I own a Pioneer DVD-105 and whenever I try to play a DVD using PowerDVD I either get an error message saying "The hardware-accelerated decoding function provided by your display card is not available", it performs an illegal operation or plays the DVD with a scrambled picture. If I disable the "Use Hardware Accelerator" option from the configuration menu of PowerDVD, DVDs run fine but obviously the quality isn't very good. I own a Nvidia GeForce 256 DDR graphics card and I'm running an Athlon 800 with 128mb RAM and Windows 98 SE. I've downloaded the latest drivers for my graphics card and reinstalled Windows, PowerDVD and DirectX 7.0a several times but still cannot fix the problem. If anyone can help it would be much appreciated.

Hi, You don't mention if you have a CD Writer, if you do, uninstall all of the programmes, reboot and try again. If ok install your writer progs until you identify which one causes a conflict. If still no joy disconnect the cable from the back of the writer and try again. I had the same problem using WinOn CD 3.6 power edition and this worked. Worked ok with easy cd creator 4 deluxe. Hope this helps Regards Alan.. PS helps to list some of you comps spec.

athlons dont support dvd decoding.you need a decoder card.also there is a new firmware upgrade for that drive on pioneers site.

at least as far as i know they dont support it.we have had alot of problems with athlons + dvd and had to get the decoder card.

Thanks for the help but I don't own a CD writer, so that isn't the cause. I would be more than willing to buy a decoder card if it would solve the problem but I'm still puzzling over why DVDs always played okay on my PC and then one day this problem comes out of nowhere. Thanks for the tip about the firmware upgrade, Greg, I'll try that anyway.