of the screen. The background in the menus and races is fine though. I still play even with it looking like this but after 30-60 seconds of gameplay the game simply shuts down and i am looking at my desktop. the games need a minimum of 450 mHz and Pentium III. I have both. The recommended is 800 mHz and Pentium III. I thought since i certainly have the required but not quite the recommended, the game would run, but with a few minor flaws. Not looking like crap and quiting during every race. The other requirements for the game are a 32MB video card and DirectX 8.1 or better. I have both of these as well. I wanted to know whether i simply need a faster processor or something i can adjust to make the game run the way it should. ANY suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Sounds like a possible overheating issue. Is the fan on the card spinning?

yeah it is, i even tried running the game with the panel entirely off, but same results

Could it be a memory problem? I see you only have 128 MB, which is listed as the required amount. But if you have a bunch of stuff running in the background, you could be maxing out the RAM as the game plays. Your processor meets the minimum, but not the recommended. You could upgrade the processor slightly. Or try a better graphics card - even a new 'budget' card will perform better than the original. In general, you will be happiest with your computer if you choose software the same vintage as the computer. The 733 PII was released in 1999, so your computer is five years old. You simply may be asking too much of it. Best Luck, Bob

i have nothing running in the background. the only things on the task manager are explorer and systray. my computer is a pentium III. My game came out in 2002. I frequently play another game that came out in 2002 and it works fine. I will probably just end up upgrading the processor

Dude, upgrade the ram if anything. Everything is always funny at first, until someone gets hurt, and then it's just hilarious!