Hi Folks,

I have owned the game Battle for Middle Earth II for a while now, and recently installed it on a new Vista-based system. Of course, it doesn't work. In normal mode, it shows the title screen, and then just does nothing. In compatibility mode, it shows the title screen, then asks for the "correct CD-ROM". Which, I might add, is in the drive, and in perfect condition.

I have searched around and found that this is a common problem with no apparent fix. However, I figured I'd post here and see if anybody has had any success with working around this issue (I do have a friend with Vista who manages to get the game to run with no tweaking, so ????)

Thanks.

Hi all. I managed to fix my Orange Box problems with Portal and TF2 in this forum, so hopefully I can get help on this one. Half Life 2....a four year old game, crashing every 5 minutes (literally) on a brand new system. I have managed to fix the stability by turning off SLI and forcing the game into Direct X 8.1 mode. For good measure, I have also shut down my anitvirus (the Steam site claims that antivirus programs can mess with their games) and disabled a few processes pertaining to my motherboard (I won't list them here unless someone asks for them).

My question is this: has anybody who has had problems running this game in Direct X 9 had problems and been able to fix them in such a way that they can still run the game in DX9? I suppose it won't kill me to play the game in DX 8.1, but it's sort of frustrating having a powerful setup and having to scale back to allow the game to run.

Thanks

Specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4GHZ quad core (not overclocked....yet...)

2GB DDR2 1066 RAM

EVGA nForce 780i SLI motherboard

2 GeForce 9600 GT 512 GDDR3 GPUs running SLI under normal circumstances (supposedly these are overclocked out of the box)

All drivers current...using onboard sound at this point...Realtek HD audio (however, if anybody has any recommendations for a good sound card, I'd love suggestions...I may be pushing my power limits as it is, though)

I am ready to take this back...the Half Life games run fine, but Portal is literally unplayable. The sound skips, and the video stalls/skips right along with it. I can't even get out of the first room. It's like watching a scratched DVD (no, my disc isn't scratched). I have similar problems on the opening screen to TF2...sound stuttering. Here are my specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHZ quad core processor

2GB DDR2 RAM

2 Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT 512MB GDDR3 GPUs running SLI

EVGA motherboard -- nForce 780i SLI

Windows XP

I am using the onboard sound at this point.

Further, after I exit the game, I cannot connect to the internet...I have to manually shut down the Steam application in my tray, and then it takes several minutes to regain connectivity.

Yes, I have all of the latest drivers. I would think that this settup would run these games easily...I am running UT3 and SupCom:Forged Alliance on the highest specs without even a stutter.

I have tried all sorts of configurations with audio and video settings, and have even messed around with my antivirus and firewall.

Can anybody help? Thanks.