murph2

Just a quick note. The .inf file you quoted your computer as using to install drivers is the same one you say it later says is missing. This kind of thing can be quite common and can be caused by the .inf file being written a certain way (e.g. to look in certain locations for files or because of a slight mistake). If you get the message that X file can't be found at this location you can either look in the disk/folder you got the driver from, your windows/system.. folders or run find and search for it. Once you have found it you can then browse to the location when the popup tells you it can't find it and offers the browse dialog (sometimes you have to let it try a couple of times before it offers this). The above goes when your installing new drivers as well and you can often get by without using the windows CD for example, if you don't have it to hand, when it asks for it using this method. In fact I had to use this method when installing the vga drivers that came with a friends Nvidia based motherboard the other day because the supplied install exe (install shield) wouldn't work properly and the .inf decided that the windows CD was where some of the nvidia drivers should have been. As for your AGP always going back to 2X can't you just go into your motherboard BIOS, by pressing Delete during booting perhaps, and set it to 1X there? When set from there it shouldn't be able to reset itself to 2X. Unless of course this has been mentioned to you already and I haven't noticed it or the card won't work unless it gets to boot at 2X.

Different vehicles move at different speeds when you give them the move command so just giving them all the move command won't work. Some take off at a fair rate of knots while others like Churchills crawl along. You can't always select which vehicles to put in front either especially in some scenarios. I recall one where your have to exit the map with some XXX corps vehicles which appear in dribs and drabs over a number of turns. Your very short of time, after all you are trying to relieve the airborne troops ahead and can't afford to use a lot of pause commands to get your faster units to the fore. In damp conditions when your more or less forced to stick to roads with heavier vehicles things can soon become chaotic. It only takes one mistake and the tac ai goes off plotting moves all over the place.

It's a pity they didn't make a tick box in the driver control panel that adds the DisableCopyBlt3D=1 key to the reg file since you could just tell people to select that. The newer drivers do this automatically when they install and import the reg file that is in the exe. Mind you, with the Kyro II at least, they still haven't fixed the transparency through foreground objects/text boxes and you have to enable the external depth buffer in the vid control panel to get rid of this therefore it might require talking him though this after the new driver install to make it work properly.

If you have one fan blowing out of your case this will tend to lower the air pressure inside which means that air will be drawn into your case through any crevice or hole available. Dust etc. will be drawn in with this air and since it will tend to come in through any available hole like your CD rom you can end up with dust build ups in places you don't want. For this reason it's a good idea to try to maintain a positive air pressure inside your case. Also if you have the fan placed at the rear of your case it will more than likely be right beside your psu which will more than likely also have a fan blowing out. Many cases will have holes to fit a fan to in the lower front of the case. Probably an 80mm one but sometimes 92mm. If you put one there sucking/blowing cold air into your case the air will rise as it warms and your psu fan will remove it at the top rear. A positive air pressure is more likely to be attained in this scenario as well as a nice circulating air flow - cold in front bottom, hot out top rear. I hope this gives you something to think about. Removing the metal in front of the fan and replacing it with a chrome grill (and/or filter) can also improve the airflow considerably as well as lowering the noise. Papst fans are very good if your looking for minimum noise but are on the dear side. Panaflo and the like can be had for much less and if your other fans are noisy you probably won't notice the noise they make.

ACPI stands for Advanced Configuration and Power Interfaces IIRC. It can be switched off after windows has been installed with it enabled by editing the registry but I can't recall the keys offhand and it's a pretty dodgy operation. Reinstalling over the top with the switch to disable ACPI might work, I don't know for sure. Are you using an SBlive by any chance? Since the sound seems to be the main bugbear in your case I'd look at the soundcard and drivers first. Have you disabled the DOS mode SBLive settings/drivers, as this often causes problems? I doubt it is the mouse but are you using the default mouse cursors (I don't know XP so Ican't be sure if it allows mouse cursors and themes to be installed)? Using themes or anything other than the default mouse cursors often causes display problems but not usually total crashes.

The last I heard from Videologic around June last year was they weren't responsible for the problems IIRC. This was after the DisableCopyBlt3D enabling to correct the main problems with text etc. was noticed and passed on to them. I seem to recall them saying that games which require this setting were incorrectly porgrammed wrt 3D. This didn't stop them adding the DisableCopyBlt3D=1 key to the reg file with all subsequent drivers though, because of the above I don't hold out much hope for a driver fix.