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Well I thought I was in the clear after having numerous problems in Win98SE related to a corrupt registry. I installed Windows XP Pro with SP2. I'm running an AMD 2100 processor (1.73 GHz) with 500 some odd megs of ram. I have a sound blaster soundcard (haven't taken the time to look up the model) and a NVIDIA GeForce4 4800 Ti video card. I just installed new drivers for the video card (a first person shooter game wasn't working correctly).

Anyway SPWAW 8.3 was working fine for about a day or so. Then today it started giving me trouble. When playing a scenario I went to set the range with the y key and the game locks up (sound kind of continues though). I reinstalled over top of the directory, uninstalled and then reinstalled, and I think I'm still having this problem. Anyone else having similar problems? After one of the installs, I noticed the starting screen was all black and filled in as I moved my cursor.

I will fiddle with it some but this is really starting to make me mad.

Jeez, minefield, I have never had problems with SPWaW on the plain Win98 system (NOT SE), which I run on my nearly 6-year old PC. It's gotta be a system setup problem, or the notorious problems the game has with various sound/video cards. The tech gurus will have to answer this one--. [&:]

Note--one clue you gave was installing new video card drivers--I mentioned elsewhere that the new Nvidia drivers can give older games problems. The answer MAY be to roll back to an earlier driver--I had to do this with my system, so think about doing a rollback.

This point really needs to be emphasized for players of older games--it also emphasizes the fact that the newer high-powered PCs may NOT be too friendly with the old games--this is an ongoing problem.

Well I think I fixed the problem.
I should've left out the part about windows 98 se. That was more of a problem with a corrupt system registry and possible virus infection.

I'm running XP now and it seems the latest drivers from NVIDIA for the GeForce card is what caused the problem. I went and downloaded another version (61.77) and I could set the range in the two test scenarios I ran.
Will report back in if it crashes again.

ORIGINAL: minefield

After one of the installs, I noticed the starting screen was all black and filled in as I moved my cursor.

I've had this happen often, I figure it's a memory thing. I use FreeMem, available at www.meikel.com and always run it prior to playing.

ORIGINAL: minefield
I noticed the starting screen was all black and filled in as I moved my cursor.

This happens to me after I ALT-TAB out of the game and come back in. It's like "painting" the screen back on with your cursor. I found if I right click the mouse the picture returns. No problemo. [:)]

It's kind of fun actually--- kind of like those picture books you "draw" in by adding water!

Shouldn't be a memory issue with me.
512 MB physical with at least 275 MB available when I run the game.

I think the black screen problem is caused by background applications. Some setups are more sensitive than others.