Is Vista the problem?

[Wolfsage]

So, for my birthday my parents got me a laptop that is supposed to get me to college.
They're pretty techno-savy, and tell me that this laptop is supposed to be gaming capable/compatable.

So, when I run Blizzard expasions, after almost 75 minutes exactly the game crashes.

There's pretty much no error message except for "ERROR", sometimes a must terminate because of no space or something, I don't have a screeny wit me.

Just before, the game slows to a crawl, and then I hear the ding.

So, is this just Vista shoving a spiked iron rod up me arse? Also, I played Halo (original) on it, and it tells me that I don't have the graphics capabilities, but it runs just fine.
I was told to adjust the graphics settings for that, but i can't seem to find that menu. Maybe that will fix it, but can anyone tell me where to find it?

I'm used to it, but its super annoying and rather be without it.

Its a stock Toshiba laptop, and off the top of my head (im at a different comp):
2 gig ram
100 gigs left on hdd
Intel Core Duo

I can get the rest later...
So, can anyone help me?

 

[Bluewind]

All drivers up to date?
Graphic card name?
Laptop model name?
Complete error message?
Are you running the game as admin?
Maybe compatibility mode?
Which game? ("Blizzard expasions" doesn't say me anything, sorry)

Well that's all I can think of atm. Hope it helps you.

 

[w/e]

I'm fairly certain that the drivers are the cause. If a vista-running laptop can't run Halo because of "Graphics Capabilities," then it has to be the drivers.

 

[MeRcChRiS]

Make sure you didnt download the drivers for XP, because you need to make sure you dl the drivers for Vista.

 

[Wolfsage]

Well, when I was finding the drivers, before it was the graphics card problem but that stopped coming up. I remember lookin for vista specifically, and having to start again because what I found was XP stuff

Laptop is the Satellite A135-S4437. Its all stock stuff.

I either play D2:LoD, or has happened, but only once, on WC3:TFT.

Usually I can see error message because of the fux up wit my screen in trying to shut down the game, (which is at a lower res, could that be the problem?)
A couple of times i have seen it and it goes something like:

irretrevable/irrivocable (cant remember which) file error
something to the effect of ran out of memory (wtf??) file name with "random" letters/numbers
Terminal error, must close program

and how exactly do i screenshot? prtsc button and paste into Word or something?


Any suggestions of where to go for Vista drivers? Microsoft site just never seems to help me when I want it to. >.<
I've run as admin, told to unblock and such, but Ill try again 2moro (sometimes crap works out like that for me)

Pretty sure its running in compatibility mode

 

[Wolfsage]

Ok so I have, in the little properties menu, Run compatible to XPSP2, display in 640x480 (game auto does that, figured it might help make smoother) and run as admin. With that, it causes the UAC alarm to go off, and so I must say "Allow" each time. Should I turn that off or something? Would that hurt performance?

And with those changes, i get a slightly extended play time, somewhere between 30 and 60 mins before crash.

The one error message that I was able to see was:

Halt
Location:, line #800
Expression: Unrecoverable internal error 6ff6d2d8

 

[Darg]

Try disabling Aero too, it causes lots of problems with 3D games.

 

[Wolfsage]

Aero?

 

[Darg]

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-aero-on-windows-vista/

OR

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...-running-an-application-such-as-a-video-game/