Be careful with nVidia based cards - if you get an FX series card
there are known bugs which may mean you need to get the patched
version, and I have had other problems too.

Budget wise, I used to play Vice City using a GeForce 2 mx400 card and
it was very playable. The frame rate was a slight problem in GTA 3 on
that card, but Vice City was much smoother.

I'm not saying that it's ideal for Vice City. I had to limit the
resolution to 640x480, and there is some loss of graphics quality
using this old a card. It's nice to have the extra graphics quality,
but whether its worth paying for the graphics card to support it is a
different issue. You don't lose anything essential to gameplay.

The GeForce 4 mx440 card is significantly better IIRC so may work out
better given that the price difference will be trivial now.

Basically, therefore, anything above a GeForce 2 mx400 should be fine
for Vice City, though you may want something a little better if you
plan on buying GTA 3 - any GeForce 4 or above.

The mx440 is definitely still available (not sure about the mx400) but
if you play many games, of course, you need to consider that both are
at the extreme budget end. New games may well not work on them.

You may also be having operating system issues. I simply cannot run
Vice City on Windows XP Home (SP1 + current updates etc) because of a
bug that Take 2 refuses to acknowledge. I have told them about it, but
they are morons. I told them that the bug occurred on a non-FX series
card and that I had followed all advice (including the patch) for
people with FX series cards for my current set up, and I told them
that the bug only occurred when I switched to WinXP. Their response
was to tell me to download the patch. In other words, they didn't even
read the e-mail - they just autorespond based on the graphics card
identified in the diagnostic dumps you have to provide, completely
ignoring what you tell them.

Anyway, my experience is that Vice City doesn't work properly on
Windows XP Home at all. I currently have a Windows 2000 professional
partition purely for Vice City - it works on that, but needs the v1.1
patch.

I have had odd problems in the past on Win2000, but they related to a
games controller rather than the game itself.

The only O/S that Vice City has a perfect record on, in my experience,
is Windows 98SE. Which I can't run anymore - at least not if I want to
install drivers for my graphics and sound cards.

So my advice is to run Win98SE (or presumably Millenium) if you
possibly can, though your desktop with Win2000 is probably fine if you
upgrade your graphics card.

Or it would be - but an Athlon 900MHz is pretty close to the P3/Athlon
800MHz which is specified as the minimum for the game. Don't expect
brilliant performance. This may, of course, be another reason to run
Win98SE rather than Win2000 - lower overheads.

I've got the exact same problem with my laptop. I've downloaded the
latest versions of DirectX and the Intel drivers - still no good.

I don't (really) mind if I can't play the game but what bugs me is
that Intel say I should be able to run it - see here ...
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/gaming/82852.htm

I'd appreciate any help on this - it's driving me nuts.

If I find anything out I'll definately share it. I wrote Rockstar games
tech. support an e-mail on Friday concerning the laptop and a second one
addressing the issues with the dektop. So far I have not received a
response. I have no idea how they are about answering their customers but I
sure hope I receive a well thought out response by tomorow.

I wonder if Joe and I should contact Intel. It couldn't hurt with the laptop
issue. If it doesn't work out I'll go the sound card route on the desktop.

SGF