Can anyone tell me what is the function of graphics hardware acceleration (when you right mouse click on "My Computer" then choose properties, then choose "Performance tab")? Does anyone know of a link or website I can go to learn more about this? I know that having the accelerator function at full can cause your computer to freeze frequently (it did with mine) and I put it down to "Basic acceleration" (the 2nd highest) and it's fixed. Does this effect the way games and videos play? I haven't seen any bad effect so far (in fact some games play smoother now). If my hardware does not support full graphics acceleration, does that mean it is inferior in any way? Some (most) computers work fine on full hardware acceleration. Hardware acceleration seems to be a "secretive" area that's not covered very much in detail by Microsoft, but if you have problems, their support only tells you what to do (i.e. put the acceleration down) and not how it works. Can someone shed some light on this for me? Thanks

Steve, actually I found four settings in the advanced graphic settings. There is no accelerator function, basic accelerator function, most accelerator function, and all accelerator function. Evidently you must have severe problems or unexpected errors in programs if your computer runs better in the lower basic setting. http://www.pcpitstop.com Check out this site if you're having trouble it might help you figure out what you need to do. Hope it helps. J

Steve, I also found this site for description of graphic accelerator http://www.choosealternatives.com/Wishlist/accel9x.htm Hope you find what you're looking for. J

You have not posted your system specifications, particularly graphics card, processor, RAM so it is difficult to comment fully. But, usually you should not need to decrease the acceleration even though MS and games manufacturers will offer this as a "solution" to graphics problems. When you reduce the acceleration, the card does not use all of its functions so you are wasting money and capacity if you are a gamer and want the best results. Much more often, the reason for freezes is 4 in 1 chipset drivers out of date or video drivers out of date, or background programs running. See the post below, especially points 3,4,5,8,9,10,11,14 (the first link is SMUOD’s nice-looking HMTL version with hyperlinks, the second is the forum post with additional comments and replies) http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/24159.html

Thanx all for your advice. My system specs are as follows: Processor: Pentium 266 MMX RAM: 96 Mb Graphics Card: S3 Trio64V2 OS: Windows ME I've repeatedly tried to reinstall the drivers (from the Windows ME CD) of my graphics card and it hasn't solved the problem. I also tried using the drivers from the S3 website and these caused the same problem. The only solution seems to be to reduce the hardware acceleration to "Basic accelerator functions". The performance of games such as Half-Life, CS, Quake, Quake II seem unaffected.

Hmm I reinstalled DirectX 8.1 and now it seems to be working fine on full acceleration. Probably just a minor file corruption issue. Thanx anyway guys for your help.