Schrullenhaft

A couple of more suggestions & questions for DEF BUNGIS: What is the DMA address that you are using ? The SoundBlaster 16 series typically uses two DMA channels - the "standard" being 0 & 1. Which SoundBlaster 16 are you using ? Creative identifies its products with a "CTxxxx" number that is usually silk-screened on the card. Most of the SB16s out there are probably the Plug-n-Play variety with no jumpers. However there were many models w/ jumpers. You may want to take a close look at your card to see which one you have. It is possible that you may have to change some of the jumpers to actually change the configuration (at least in a DOS environment - Windows 9x seems capable of changing resources by itself). In a DOS environment the PNP cards in a system will use the settings given to them by the PNP BIOS. If your system doesn't have a PNP BIOS, then some Intel PNP software was necessary in order to configure the card. You can possibly use the CMOS to configure your card. Hopefully the BIOS reports to you on boot what your PNP cards are configured for in terms of resources. These settings are what the card will use (and if you have "PNP Operating System" ON in your CMOS, the Windows 9x will be capable of changing these settings, so they possibly may not match what you see at the DOS prompt at boot once Win 9x is loaded up). Many BIOSs will vary as to what you really can do to modify settings in the CMOS. Quite often you are left will little choice when it comes to modifying PNP allocated resources. Some will let you set what IRQs, etc. each PCI slot gets and possibly whether a resource is available to PNP or "ISA/Legacy". Depending on which SB16 you have you may need to change the availability of a resource to PNP or Legacy. As for DMA channels the most common conflict would be with a built-in ECP port (which will typically use DMA 3). You can check for the settings of the ECP port in your CMOS. They usually can be set for 1 or 3. I'd suggest 3 if it is modifiable (and not set to it already). Also, I'd suggest (if you're not doing it already) that you "Shut Down to command prompt" when you go to play SP3 instead of possibly attempting to play it in a "DOS box" (launching it from within Win 9x). A file called "dosstart.bat" in the Windows directory is the equivalent of an "autoexec.bat" when you shut down to DOS. In here you will want mouse drivers, mscdex.exe for your CDROM and any sound and VESA drivers. You may want to check your software that came with your SB16 to see if comes with the Intel PNP software ("Configuration Manager" ?). If it does you may want to use it to configure your card (it will load up some stuff in config.sys & autoexec.bat). I'm not sure how much the SB16s pay attention to the "set blaster=" statement in your autoexec.bat (which you have probably been modifying already), but make sure it matches your card's settings. Also, you may want to minimize the number of things being loaded in your config.sys & autoexec.bat in order to meet the memory requirements under 640K. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 04-23-2000).]

DEF BUNGIS: I don't know of any REALLY good support sites for SP3 unfortunately. SSI doesn't seem to be doing to much to support the title (who are they now - Mattel ?). My SUGGESTION would be to change your IRQ and possibly your I/O address on your sound card. This can obviously be a hassle. The "standard" settings for a SoundBlaster are IRQ 5 & I/O address 220. I play with a SB Live myself and it uses "emulation" software to play DOS games and it seems to work fine (at IRQ 11). Be careful in changing your IRQs, etc. You may find yourself in a quickly escalating situation of "IRQ configuration insanity". Before you attempt to change the IRQ check in Window's Device Manager to see if anything else is using that IRQ already (from the "Computer" device). You can change your card's settings from Device Manager. Hope this helps. As for Matrix Games and SPW@W: I was under the impression that the SP2 or SP3 CD was needed to play the game. If this is no longer required, then this is a boon for anyone with the capability and/or patience to download the game. While many people here may not like hex-based games, the SP series was very good in its day. Admittedly there are issues with LOS when it comes to "top-down" views, but otherwise it is a fun series (nothing like CM, but still enjoyable). From what I can tell Matrix has done just about as much as they could to rid the series of some of its "gamey" conventions/rules. And now you don't even need a previous version of SP to play ? Mattel is being quite gracious here in allowing the distribution of the code w/o charging for it. Now you won't need a dumb CD in the drive to play the game. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 04-22-2000).]

Along similar lines... Are the scenarios in the Gold Demo going to be different than the ones in the current Beta Demo ? If they are will the scenarios in the current Beta Demo be usable in the Gold Demo or will the format have changed too much to use them (of course the "elements" for the scenarios may not be present in the Gold Demo, so that may be a moot question) ?

Before you get FLAMED - yes Combat Mission will ONLY be available from this website. There are no plans (and never will be to my knowledge) to offer this game on retail shelves. PS - you will be told to use the SEARCH function which is in the upper right of the BB window.

Actually, since you are running a PII 350Mhz CPU, then you are probably running at 100Mhz front-side-bus. If you want to use your current motherboard (which MAY be possible) you will need to find out the model, manufacturer & REVISION of the board. These details can usually be found silk-screened (painted) on the motherboard (except the manufacturer name, in most cases). Since your board is older, your upgrade options for a newer CPU are going to be limited (i.e. - more than likely you may not be able to use the latest PIII Coppermines which start at 550Mhz & hihger - but some of the standard PIII CPUs go up to 600Mhz). You MAY be able to use a PIII with your current motherboard. Once you've identified your board manufacturer & other info you need to go the the manufacturer's website & see what kind of info they have on your board. FAQ's and other info about CPU compatibility will be useful. Pay very close attention to your motherboard revision (which you will hopefully be able to find). There may be details on upgrading the BIOS and CPU compatibility that may be VERY dependent on the revision. If you need help on identifying your motherboard I would suggest going to http://www.ping.be/bios at this website you should find some more info & programs for identifying your motherboard, but I would highly suggest a visual inspection (the revision will NEVER be reported by software). If you find that you have an Intel BX chipset based board, then I would probably suggest staying with it for now. They are still good chipsets performance-wise and it will save you US$110 or so if you keep your motherboard. You probably have an AGP slot on your board (assuming that you don't have BUILT-IN video). I would suggest, for those who are price-concious to get an NVidia TNT2 based video card. Creative, Diamond, Hercules and a good number of other companies make them. Any AGP card that is capable of AGP 4X will not use that feature on your current motherboard which will only be capable of AGP 1X or 2X.

Regarding US TD's: The US had a different doctrine for tanks and tank destoyers in WWII than it does now. The Sherman was primarily designed for the infantry support role (as most CM players can attest to its HE effectiveness). It could, uh... "deal" with other tanks if necessary, but it wasn't designed for that role. Instead it was the doctrine to have Tank Destoyers pursue and engage enemy armor. The design ideal for TDs in the US view at the time (which did change by the end of the war) was to have them move fast (and hence be lightly armored) and pack a better armor-piercing punch than the Shermans. Nearing the end of WWII the US was coming to realize that the doctrine of a dedicated TD and a dedicated infantry support tank wasn't working to the extent they had hoped. Shermans often had to engage enemy armor at a disadvantage (with the AT-weak 75mm). I believe the M-26 Pershing marked the end of role-dedicated tanks for the US (though I don't know what the HE or AT performance of the 90mm was). So, to relate this to the earlier part of the discussion - I believe the reason for the existance of non-turretted TDs was 1) cost (no turret, use older chassis, etc) 2) capability to mount heavier calibre guns (designing a turret to mount larger guns was a significant engineering effort for AFVs) and 3) heavier armor could be mounted on the AFV (OK - everyone has already made these points ). US TDs were turretted because they were engineered to be fast & consequently light; with the open-topped, light armored turret (and initially lighter calibre guns)- there was no need to go with the disadvantages of a hull mounted/turretless design. The open top of the US TDs allowed for easier "crewing" of the heavier calibre guns - and I believe reduced some of engineering requirements (lighter turret, etc.). Of course these open tops were very hazardous to the crews under normal operating conditions of small fire/MG fire. (I have no references on this, but some of this has been discussed before).

I can only give my opinions on this since I'm not a beta tester (and I'm not a graphics programmer). As CrapGame pointed out - the big difference for CM appears to be video cards. CPU speeds and memory also make a big difference, but what most users are going to notice is the speed of scrolling around, etc. The Gold Demo and final release of CM are going to have larger textures which is going to affect the scrolling speed. If your video card has 4Mb or less of RAM, then (I guess) you're going to see lower performance with the Gold Demo, etc. The larger textures will fill up your video memory faster and thus will require moving data from system memory to the video card more often if your video memory can't hold them - these additional data transfers of textures slows down your system and causes the "jerkiness" of scrolling some users report with low memory video cards. If you can afford it, then I would suggest upgrading your video card first.On PCs: For those who only have PCI (and no AGP video slot) - the 3dfx Voodoo 2000 16Mb PCI is probably your best bet (the card that CrapGame mentioned he bought). For those with an AGP slot a TNT2, Matrox G400 or GeForce based card would be your best bet. The GeForces come in two major types the SDRs and the DDRs - this is essentially the type/speed of the memory on the card, with the DDRs (Double Data Rate) being the better of the two (though the price jumps about US$100+ for the DDRs). As mentioned previously in other threads, some of the video cards won't be "pushed" very hard by slower CPU's. What this means is that a slower CPU is not going to provide data to the video card at a rate that is going to make full use of the card's speed. In other words, the faster CPUs will get better performance from these top of the line cards since they can "feed" data to them quicker. A slower CPU will hold back the performance of these cards (i.e. - you may not get your money's worth with some faster cards since a cheaper video card would appear to have the same performance). What is the magical speed for a CPU to make buying one of these cards worthwhile ? That seems to be a bit in debate. Some gaming websites may have some recommendations on what to buy depending on your system (any card that performs well with Quake 2/3, Half-Life Unreal Tournament is probably going to be sufficient for CM). For those that are price concious I would suggest a TNT2 if you have an AGP slot (the TNT2 Ultras have a higher clock speed on the chips - otherwise they're usually the same). For those with more money (US$250+) and faster systems (I'd suggest at least PIII 450+ / Celeron 500+ or Athlon to make them worthwhile) the Matrox G400 & GeForce cards are both good. If you would REALLY like TV out then the Matrox is the better bet since it is more capable in that regard. The GeForce cards have a new feature compared to other cards in that they support (in hardware) transform & lighting (T&L) - a process in the display of 3D images. Most games don't support T&L in hardware and CM doesn't appear that it will either, so it is a moot feature for CM (but Quake 3 will "supposedly" have the capability of using the GeForce's T&L). So if you're heavily into some of the latest FPSs then a GeForce may be a good buy. Cards based on ATI, S3 and Voodoo chipsets probably aren't as good as the previously mentioned boards. Several users on this board have reported problems with the ATI & S3 boards and their drivers (when it comes to CM at least). Sometimes these may be cleared up with driver updates (I saw one beta CM video anomaly disappear with an ATI video driver update), but these may be a long time in coming if ever for some boards. The 3dfx Voodoo boards can also be good, but don't usually have the performance of the NVidia or Matrox boards. But there are some new boards due out this summer from 3dfx that may change that. In addition to possible faster performance the Voodoo 4 & 5 based boards will support hardware anti-aliasing for smoothing "jaggies" on screen. For a Mac: I'm a bit ignorant of the video offerings on the Mac. Between the ATI & Voodoo based cards I would suggest an ATI since that is what Apple is using in some of the latest G4's. 3dfx has also started to support Mac a bit more with their latest drivers, but it is hard to say what their commitment is to the Mac. They've just recently added RAVE support to their Voodoo2/3 line, which is the API that CM needs (CM doesn't currently support OpenGL). For those who own a laptop that appears to be substandard for CM - I believe that they will have to skip playing on that particular laptop since there is almost no way to upgrade the video on Mac or PC laptops. A number of the newest laptops with higher end video chips seem to be fast enough for CM. However it seems that driver updates must come from the LAPTOP manufacturer rather that the video chipset manufacturer. Most of the video chipset manufacturers won't post newer drivers for their laptop chipsets and instead inform you to go back to your laptop manufacturer for driver updates. What this does is severly limit the frequency of updates that you would normally see from a chipset manufacturer. Most laptop companies aren't too often concerned with the performance or compatibility of a game with their laptop video drivers, so updates for these drivers will be less frequent. What this boils down to is that if you currently have compatibility issues with CM on your laptop (usually due to the display), then there is a very high likelihood that you will be unable to play CM on it for a long time (if ever) since most laptop manufacturers don't update their drivers too often (if at all !). Anyway... hopefully someone finds my rambling opinion useful. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 04-13-2000).]

Interesting how just a single flippant phrase can open up such a can of worms. I'm no history major, so most of what I say is mostly unsubstantiated opinion (but to be honest, it seems most historians - at least the well known ones - become "opinionated" when it comes down to their final analysis of historical events). I think many of us would have to put ourselves in place of the French at the time of their surrender. At this time Hitler was a well known anti-Semite, but the butchery of the Jews (in full scale) was yet to come. To the French he was their despised conquorer. Now there was a quick collaboration on the part of the remaining military forces of the Vichy govt., but as pointed out earlier the Anglo-French relations weren't always exactly great. And when the British torpedoed the French fleet at Toulon (to prevent the use of some significant naval vessels by the Germans) it "pissed off" the French very much. And again, as pointed out earlier, most of the actions of the Vichy French military were defensive - as they were the target of Allied offensive operations. I'd be hard pressed to give an accurate representation of the "military mind", but I think there is some universal attributes that are common to military leaders - and a certain professional stubborness/pride (not a negative connotation here) is one of them. I don't want to sound like an apologist for the Vichy govt., but many people here are oversimplifying the choices that govt. faced. By the way, the British govt. had PRO-NAZI sympathizers right before the war (this was a minority mind you, but they were there). In fact America had an organized NAZI party operating in the open also. As for the French Resistance, it is probably the best known one of the war (in popular media at least - most Americans would probably only recognize the French resistance as the "ONLY" one of the war). This is most likely due to their size and being in the intended path of the "Second Front". As for being a resistance fighter/guerrilla it is a harder choice than many here may think. I'm sure most of the occupied countries of WWII despised their conquorers, but actively resisting them is very hard. Organizing a resistance cell, getting intelligence and weapons all without being caught is a hefty undertaking. Now add to that fact that you may have to deal with retributions (a thread here several days ago mentioned a specific French village that the SS Das Reich division wiped out - just for the death of a highly respected officer). Other considerations are getting support from others (and not being turned in) and attacking worthwhile targets. A lot of these countries had resistance efforts going, but had no idea how long it would take before it was all over. I think a number of us on this board pride ourselves too much on the idea that we would have "stood up to tyranny" in any form. I tell you that it much harder than most of us guess. One more point in my RANT - I think some of us should be a little more careful in our flippant comments concerning others. Though history requires us to be judgemental of past events and decisions, we need to be a little more guarded in making over-generalizations of other nationalities. OK.. sorry, rant over.

Only one problem I see with CM2 being called "Beyond Barbarossa" and that is the Soviet-Finnish wars that occurred in 1939 and beyond (Winter-War, etc.), which is being modelled in CM2 to my knowledge. So, some of our Finnish players may take exception to the Barbarossa title. Otherwise it's a good name. Uh... time for my sugar crash...

God... what am I still doin' up ? I like CM4: Blitzkrieg! For CM2: "Thunder in the East" (stolen from somewhere) For CM3: "Southern Front" or "Gettin' the Boot" (you know... Italy/double entendre ? ) or "Southern Axis" or "Mediterranean Conflict". I'm sure someone can come up with something better. I should be in Marketing ! [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 04-04-2000).]

Those AFV's are just beautiful. A really excellent job BTS. The buildings look great too. Two months seems too long to wait already.

I actually like the way CM plays too. The current game mechanics can be a bit disconcerting to those whose style of play leans towards "statistician" level of control. There have been many times when I wish I had more control over my own troops, but then again real-life commanders didn't have that level of control either (instead they had subordinates ). In fact, to my knowledge, even ultra-modern C3I systems don't have the level of information/control that most game systems give their commanders. Admittedly all ianc is looking for is a user interface that allows him to control his troops in a manner that is more complete and more comfortable for him. However CM doesn't provide this interface since it changes the nature of command in a subtle way. The idea with CM (in my opinion) is that you ARE going to make mistakes - you're going to forget that a platoon is sitting in the rear doing nothing - that your machine gun team has an exposed flank. Ianc isn't looking for a lot (my examples don't make a pointed case against what he was asking for), but such a feature inclusion pushes the game towards a more statistical bent that seems to detract from the confusion that is tactical combat. OK... sychophant mode off.

American forces participated in more theaters of combat than any other allied army (though the British MAY have been in just as many). However the bloodshed and scale of conflict on the Eastern Front did dwarf the Western Front and Pacific theaters. IIRC the Russians claimed to have lost 20 - 25 MILLION people (combatants and non-combatants). I'm not sure what the German losses were on this front, but I'm sure it was probably at least twice the total of their losses on all other fronts combined. US Lend-Lease to Russia was of primary benefit in getting them trucks and half-tracks. AFV-wise the Russians despised/tolerated most Western Allied designs (with the exception of the Churchill !). Most of the Lend-Lease didn't benefit the Russians until the last few years of the war (but I'm unknowledgable about these details). I'm not sure what else the Western Allies actually provided to Russia that was considered hugely beneficial (we gave them some aircraft early-on, but not a whole lot). It is hard to say just how desparate the Russians would have been without our material help. They primarily just wanted the "Second Front" to start up to take the heat off of them. Uh... but as usual, most of my opinions are subject to conjecture.

They ARE going to do MAJOR engine modifications. From what I gather CM2 is going to have a lot done to it in order to support new terrain types (for Eastern Front battles). Plus there will be a whole slew of new AFV's (earlier German models and the entire Russian collection). I'm hoping it will only take them a year, but it may take quite a bit longer than that. Plus there are the eventual patches for CM1 - TCP/IP, linked movie viewer and possible new AFV's.

I hate to be the one to rain on everyone's parade , but I recall BTS saying that they would "TRY" to update the previous games to the newer engines, but it WASN'T guaranteed to happen due to the complexity of the possible changes, etc. I'm sure Charles & Steve will try their best to bring the previous games up-to-date, but we can't hold them to it as if they promised us this would happen.

Curious, are the images on your webpage the "Tweaked Textures" that you'll use for the beta or are some of them oriented towards the "Gold Demo" ? By the way, I've been impressed with your work for quite awhile. I suppose the full version is just going to be too much work to tweak (vehicle-wise) or are you going to attempt it ?

OK you hard-line grognards... Who isn't happy that BTS put more work into the graphics ? I just love those "cut-out trees"...

Congrats Steve, Charles, et al. CM has definitely been worth waiting for and I hope you guys are deservedly rewarded for your labors. I'd suggest to whoever is compiling the FAQ that they put the release date at the top of the list... in big, bold letters that a blind person could see. On my first viewing of the intro movie I was quickly taken with the impression that I was watching a "South Park" episode as the infantry marched into the camera. "Aahhhh... we're being invaded by Canada !" (OK, I watch too much TV and it's addled my brain).

I second EScrulock's sentiment on throwing grenades. They're damned heavy (dense) and not quite the same as throwing a baseball. If someone is able to throw it 40m then there's a good chance it won't be too accurate. In bootcamp we were instructed to throw them "like footballs" (uh.. that's what MY instructor told us ). The typical "Hollywood grenade toss" is a tad bit unrealistic. If you're a good baseball pitcher though, I could see the advantage to throwing a grenade a bit further and more accurately than your average joe.

Hundminen could repartition his drive with PowerQuest's PartitionMagic, assuming that there is enough space left on the drive to create another partition. This program allows you to keep a current partition on your drive and create another one with the freespace that is still present. Without PartitionMagic you would have to kill your current NT partition in order to eventually get Win98 on - and your IS dept. probably wouldn't smile on the prospect of reinstalling NT for you. I believe that the package now comes with BootMagic to allow you to boot to whichever partition you want (I'm not sure how well NT's Boot Manager works with Win9x being installed AFTER NT). If it doesn't then you will probably want to get V Communication's System Commander. If your IS staff doesn't freak-out about another partition on the drive; this would be the most cost effective solution for you (PartitionMagic should be less than US$70). Windows 98 eats up somewhere around 250Mb, so I'd suggest a partition of at least 300Mb minimum (to get the full version of CM installed you may want a partition that is quite a bit larger - 1Gb should be more than enough, and 600Mb probably would also be plenty).

Depending on how hard it is to temporarily replace the hard drive (and how bad you REALLY want to play CM on the laptop), you could get another 2.5" hard drive and install Win98 2nd Edition on it. This way you could just swap out the hard drive w/ NT on it for the other 2.5" drive w/ Win98 on it. Most (but definitely not all) ThinkPads have access to the hard drive from underneath the keyboard (often in the same vicinity as the main battery). I'm not sure if the IBM ThinkPads came with an option to install either Win NT or Win 98 (some did). If this is the case (and if you could possibly pry such software from your IS people) then you could just install that and be up and running. Otherwise you will have to get a copy of Win98 AND the appropriate drivers for you laptop. So.. how desperate are you to play CM on your laptop ? A 2.5" drive of 2Gb or so should be sufficient and it may cost you around $120 +. You can check out http://www.pricewatch.com and find pricing on such drives (though you need to be careful with who you purchase from since many vendors overcharge for shipping and/or don't have stock on the items they give prices for). You may want to also look for a "drive kit" for your laptop, that way you can get any necessary additional hardware that the drive may need (and won't come with a "bare" drive). Ok, now your confused.

I have no clue on this one since the previous posts from Eridani & rune are what I would have guessed. The only thing, and it sounds incorrect, that I think could be different is that the video card was running at a different vertical refresh; and maybe, JUST MAYBE, your video card had an unusually hard time running those particular frequencies. Though your resolution was the same, it is possible that your vertical refresh was different without actually specifying it.

As vehemently pronounced as the mainland Chinese "warnings" are to Taiwan about reunification and the current elections; it just amounts to a lot of hot air. These warnings are SOP for the Communist govt. , but it gives them the air of a "play ground bully" in Western media. It definitely gives the appearance that the vocal hard-line communists of the mainland bureacracy are still living in 1949. That's not to say that China won't take a far more patient approach to "reunification". However, as unsubtle and clumsy as it is, they want to influence the Taiwanese vote so that reunification doesn't become a more and more distant dream. In terms of conventional forces Taiwan has China beat quite handily. Taiwan has qualitatively superior conventional forces which are quite a bit more modern and better trained than their mainland counterparts. And as previously mentioned, China couldn't maintain a sizeable invasion force logistically, let alone actually put one ashore in significant numbers. Heck, the PLA are lucky if they can project power beyond an interior province (this is however changing, as China continues to acquire more modern weaponry and develop a "professional" military). I think that the biggest military threat that mainland China could wield against Taiwan would be ballistic missiles (conventional/chemical/nuclear ?). Around '96 ('95 ? can't exactly remember) or so tensions were heightened in the Formosa Strait when China conducted naval exercises & launched a couple of ballistic missles in the direction of Taiwan (to, uh... influence another upcoming presidential election). The US 7th Fleet was operating in the vicinity with two carrier battlegroups - obstensibly observing the Chinese naval maneauvers. Despite Clinton's image as a "presidential embarrasement", I believe that he would commit US forces in the event that China invaded Taiwan. Now if China only invaded the Taiwanese islands that are only several miles off the mainland shore, then that is a different matter. To my knowledge, the islands are sparsely populated - Taiwanese military garrisons seem to be their main inhabitants. Theoretically I could see the Communist govt. invading these islands (and winning, which is quite possible in this limited scenario) and just stopping at that. The effect it would have on Taiwan would be significant to say the least. It would be a large political gamble for the Chinese since they would probably be roundly denounced for such an action, but I'd guess that many hard-line members of China's govt. could easily justify the short term outcry for the long term political benefits to the cause of reunification. However this is still a radical step that would not be taken unless China felt that it's influence in this situation had waned to the point of near insignificance. No... the PRC will continue to play the verbal aggressor in the political/media game of "tag". Finger pointing & posturing is the the political art du jour for the Chinese mainland. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 03-17-2000).]

Yeah Madmatt.. I was checking her out too ! Gawd, now I'm going to have to pop that video in the player tonight just to check 'em out. This reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry is making out with this Jewish girl in a movie theater playing "Schindler's List".

A few people on this board are beta-testers and have access to newer beta versions than the rest of us do (they're on version 50+, while the demo is beta version 14). As for the freezing of CM on your computer. I would suggest unloading any other running programs, including programs in the System Tray (assuming that you are running a PC). I would also suggest disabling virus protection while you play; it probably doesn't have any bearing on your problem, but you may want to anyway. Next you may want to play around with the "acceleration slider" which you can get to by going to Control Panels - System control panel - Performance tab - Display button. Move the slider one "click" to the left. This will reduce some of the hardware acceleration that you get from your card (forcing some of the drawing commands to be performed by software instead of hardware). If the first "click" doesn't do it, then you may want to try additional deceleration on this slider. If you get to the point that hardware acceleration is completely off, then something else may be the cause of your lock ups (and POSSIBLY not your video card/video drivers). You may also want to play with your audio acceleration (yeah, it does sound weird), which you may or may not have. Go to Control Panels - Multimedia controls - Advanced Properties button of the Playback section - Performance tab and click the Hardware Acceleration slider one click to the left. If you have Windows 95 or certain sound cards, then you may not have access to this feature. If you find out that one of these solutions fixes your problem then you MAY want to consider updating your drivers for your hardware. The caveat here is that sometimes upgrading your drivers causes other problems or, as quite often is the case, still doesn't resolve your problem. If you have further problems or questions, go ahead and post them on this thread.