Need help with computer question, Please!

Me

[Timeout]

My nephew has been playing games on my computer for ages. One is Dodge Speedway at the MSN games page. He loves it and it keeps him busy when he's visiting on rainy days.

All of a sudden the game will not load. He gets a message saying "No 3D Accelerator detected". Another MSN game, RC Riot, now runs slow which doesn't let him steer correctly.

I'm a ditz when it comes to computers. Can someone tell me what may have changed here? Do we have a card that's gone bad?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Do we have a card that's gone bad?

Could be. Could also be a problem with the videocard drivers. (Software that runs the card.) I will ping someone that may be able to help you.

Calling Dr. Bombay! Are you there Computer Central?

[Doohickey]

Can you give us a rundown of your system specs? OS, type of video card, etc.?

My guess based on what you said is video card driver or DirectX components.

[scottlang]

Try to reload the video driver. Either from you disks that came with the system or dowloadingit from the website of the manufactor.

[Jalapeno]

Smacks of a Direct X problem or video drivers for your Video card (both software issues).

Did you install other software on your PC recently?

[BostonianRightist]

Do we have a card that's gone bad? That's exactly what happened. you may have gotten a virus or installed another driver/application/card that conflicts with you're 3-D accelerator. you should see a professional for help.

[Timeout]

I'm running Windows 98 on a Dell Dimension about 4 years old. How would I identify my "video driver"?

[Nick Danger]

From the Start menu, choose "Run".
Type in "dxdiag" and press "OK"
The "Direct X Diagnostic tool" will pop up.
Give it a few seconds to load all the stuff it loads, then click on the "Display" tab.

There you will find buttons and such with which to test your video card.

The "Diagnostic tool" has a Help file associated with it that you access via the "Help" button. That will explain more about what you can do with this thing.

[reformed_democrat]

If you're interested in learning more about your system, try Computing Net. They have links to many of the driver update sites, and they're a very nice group of people who really do try to help solve your problem.

[JoeSixPack1]

Win98 has a bad habit of sidestepping drivers in lieu of other software.

A device driver is software that tells hardware what to do, without user interface, inotherwords, it is there and you're not supposed to know about it so don't feel too unsettled.

If you are having trouble understanding all this, call Dell and they will gladly walk you through re-installing your video driver software and the kids game will again work fine.

Again, this is a minor problem with a minor fix.

Try this - on you standard win98 screen without any windows in the way, right click anywhere on the screen and a window will pop up. Scroll to properties, left click on properties.

At the top of the window that just appeared is a tab titled "Settings". Left click this tab.

At the bottom of the this new window is a button titled "advanced". Left click this button.

On the top of the next window are tabs once again. Left click the tab that is titled ADAPTER.

The next window will show you which video driver is installed. If it shows a generic name and not a specific video card name it requires you to re-install the correct driver as obviously the generic has no 3-d capabilities.

Java, codec, divx, dirX all play with this driver and win98 has loose ends that continually read and write depending on the contained driver info.

Good luck.

Don't call me, I'm retired. :-)

[uglybiker]

Bump for later reading.

(Got directX bugs on the home 'puter)

[Clinging Bitterly]

Reinstalling the video card driver (and that's probably what needs done) might not be that hard.

In Control Panel, go to System, then Device Manager. Find the display device, and just delete it.

Reboot the system and it'll probably reinstall more or less automatically when it starts up again. Probably won't even need the install disks or a download.