lock during load

[yramina 0]

No problem installing NOLF2 on my system (Vista 32 Home, Athlon 2.2 dual, 2gig, HD5670, X-Fi Fatal1ty) and have played all the way through once, no graphics problems, no sound problems. But... about half the time:

 

I start the game, get to the menu screen, select either "continue" or "single player", get to the game loading screen and... it locks up. Give the three finger salute, select task manager, and I'm back at a low-res desktop with the error message "the instruction at <memory address> referenced data at <memory address>... click OK to terminate". Occasionally this message isn't there and I must shut down the game via task manager. The game may load fine the next time or I may curse through half a dozen instances of this before it loads.

 

Have tried all compatibility modes; 2000 and XP make no difference, game wont start with anything older. "Desktop composition" etc. are disabled; UAC and DEP are disabled on this system, DX isn't the issue.

 

I feel this has something to do with the vid card/drivers and/or resolution switching for the menu screens. When I'm at the low-res desktop I can right-click the desktop, select "personalize>display settings" and that shows the screen resolution of 800x600x32, but if I go to the "AMD Vision Control Center" it shows the resolution still 1680x1050x32 (default).

[Eliteone 1,553]

Welcome to UHQ

 

What video card are you using?

[yramina 0]

HD5670

[Eliteone 1,553]

How old is it?

[yramina 0]

The vid card? about four years. Have tried drivers from 8.5 to 11.5 with no effect.

 

FTR, this borderline ancient system has handled all the older games I've thrown at it except NOLF2 and Thief3 (NOLF1, Thief 1 and 2, System Shock 2, etc.). Once i get NOLF2 to start it runs fine, it's just irritating that it sometimes takes three or four cycles of starting then having to shut it down via task manager before it runs.