dafydd

Thanks, all... but I think I'll wait: There aren't any Thief FMs written for TDM yet; and when there are, there will probably be better CPU-motherboard-graphics board combinations for less money. (Or for that matter, the new ones today will be used machines tomorrow, hence cheaper!) Other expenses must take priority. Sigh. Dafydd

Tels, if it ends up costing me $1200, it will not make me happy. It will especially not make my better half happy (and when she's not happy, no one is happy!) Dafydd

I had already updated my drivers right after I first had the problem; I just ran a full pass of MemTest, and there were no errors; And I don't really want to search for old drivers to use; I'm not sure nVidia even keeps those on their website, at least not for this card. I even tried lowering the video quality, just in case it failed to crash in Doom 3 on Ultra for some bizarre reason, but was crashing as it was supposed to in the TDM due to overly optimistic video demands: No dice, it still crashed the same way, with the same error messages. Sadly, I think I'm being driven into having to buy both a new motherboard and a new graphics card, unless it turns out that my m-board has a PCI Express slot as well as an AGP. Dafydd

You know, I have a vague recollection from the last time I had my box open that this motherboard may actually have both AGP and PCI Express slots over there in the graphics-card area (I do my own upgrades, but I always braindump everything after I do it; so I'm trying to recollect). I should take a look; it's just that it's a pain to open up the case, since I have to move so many things out of the way. In any event, is that the problem? Tels suggested I try an experiment, which I did, and I posted the results: Does "couldn't load game dynamic library" and "glGetError() = 0x500" mean that it's a graphic-card problem? Dafydd

Tels, I'm pretty sure I have both PCI and AGP slots. If it's better to get a PCI graphics card, let me know. Since I'm buying a new card anyway, I might as well get the best I can afford...! (Or is PCI Express a special graphics slot unrelated to a normal PCI slot? Do I need to get a whole new motherboard? Eek.) After moving all the .vfp files to a separate directory (under the Doom3 folder but not under thiefs_den), I received the same error message I received before, or at least it looks the same. It ends: glGetError() = 0x500 Shutting down sound hardware idRenderSystem::Shutdown() Shutting down OpenGL subsystem ...wglMakeCurrent( NULL, NULL ): success ...deleting GL context: success ...releasing DC: success ...destroying window ...shutting down QGL ...unloading OpenGL DLL couldn't load game dynamic library Does this mean it's the shaders or something else? (And what are shaders anyway?) Thanks, Dafydd

How does the 6800 stack up to the 7300, the 7600, the 8500, and the 8600? Are there significant performance differences? Are they for different purposes? And if so, which is best for gaming -- which is about the only thing I do on the computer that requires heavy-duty graphics? Thanks, Dafydd

Is there a list posted somewhere of cards known to work and cards known to be unable to play TDM? Like Denizen42, I have no difficulty playing Doom 3, even at the ultra graphics level. My card is a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 w/AGP8x and 64 MB. The driver is nv4_disp.dll, version 6.14.0010.9371 (English), dated 10/22/2006, to which Microsoft gave the WHQL logo. And I'm running DirectX 9.0c, updated about a week ago to whatever is the most recent build. If TDM has a significantly higher standard of what graphics cards and drivers are required than does Doom 3 itself, that might discourage quite a few players. Dafydd