Video card problems

[FunLovinHippy]

Heeelllppppp! *Said in the voice of Penelope Pitstop* My PC problem is this. I had a damage memory card and a virus and a friend changed the card, upgraded the memory and sorted installed an anti virus program. However, he installed the wrong video graphics card which I changed myself with one which was supposed to be cool with windows xp. All should be well right? Wrong! My pc works in every way apart from allowing me to play PC games such as 'The Sims'. I can't tell you how sad this makes me because I have a far out groovy lil hippy city, and I miss them so much!! . Can anyone please give me some advice on how to fix this problem. Thank you.

[MartinBradley]

What is the make and model of your graphics card?

Most manufacturers these days offer driver upgrades for Windows XP. I would advise visiting the manufacturers website to make sure you have the latest drivers. If you tell us the make and model we can help you find the correct drivers to install.

[FunLovinHippy]

I have a S3 Trio3D/2X It says on the driver site it's compatible with windows xp. When I put my pc game ,the credits roll fine but when it comes to loading up the game, the screen wobbles and the game screen is off center. Then my puter just sort of crashes and just goes back to windows . Could this be another problem?? Thanks for your time

[MartinBradley]

It may be a compatibility issue between the video card and the motherboard. I had a problem where my motherboard only supported AGP 4X, however the card had capabilities of up at 8X, and all the time the card was trying to run at AGP 8X when basically it couldn't because the motherboard wouldn't let it. I eventually solved the problem by limiting the card so it would only run in AGP 4X. Unfortunately I cannot remember how to do this, as I followed a procedure from a website (I don't know the website) and it was rather complex. All I do know is it took some extensive googling to find the solution. Before I fixed the problem, it was causing similar symptoms to what you describe. Games would start up fine, and appear to be working, then they would just crash back to the desktop. It would happen with every game.

Anyway, like I said, I eventually solved the problem. You could try a Google search for the answer, or perhaps even email the support team at your manufacturers website.

[FunLovinHippy]

OK thanks.

[Jeff]

Do you get the same problem with any other games?

Does The Sims require DirectX support? If so, what version?