Freelancer was designed around DirectX 9 indeed and "the latest drivers" should be clarified to read the latest WHQL certified drivers. Anything else and you're using a piece of beta software and you're milage may vary.

It's the damndest thing, Stinger. It's why I can't figure it out.

It's the same installation on the same hard drive I left. Pull DX9B off of MS' site and the ForceWare drivers off of Nvidia's site.

I was really looking forward to playing Freelancer again, with all the great new mods, but even after a total uninstall and reinstall it still has the same flashing textures and lock up problems.

Ran 3DMark on the machine and it had no issues.

*Goes off to cry and rock in the corner*

I have a similar problem. Can't figure it out.

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Sticks and stones may break my bones.......... please... don't throw sticks and stones
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It might help if you list operating systems and other configurations folks. We have plenty of people ready to help but it's tough when we aren't sitting in front of your computer. Help us help you.

I've not seen one computer configuration that is at least somewhat up to todays comp specks standards that we can get FL to work fine on.

Okies, here are my system specs:

WinXP Pro w/SP1
1024 RDRAM
Intel 850GB motherboard
Intel P4 at an unoverclocked 1.6Ghz
VisionTek GeForce 4 Titanium 4600
Soundblaster Liver Platinum
Intel 10/100TX NIC
Direct X 9B
Nvidia's 53.03 Drivers
Latest SB drivers (do not know the number off hand here at work)

It's the same machine I left a year ago except for the update to the 53.03 drivers and DX9B.

Did you check all the settings after you installed the latest forceware drivers from NVIDIA?

Perhaps one of the settings in the drivers is causing these flashes?

This just popped in my mind:
You sure that none of the hardware got damaged during the storage (due to frost, vapor etc.)?

Perhaps ... as a test, you could try to install a different videocard? I don't know if you have easy access to one.

I once had a similar problem with a vid card. That was due to the hardware being faulty. (was a TNT2 at the time).

I've also had the same problem. Brand new system and new XP install here, but i haven't played my copy of FL in about 10 months. On a whim I reinstalled it after getting my hard drive running with XP Pro SP1 and latest Nvidia Drivers and DirectX 9b.

Game randomly crashes, often completely restarting the whole computer, or bombing XP. I've never had a game bomb the entire computer before. Sometimes before it bombs, character models in cutscenes will freeze and then the audio goes on. Never crashes in space, only during cutscenes and docking / undocking animations.

A shame because I am really getting back into this wonderful game, but now I can't seem to play it for more than 45 minutes without a crash somewhere.

XP PRo SP1, 2.6ghz P4, Geforce4 4600, 1gig ram

Any ideas?

Hey guys I had this problem and I solved it.

Its to do with the Nvidia graphics BIOS its somekind of big that has only just cropped up for some reason.

It says directx is installed but the problem is actually with both Direct3D and Direct Draw which are part of Direct x

Solution: Download version 5 Of your graphics card BIOS from nvidia online. Install these and the bug is sorted out.

if you want to test direct draw and direct 3d then type
dxdiag
in to the RUN option on the START MENU.
Here you can test them and you should find an error in them both.

Eitherway downloading and installing the above Update will fix this. It worked for Me!!

The Mercenary Navy - Power Is Everything
Vist The Mercenary Navy Online .

Well, if there's any such thing as v5 of the Geforce BIOS itself, it's not available on the Nvidia webpage. Updating the *drivers* to the latest Feb 2nd release doesn't help, as it's already what I am running. FInally, when I run my DirectDraw and Direct3D tests both of them come up as passed on every test.

Very frustrating as I was JUST getting back into the game and bammo, problems.

The latest BIOS releases for your nVidia card are at:

http://whitebunny.demon.nl/hardware/chipset_nvidia.html

However, it's really NOT recommended to try to install these updates. It's not a driver, it's the actual BIOS in the card. They're difficult to install, undocumented, and there's no information regarding what BIOS update does to anything, so you could be taking the risk of totally frying your card or nothing.

Thanks for the reply though..