I don't have the time to read the 1000+ posts so if someone has already mentioned this then forgive me for posting it again.

System Specs:
Athlon XP 1700+(No heat issues-Huge HSF 7000rpm)
SIS 735
CL SB live Value w/latest drivers/win98se
ATI 8500(retail) w/latest drivers/win98se
512 mb DDR Micron sdram
Win 98se
*Rock solid until now

My problem: my system tends to crash at different points in the game. I can play for an hour and then boom it crashes. Then just as easily I can just start a new game and 2 minutes into the game I get a crash. I have tried fiddling with the video settings to no avail. When it crashes the screen pops up with multi-colored vertical lines and the system is totally unresponsive(must hard boot to get out).

This is the only game that I have ever had a problem running on this rig(built 6 months ago) and I buy a new game @ least once a month.

If anyone has the same rig and got it to work I would love to know what your video settings(in game) are + the video settings in your OS properties.

BTW, when it does run properly I have good frame rates @1024 x 768 and it looks/sounds great.

Try these beta drivers for your Radeon:
http://www.3dchipset.com/drivers/beta/ati/4137206/win-9x-me.shtml

Let me know if that fixes the error.

No issues like that with my Radeon system.  Running XP Pro tho.

Thanks Ken for the linkage but I cannot seem to download off of their site. Whenever I click on the link to download it, it sends me back to the main page.

The drivers that I am using now are the 4.13.01.9031 which are the latest drivers by ATI.

I am just going to try and use the original drivers that my card shipped with and see if I have any luck with that.

What kind of cooling are you using?  I've had to improve my case cooling since getting my Radeon 8500 as it is VERY sensitive to heat - no RAM heatsinks, puny chip cooler, and running really close to tolerances.

Rage3D distributes a tweaker that has preset tweaks for many popular engines and games:

http://www.rage3d.com/radeon/r3dtweak/

I have a very similar system (XP 1700+, Radeon 8500, 512 MB) but I run on Win2k.

Is anyone having trouble with loading the levels?

It seems to stall really bad during loading the maps and the skins for the first time. Once the map loads, I can reload the level after i die in 5 seconds.  I think it has something to do with raven software, because it happens to me on JK2 as well.  However MaxPayne and MOHAA load really fast.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

 cens  

Hardware:
=================
shuttle Ak31v3.1
amd Tbird 1.4
radeon 8500
512mb ddr
pci512 sound blaster
====================

I think thats kinda by design, they spend alot of time loading up everything for the first time. Then after that they have it all cached for fast access.
I get the same behavior in SOF2 and in JK2. Im perfectly fine with it since it only takes seconds to load again after I fall of a cliff or get blasted, etc etc.

As for the specific radeon problem, I had the exact same problem. And it happened in any busy 3D game. Specially when it seems to happen when the action started to pickup.
#### it was even happening in CS and we all know how stable that game is.
I ended up returning it and paying a little extra for the GF3 and I quite happy I did.

Everything works great with my Old(shipped with card) ATI 8500 drivers (4.13.7191) now.

I guess there are some problems with the new set drivers 4.13.01.9031 for win98se?

It works great though with my old drivers, I have been playing @1280x1024 with good frame rates and no slow downs @ high detail. Looks great too. Not one crash for at least 2 hrs. I hope I don't have one in the near future


First time I have ever had to use old drivers to get a new game working.


For that matter, its the first time in along time I actually had to struggle to get a game to work properly on my rig.