I'll try running DX down a notch on my video acceleration when I get home. I thought doing that with the sound might help and I even turned it down all the way but still no luck. :-Þ Like I said, it seems to be sound related, because I can get the game to run if I play with my sound card disabled through the device manager.

The main complaint I have is that I get the exact same results from the program on three different WindowsXP computers with three different hardware configurations! Also 3DO seems to not care (see below). Their lack of a live phone support phone number makes me extremely suspicious of their faith in their products. >:-(

If I run it "normally" it crashes to desktop, and if I run in any compatibility mode, I get an error that I'm supposed to send to Microsoft. And like I said, this happens on all three different computers.

This is the first MM game I haven't been able to run at all, but it's definitely not the only one I have problems with. I also bought the Heroes Platinum edition, and although Heroes 1 does run, it crashes to the desktop a lot (coincidentally I have no problems with it when the sound is turned off) and the screen often flickers.

I'm convinced 3DO's program writing and their tech support folks are pretty worthless (in saying that I give high marks to their creative people and those who actually come up with the game desgns and interface). I'm not trying to be mean, but if a product advertises Windows XP compatibility, it should be compatible on any WinXP machine. I know these have to be problems they've run into and know about but refuse to "bother" fixing. (why should we care since they're just video game buyers? :-P )

My justification for this is that bug in MM6 I mentioned earlier about after installing the patch they made, you can't open certain doors anymore (I think one of em's in Castle Kriegspire). People bitched about this all over the internet which means they had to have gotten flooded with emails about it, but still no second patch to resolve that issue. (I do know about the fix where you roll back to an earlier version of the .EXE file, thanks for mentioning it :-) )

My friends and I have lately been talking about the difference between the quality of a game, and the quality of the program that runs it. An example of high quality in both would be Starcraft where the program never crashed in my experience, and it'll run on the oldest Windows 95 machine, to the latest and greatest XP with no problems I ever encountered. Now I know there's probably some huge differences in complexities involved with the video in Starcraft and that in say MM8, but the point is Blizzard took the time to test the s*** out of their product and patch it like mad. 3DO's lack of responsiveness is extremely disappointing. I'm seriously considering not buying any more of their games in protest.