I have a similar problem on three of my systems, two are desktops and one is a laptop. The problem is that many games which try to detect a video card do not detect it and instead either do not run (Halo; Medal of Honor Allied Assault; Need For Speed III, Red Alert) or run in software mode (Midtown Madness). However, some other games do work (Counter-strike; Unreal Tournament 2004). These systems did not always have this problem. I know I played Halo and MOHAA on some of these PCs. I have noticed that when the problem comes about, I can see a change in the Display tab of dxdiag: http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/... http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/... System specs (all have XP Pro SP2 with DirextX 9 installed and are fully updated): Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad R60 Intel Core Duo T2400 @ 1.83 GHz 768 MB DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz Integrated Intel GMA 950 60 GB SATA Hitachi HTS541060G9SA00 Micron Millenia GS Intel Pentium III @ 733 MHz 256 MB PC 133 SDRAM 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000 (PCI) 13 GB PATA IBM IBM-DPTA-371360 eMachines C1844 AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 512 MB PC 2100 DDR SDRAM nVidia GeForce 256 (AGP) (yes, the original ;) ) 40 GB PATA HDD I have no idea what is causing this problem… I have another system (Athlon XP 2500+, GeForce FX5200, 768 MB PC3200 RAM) that is fine, with mostly the same software on it. I can't really figure out how to isolate the problem either. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Go into the bios Setup on each computer and make sure it is set to intialize the video you are using first. E.g. - if you are using onboard (built into the mboard), it must be onboard or similar - if you are using a card in a slot, it must be AGP, or PCI, or PCI-E, depending on which type of slot and card you have. If you don't have that set right, e.g. you have an AGP card , bios is set to initialize PCI first, you still get video in Windows but the card cannot work properly in Windows - e.g. an AGP card will run in PCI mode and cannot do the enhanced things an AGP card can do. Your video hardware and system must meet the minimum hardware and software requirements for the game, or the game won't work properly. In any case, games are often leading edge software and have more bugs in their programming than most other software does - they will not work properly on every system they can be installed on that meets the minimum requirements. Load the latest version of DirectX if it isn't already the latest - you can get it on the Microsoft web site. You can check which version you presently have by: Start - Run - type: dxdiag (click OK) The version is at the bottom of the first screen. I believe the latest version is 9.0c, but it may be above that by now. I've seen the problem you made images of when the video drivers aren't properly loaded. If all of your brand name system computers still have their original software, brand name systems already have the proper video drivers installed properly, and the correct DirectX version for those drivers, when you first get the computer. However, if you no longer have the original brand name software installation on those computers and you have loaded Windows from a regular Windows CD instead, or in any case if you updated the original video drivers improperly, your video drivers may be screwed up. In addition, when you update the video drivers ... - the DirectX version required for the video drivers often goes up when you update the video drivers - you may not have a high enough version installed to have the drivers work properly in at least some situations. - some newer programs that come with video drivers require a specific .Net Framework version be installed - if that version isn't there, your video software probably won't work properly (whether you need a .Net Framework version is mentioned in the installation directions and/or release notes and/or ReadMe files where you get the downloads). Make sure you have installed your video drivers and related programs that come with them properly. If you have the CD that came with a viodeo card, all the necessary drivers are on that, and will be installed in the right order. If you installed drivers etc. from the web, it is often very important in which order you install multiple components - look for installation directions or ReadMe files where the downloads are. In almost all cases these days, after having installed Windows from a regular Windows CD from scratch, or after having intially physically installed a video card, it is important that you DO NOT point Windows to the location of drivers for your video if it asks for the location of drivers for the video while booting - you CANCEL that, continue to the Desktop, then load the drivers etc., using the Install or Setup program on the CD that came with the video card, or you use the Install or Setup or self executing program of the proper downloads from the web. If you're not sure whether you loaded the video drivers properly, Un-install them and any other programs that come with them in Add/Remove Programs, then install them again, following the proper directions. Your video may not work properly unless the main chipset drivers have been loaded. Whenever you load Windows from a regular Windows CD (or DVD) from scratch, after Setup is finished you must load the drivers for the mboard, particularly the main chipset drivers, in order for Windows to have the proper drivers for and information about your mboard hardware, including it's AGP or PCI-E, ACPI, and hard drive controller support. If you have the CD that came with the mboard, all the necessary drivers are on it. If you load drivers from the web, brand name system builders and mboard makers often do not have the main chipset drivers listed in the downloads for your model - in that case you must go to the maker of the main chipset's web site, get the drivers, and load them.

Not a single one of those systems are good for gaming. The laptop has weak integrated graphics, the Micron system has an antique Voodoo3 & not enough RAM, & the eMachines is only slightly better. Of the 3, the eMachines has the best specs, but that's not saying much. And the 4th system you mentioned could use a video card upgrade...the FX5200 never was any good. Hopefully you're running the PC3200 at 166MHz (DDR333) on that rig or you're losing performance.

Thanks for the suggestions Tubesandwires, I will try them and get back to you. jam, thanks for the response. I am aware that none of them have good specs for gaming, but I am running fairly old games to play on the LAN that I'm certain they can handle, such as Need For Speed III, Sports Car GT, Counter-Strike 1.6, and Red Faction. Yeah, but it was cheap, and I don't really play cutting edge games ;) . I'm actually running the PC3200 at 200 MHz (DDR 400); the Athlon XP is overclocked to 3200+ (2.2 GHz).