With this setup, the game begins, you select your characters etc then once it begins to load the game it cuts out to the desktop and gives a Game.dat error. EA Sports tell me this is a graphic problem and gave me the specifications the system must have to be able to play the game(see bottom of this post). I contacted Dell via the Online Support, and told them the system I was working on and the game requirements, in terms of graphics. The Dell rep then used some website that sells peripherals and had already done a search for me with the required specifications. One of the cards was a PCI ATI Sapphire Radeon 7000 64mb DDR graphic card. After buying then installing the graphic card and downloading the latest drivers I began to start the game up. You guessed it, the same error was given again.
Now, I presume it's because the graphic card the Dell rep said would run the game as it matched the required specs, it didn't meet those specifications. The system only has onboard graphics, although EA Sports said the problem was a graphic-related, would the sound have anything to do with it? I believe the game requires a Direct X 9.0 capable sound card...so I'm not sure if the onboard sound is good enough. Although I did install Direct X 9.0 and it made no difference.
The Dell system meets all other required specs as it has a 2.6ghz processor and 1gb RAM.
What I'm looking for is a PCI graphic card(and/or sound card) which will run the game. I'm not looking for a high-end graphic card that will cost hundreds either. So, can anyone point me in the right direction in terms of a graphic card?
OS: Windows XP
CPU: Pentium/AMD 1.6GHz or better
RAM: 256MB, 512MB for online play with 3 or more players
Video: 64MB GeForce 3 or better (GeForce 4MX not supported), Intel GMA 900 or GMA 950 graphics, DirectX 9.0c or above
Sound card: Sound card with speakers or headphones
Hard drive: 4.0GB
Input device: Keyboard and mouse
Optical drive: 16x CD-ROM
Networking: 56.6Kbps or better for online play