[cwillis]

I bought second hand for my son an Acer Veriton V3600GT running Windows XP, 512MB RAM, CD-RW, 17" TFT, 3Ghz, 64MB onboard (shared) video. The hard drive had died, so we got an 80GB one and upgraded to a DVD-writer.

After re-installing and downloading the drivers, I can't install some of his games which worked on the old computer. This computer should run everything fine because it's better than the other one.

For example, when I installed Age of Mythology, it just didn't run. The hour glass appeared, and nothing else. When I installed Age of Empires 3, after the reboot I received the blue screen of death saying 'critical error' and it wouldn't even boot into safe mode (kept giving that error). I did it twice so am now on my third installation. Other games stuff up the screen: it goes white and there's no choice to get around it other than switch it off at the power point.

So, third install. I'm sure I have the right drivers. I downloaded them when I upgraded the drive from the Acer site, including chipset, sound, and the intel video (my first thought was that the video was something else on the site - there's a few options: Nvidia, Intel, SiS).

I suppose my question is what am I doing wrong. My first reaction was the video. I went to the Intel site to use their driver update tool, but after waiting for about 2 hours, it did nothing. Firewall wasn't blocking it, antivirus was turned off. I also wondered if the automatic driver update tools were worth using.

Anybody have any suggestions on how to get his computer playing these games?

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The Acer Veriton may be a better specified computer than the previous one, but it may also be running a different version of Windows (perhaps the old one was running Windows XP?) Whilst most XP applications will run just fine on Vista, some games are not as obliging.

The system requirements for 'Age Of Mythology' on the Microsoft website are as follows:

System Requirements:

Microsoft® Windows® 98/Me/XP/2000
PC with 450 MHz equivalent or higher processor
128 MB of system RAM
1.5 GB available hard disk space
32x speed or faster CD-ROM drive
16 MB video card required
Sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

As you can see, Windows Vista is not mentioned (although that doesn't necessarily mean it won't run on Vista)

You can try and run it in "XP Compatibility" mode, like this:

Right-click the game's desktop shortcut and choose 'Properties'
Click the 'Compatibility' tab
Tick the box for "Run this program in compatibility mode for....."
In the drop-down list, choose 'Windows XP Service Pack 2'
Click 'OK'

Try running the game.

[phillipcorcoran]

The Acer Veriton may be a better specified computer than the previous one, but it may also be running a different version of Windows (perhaps the old one was running Windows XP?) Whilst most XP applications will run just fine on Vista, some games are not as obliging.

The system requirements for 'Age Of Mythology' on the Microsoft website are as follows:

System Requirements:

Microsoft® Windows® 98/Me/XP/2000
PC with 450 MHz equivalent or higher processor
128 MB of system RAM
1.5 GB available hard disk space
32x speed or faster CD-ROM drive
16 MB video card required
Sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

As you can see, Windows Vista is not mentioned (although that doesn't necessarily mean it won't run on Vista)

You can try and run it in "XP Compatibility" mode, like this:

Right-click the game's desktop shortcut and choose 'Properties'
Click the 'Compatibility' tab
Tick the box for "Run this program in compatibility mode for....."
In the drop-down list, choose 'Windows XP Service Pack 2'
Click 'OK'

Try running the game.

[The Skeptic]

I would test the RAM. Quite often faulty RAM gives the impression as if the problem is with the hard disk, causing hard disk replacement when the problem is not there. I am not saying that this is the case with your computer but I would definitely check this possibility.

To test the RAM: Download Memtest from here. Download the first option, unzip the file and burn the ISO file to a CD. For burning the CD download and install BurnCDCC from the links in my signature. It is a very simple program used only for ISO files burning. Boot the computer with the CD and let it run at least one full pass. There should not be any errors (red lines).

[cwillis]

Thanks for the advice 'phillipcorcoran', appreciate you looking into it, but the computer I bought has XP. I'll test the memory and see if that works!

Thanks for the replies

[cwillis]

It's not memory. I also used SIW 2010 (http://www.gtopala.com/) to verify the video, and it's the same as the driver which is installed. All drivers in device manager are installed correctly except LAN because I don't use LAN, didn't bother downloading the driver for it.

Any other ideas?

[cwillis]

I added another 512mb RAM (and tested it) -- still having the same problem. Anybody help?