You seem pretty technically ept, so you may want to try this:

 Remove the pagefile, do a surface scan on the drive, defragment the drive, and set a static pagefile of 1024 or 2048 MB. Also, try the brand new Catalyst 6.2 drivers, as they seem to resolve many latent problems on the 9xxx series cards.

For those less technically ept (or who have just never done this) here are the steps:

Removing the pagefile takes a couple of steps:

1. Right-click on "My Computer"


2. Click on "Properties"


3. Click on "Advanced" tab


4. Click on "Settings" button under "Performance"


5. Click on "Advanced"


6. Click on "Change"


7. Make sure your "C:" drive is highlighted


8. Choose Minimum Size of 0 and Maximum Size of 0.


9. Save your settings, and restart the computer.


10. When windows starts, click on Start->Run and type "command".


11. At the DOS prompt, type "del c:\pagefile.sys" without the quotes.

Now, continue the steps to defragment the computer.

1. Double-click on My Computer.


2. Right-click on Local Disc (C)


3. Choose Properties.


4. Switch to the Tools tab.


5. Click on Defragment Now.

When the defragmenter has completed, you will restart your computer. First, though, we need to schedule the surface scan.

1. Click on Start->Run and type chkdsk /f then press ENTER.


2. Now, restart the computer.

When the CHKDSK has finished running, Windows will start up normally. Before opening any other programs, turn your page file back on.

1. Right-click on "My Computer"


2. Click on "Properties"


3. Click on "Advanced" tab


4. Click on "Settings" button under "Performance"


5. Click on "Advanced"


6. Click on "Change"


7. Make sure your "C:" drive is highlighted


8. Set a minimum and maximum size of equal value- 1024 or 2048 MB should be good.


9. OK all the way back to the Desktop.

The latest Catalyst drivers are available from ATi. While on the driver download page, also get the Catalyst Uninstaller. Save both the driver and the uninstaller to your desktop.

Get the .NET 2.0 upgrade from Microsoft. Save this to your Desktop.

Now, run the programs in this order:

1. Run the Catalyst Uninstaller to remove your current drivers. Restart after this is run.


2. Allow Windows to restart and install it's own drivers.


3. Run the .NET 2.0 installer. Allow the computer to restart after this (or make it restart if you are not told to restart automatically).


4. Run the installer for the 6.2 drivers.


5. Restart the computer a final time.

Now try entering the game.