Developer Forum

I am running a DOS program on Windows XP-Home. When I
switch to full-screen, the program hangs. This does not
happen when I install the same software on another
computer which is also running Windows XP-Home.

Can anybody help?

I installed a 16MB VGA Card but the problem is still the
same. After that I installed service pack 1a but still
cannot solve the problem.

What other factors should I check? Tks.

graphics card that
having it's own
only be resolved

Does the computer on which it hangs happen to be using a graphics card that
shares memory with main the main system memory instead of having it's own
memory. If yes, I suspect that is the issue and it could only be resolved
by installing a card with its own memory.

16MB is nowhere near enough. You are talking about an operating system that
is extremely graphics intensive before you even consider playing games on
it. To run XP minimally, you need at least 32MB and ideally you need 64MB.
If these games are graphics intensive, you probably need to consider a card
with 128MB and base system requirements of 256MB of ram for the main system
memory.

You might try turning off all system graphics and see if you have any better
luck though even with the setup configured for best performance, I doubt a
16MB card will provide much help. Open Control Panel, open the System
Applet, go to the Advanced tab, click Settings under performance and select
"Adjust for best performance" and click apply and ok. This will turn off a
lot of the system graphics and MAY help but given the underlying
requirements of XP, it probably won't be enough. Nonetheless, it's worth a
try, if it works even in a limited fashion, it's still an issue with the
graphics card memory.