Taken from the other boards:

After about 10 minutes of play my system freezes completely and I need to reboot.

PC stutters for about 10 seconds prior to freezing and then the sound gets stuck in a loop. Unresponsive to ALT+CTRL+DEL. Need to power off PC.

Like Zefram on another post says:

I just bought SOF II and I'm very irritated because I get a few minutes into the game and it totally freezes my computer.  The music stops, the screen freezes where it is, I can't turn caps locks on/off, ctrl-alt-del doesn't respond,

I have never, ever had my PC freeze (completely) from a program or a game. If nothing else, the programmers have sure found a way to lock-up XP! This is a first for me. Re-formatted on the weekend too so my system would be in top shape.

Athon xp 1700+ Ghz  
512 MB RAM  
GeForce 3  
Windows XP  
Detonator XP Drivers 2.9.20  
sb live! (Driver that came with XP)
NTFS file system

HELP!

Is your processor or video card overclocked?

Nope... everything running at default clock speeds (first thing I checked). Lots of cooling too.

Try a re-install of Direct X 8.1 and a re-install of these drivers for your sound card:
http://www.americas.creative.com/support....7&OS=13

The sound loop makes it sound like it's DX or Sound Card related.

You may also want to try the 28.32 or 29.40 vid drivers for the GF3.  Couldn't hurt...

XP has native support of Direct X 8.1
I can't download the file from Microsoft's site
Will the Version of Direct X that comes with SOF2 work for XP? Strange how no other program has these problems (even JK2).

I'll try vid drivers too even though there are many of us with the same problem using different drivers (sound and video)

I'm having a very similar problem in 98SE, and I reduplicated it in XP Pro after playing for a few minutes. Actually, the only difference is that the game doesn't stutter for me at all before it crashes, it plays normally right up until the crash. The first time around I got the game freeze like yours (without the stuttering), the second time the monitor turned off and my machine rebooted in the middle of the game, and the third time I got a BSOD noting an error with win32k.sys.

Seeing as how I have no problems with freezing/BSOD's or anything else with any of my other games and/or applications, I'm inclined to believe that there's a slew of problems with this game. I lowered all the video settings in the game to medium levels, and at 1024x768x32 I still get the same problems. I might try lowering everything to the lowest possible settings just to satisfy my curiosity, but I'd never play the game like that and I shouldn't have to...

Also, in XP I noticed this weird bug in the Colombian levels where about 1 in 10 or so of the ground vegetation sprites are just wacked-out looking. The outlines of the sprites are white, the fill is transparent, and the top of the textures have what looks like bad jpeg corruption (blocky lines with weird colors like bright pink).

System specs:

Athlon TB 1.2GHz->1.33GHz
Abit KT7A-RAID w/ZT BIOS
768 MB Micron PC133
ATI Radeon 8500 64MB Retail (275/275)
Philips Acoustic Edge
2 18GB 10000 RPM SCSI HDs w/AHA-29160N adapter
98SE/XP Pro dual-boot
All latest drivers, DX8.1, etc.

I have to second Xtropy's concerns.  I have a brand new Windows XP system.  Everything is top-notch, name brand hardware with 512MB RAM.  The game is locking up on me and rebooting or totally hanging the system as well.  Activision's standard reply is "run everything at 640 X 480 with 16K color depth.  Excuse my French here - but kiss my A$$!  I spend $2,000++ building a hot rod gaming rig so a company that is content to release flawed code can offer me THAT as a fix.  Please.  ALL of my drivers are up to date.  That was the first thing I did before even coming to the message board.  I just find this ridiculous.  

And yes, I have tried the lower res and the rest of the suggestions offered so far with the exact same result.  I REALLY appreciate shelling out $50 to be a beta tester.  ####, the Multi-player test rant like a champ with everything maxed out!

I am really dissappointed.  What is the use of having all the latest hardware when poor excuses for games like this just kill it.  I've NEVER had a program be able to lock up this system before.  Congrats SOF II...

Oh, and of course, once the box is opened you own it so basically I'll just have to count this as a lesson learned.

Im also getting to my wits end, this game keep freezing my computer(blue screen, total crash). I have updated to all the new drivers listed in all previous topics on the board. I have lowered graphics and sound and it still keep crashing. I even spent 4 hours today totaly reinstalling my system with nothing but this game and the lastest drivers and it still crashes. What do i have to do to get this program working? It will crash during missions and mostly during cut scenes.

AMD 1.333Ghz
386 MB DDR Ram
Geforce 2 Ultra 64mb(Tried 5 diffrent dets including the newest beta ones)
SBLive Plat 5.1(have the lastest XP Drivers)
16x DVD
16/10/40a Plextor
45 gig ATA 100 HDD
Windows XP Home ED(All updated, comes with DX8.1)
Lastest VIA 4-in1( Have tried 4 diffrent ones of these)

P.S. Nothing is over clocked, and my system is not over heating either( i have an air conditioned room).

Yea raven has really screwed the pooch releasing a game this buggy....they should have spent a little more dev time then release it when it runs properly or at all.

All this time wasted dl'ing a demo that locks up my system with a blank white screen at an "optimised" 640x480...

I don't know about everyone else here - but the multiplayer test runs sweet.  The problems I'm having are with the retail version.  I can't get any farther than outside the Praque hotel becuase that scene is where it hangs and/or reboots my system.

Funny thing - the random mission generator seems to work pretty well.  I've only had one of these 'episodes' during that type of game.  Unfortunately, I paid for the WHOLE game...

I'll bet that by the time the patch gets released - Best buy will have the game on sale for $29.99.  I need to realize that patience is a GOOD thing!

BTW - my system specs are:

Athlon XP 1800+ (no O.C.)
Leadtek GeForce III Ti500 (no O.C.)
Asus MB
512MB DDR Crucial RAM
SB Audigy Gamer
Toshiba 16X DVD
9 cooling fans (no overheating exuses, either)
40GB ATA100 IBM Deskstar HDD
Windows XP Home w/ all drivers current as of 5/23/02