Working on a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo with an X1700 ATI card and 2 gigs of memory. And, unfortunately, Vista too. After VO loads the graphics drivers, it's 50/50 that it will load or freeze. I've also been in VO once to have the screen go black suddenly and my laptop crash on me. I would be quick to blame Vista but this only happens with Vendetta installed.

Hmm, not run into a problem like this yet, running Vista also atm, are you using the *vendor* provided driver for your card, or the latest from amd/ati ? If your using vendor supplied drivers, head over to http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html and get the latest for your card. If that does not help, try changng the graphics driver to DX8.1.

Or try switching to OpenGL drivers in VO.

Thanks. I got XP to cooperate with my network finally, so I'll stick with that. If I get back onto Vista, I'll try OpenGL.

Yoda: Yeah, it's Vendor provided. Unless the x1700 card uses the x1600 drivers, I'm stuck, though.

Have not encountered this problem again, which is very odd. At any rate, it sounds like it was bad drivers.