Hi. I used to be able to run SL perfectly fine, but starting sometime last summer -- after an SL update -- I found that it would play for about 10 sec. normally, then stop responding altogether. Since then I've gotten a whole new hard drive (ie. fresh install of everything) and have tried various graphics drivers -- nothing. On further investigation, I find that it seems to crash a bit faster when I run SL a second (or more) time without resetting the computer; and that the only other game that seems to have this problem (the same delayed crash) is a freeware FPS called "Cube 2: Sauerbraten."
My computer is a 2-year-old Compaq laptop with a Radeon IGP 320M video card, capable of running fairly high-end 3D games like "Unreal Tournament 2004." That specific card is, I'm told, not on the official SL video card list... but SL used to run perfectly with it! Is it possible that some change to the game over the summer ruined the compatibility with my video card? Even that doesn't quite make sense, because "Sauerbraten" also used to run. Again, fresh hard drive since then with Windows XP reinstalled.
For reference, I'm not the only one to have similar problems. See this thread:
/111/49/129726/1.html
Also this comment under the Knowledge Base: How Do I Get the Latest Drivers...:
"When the game run teen sec. and im going everywhere, the game crashed. I have ATI Radeon 9200. P4 and 512 MB RAM. Connected by Cable modem."
I'd appreciate any help you can offer in getting back into SL. Thanks.