Smoke Eater

This is the same problem I had with the Radeon 9600XT. The newest drivers do not help. The only thing that allows me to play is that I turned my graphics acceleration down one notch. It slows the cursor down a little but at least I can look at the menu for a change. Mine would crash three seconds after hitting the menu screen. I would have to hard reboot every time. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the advice. I finally got to play the game. I reduced my hardware acceleration by one level. Now my cursor blinks, but the game is awesome. I saw alot of people in other forums having the exact same problem with these ATI cards, and the 9600XT in particular. I have the newest drivers (released yesterday) but it seems like there should be another fix other than reducing my acceleration. That seems like a "get by" to me. Well, ATI has my report and I await there reply. At least now I can play this awesome game. The graphics and detail are like nothing I have ever seen! By the way, is Falcon as good as this (or similar?)? Thanks again!

Can anyone tell me how to disable fast writes in my BIOS? I am freezing-up to hard reboot in my menu screens (see old post). I have the newest vid card drivers and a clean machine (no old vid drivers). The card is a Radeon 9600XT by Sapphire, running on XP in a HP Pavilion 740n, 1.6 Gb, 256 Mb, 40 Gb HD Pentium 4. Thanks y'all...

Now THAT'S funny! Then I'll be out of this forum and into the MUFON sightings pages LOL!!! Looking at the UbiSoft LOMAC forums I can see that many radeon users have similar freezing issues after install. I've E-Mailed Sapphire for info. I also downloaded the latest driver. I'll let y'all know what happens. And i'm not touching my BIOS,LOL!!! I tend to be a very unBIOSed person anyway. Unless I'm abducted by the UFO's I'll let ya know how it turns out. "Smoke Eater"

Hey, I'm not familiar with how to check it in the BIOS. How would I do that? It's enabled in the control settings...

Well, I just installed the card and everything was fine until I got to the options screen and every time, the computer completely freezes-up after 3 seconds on the options screen. I have to do a hard reboot every time. I knew this wouldn't be a flawless install?! Any Ideas?

Thanks for the advice Indy BIA, I got a Radeon 9600XT 128Mb built by Sapphire. The Pricewatch site is superb! I got it for 159.00 through ZipZoomFly.com with free 3 day shipping. The Sapphire cards are superior according to my research, and ATI recognizes them as a reputable builder. My comparison showed that for the price range, this card delivered the most in performance. I could have gotten the 256 Mb for a little more, but the clock speeds were slower anyway. Now I can't wait to install it and play! As it stands, I can see the cockpit and planes, but the world around me is grey stripes and colored dots. Anyway, ThanksAgain all... "Smoke Eater"

The price is right at Bestbuy (119.95-20.00 mail rebate) but is the SE version likely to cause me issues? I am told the SE versions are a little less speedy but still very effective. Is there anyone out there with this particular card or with suggestions on a better one in the price range? My accountant (wife) lol... is giving me hell about MORE money at Christmastime on "gadgets", Ya know??? Thanks Y'all! HP 1.6 Gb P4 256Mb RAM 40GB HD