Games crash on my GeForce FX 5500 256 mb - Help!

[Angel Eyes]

Just got a brand new PC with the above graphics card and was eager to try out some of my older games (Max Payne, Jedi Knight 2 etc) with souped up graphics. But the games flicker and freeze as soon as I get to the title screen and I have to Ctrl+Alt+Delete to get out of them. I have downloaded the latest drivers from Nvidia and have tried re-installing the card, but it is all to no avail.

This is really frustrating me.

Please help!

Thanks

 

[zephead]

do your games have a safe mode option or a way to set the video settings without causing said lockup?
if so, start disabling features such as lightmapping, shadows, skidmarks. you will have to experiment a bit but the idea is to find the offending setting by process of elimination.

 

[Angel Eyes]

Thanks mate. I tried lowest detail on one of my games but it still doesn't work.

 

[zephead]

disable some advandced features, especially shadows, reflections, and skidmarks.

 

[Angel Eyes]

You're never going to believe this. Whilst browsing the net for help with this problem I stumbled upon someone who had compatibility problems with his onboard soundcard. I tried disabling my onboard sound, then tried running one of the games I was having problems with and....it worked! Perfectly! The graphics are at all their highest settings and the game is super smooth but, of course, now there's no sound.

I think the best way to solve this would be to buy a soundcard and ignore the onboard one. I never would have thought sound would have affected the graphics.

Hope this helps others with this problem.