1. Your Graphics resolution may be incompatible with the program. You can adjust your display resolution ( 800 x 600 is standard for many software programs) by doing the following:
   1. From your Desktop, click on START.
   2. Click Settings.
   3. Click Control Panel.
   4. Double-Click Display, Display Properties window pops up.
   5. Click the Settings tab and adjust the scale pointer to the desired resolution. (800 x 600 resolution, Color Depth 16-bit is common).

2. Your Video Card may not have enough power. You can check by doing the following:
   1. From your Desktop, click on START.
   2. Click on RUN.
   3. Then type DXDIAG in the white panel that comes up on the screen.
   4. Click OK. The DirectX Diagnostic Tool reports detailed information about the DirectX components and drivers on your system.
   5. Click the Display Tab.
   6. In the middle you will see Approx. Total Memory. For most software games, you need a 3D Accelerated video card. This means your card should have at least 8MB of Video RAM.
   7. Check the notes section. If any problems are indicated with your driver, you should resolve it. Your card and DirectX might be conflicting.

3. Adjust Video Acceleration:
   1. From your Desktop, click on START.
   2. Click Settings.
   3. Click Control Panel.
   4. Double-Click Display, Display Properties window pops up.
   5. Click the Settings tab. Click the Advanced Button. Find either the Troubleshooting or Performance tab and look for the hardware acceleration bar. Turn it down two notches. Click Apply, Then OK.
   6. If that doesn’t work, restart the process and take acceleration down all the way.

4. You may not have enough free resources. Shut down all active applications to make sure that you have the most resources available for the program.
   1. Press CTRL ALT DEL. Click the Task Manager to open the Windows Task Manager. Click the Applications tab and end all tasks except Explorer and Systray. This will free up memory and close any conflicting programs. If this fixes the problem, you will know the issue is RAM related.

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   WANT TO KNOW MORE?

   RAM (random access memory):
   RAM is the place in a computer where the operating system, application programs, and current user data are kept so that they can be quickly reached by the computer's processor. RAM is much faster to read from and write to than the other kinds of storage in a computer (hard disk, floppy disk, and CD-ROM). However, the data in RAM stays there only as long as your computer is running. When you turn the computer off, RAM loses its data. When you turn your computer on again, your operating system and other files are once again loaded into RAM, usually from your hard disk.

   RAM can be compared to a person's short-term memory and the hard disk to the long-term memory. The short-term memory focuses on work at hand, but can only keep so many facts in view at one time. If short-term memory fills up, your brain sometimes is able to refresh it from facts stored in long-term memory. A computer also works this way. If RAM fills up, the processor needs to continually go to the hard disk to overlay old data in RAM with new date, slowing down the computer's operation. Unlike the hard disk which can become completely full of data so that it won't accept any more, RAM never runs out of memory. It keeps operating, but much more slowly than you may want it to.

   Video Adapter:
   A video adapter (also called a display adapter or video board) is an integrated circuit card in a computer or, in some cases, a monitor that provides digital-to-analog conversion, video RAM, and a video controller so that data can be sent to a computer's display. Today, almost all displays and video adapters adhere to a common denominator de facto standard, Video Graphics Array (VGA). VGA describes how data (essentially red, green, blue data streams) is passed between the computer and the display. It also describes the frame refresh rates in hertz. It also specifies the number and width of horizontal lines, which essentially amounts to specifying the resolution of the pixels that are created. VGA supports four different resolution settings and two related image refresh rates.

   In addition to VGA, most displays today adhere to one or more standards set by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). VESA defines how software can determine what capabilities a display has. It also identifies resolutions setting beyond those of VGA. These resolutions include 800 by 600, 1024 by 768, 1280 by 1024, and 1600 by 1200 pixels.

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