Problem launching a game

[paul]

Can anyone help me with this problem. When i try to launch the game "Thief" the screen goes black indicating that the game is starting to load but then it jumps back to the desktop. This is not an isolated problem, when i try to launch "close combat" the same happens. Has anyone experienced this before?
I've downloaded the latest drivers for my video card (voodoo 3) and reinstalled the latest version of directx. if anybody has any ideas I'd be grateful for them.
Thanks
Paul

[K A Hall]

Yep, I have had same experience with thief and other games. The only thing that I have ever been able to do to get it to work is to use the task manager and end all tasks expcept explorer and systray. This is not full proof and sometimes it still does not want to run. Also try setting the desktop to 640 x 480 before you launch the game.

If you go to the Thief discussion board, sorry I dont have the URL, you will see many others have the same problem.

------------------
Extra Screw? What Extra Screw?

[theENiGMA]

The voodoo3 video cards are very picky about the RAm they are installed with. If you don't have high quality RAM, the card will randomly send you back to the desktop. I had this problem even though I had Micron Pc133. I bought some "Athlon tested" stuff from mushkin, and that fixed the problem. Make sure the RAM is good.
-KEiTH


------------------
Well, I'm off to go look for myself. If I should get back before I return, tell myself to wait for me.

[paul]

Thanks for the advice, I've sorted the problem here's how: I uninstalled all the directx drivers, my video drivers and then reinstalled windows, once windows was back on I reinstalled the video and directx drivers and hey BINGO! it's all running with no problems. what was wrong with it? I wish I knew, maybe a glitch in windows.
cheers
Paul