[kafka]

This is a recent problem. Sometimes (not always) when I am playing Age of Empires II the game screen disappears and instead I get a black rectangle in the top left hand corner of the screen. At the same time the cursor disappears. I can bring back the game by pressing Control, Alt, Delete then clicking the cancel button. The problem will then return at random intervals for the rest of the game.

When I have this problem I run Advanced Windows Care and Glary Registry Repair which fixes the problem for a few hours. I can tell when the problem is going to arise because I get flickering lines across the screen.

[muckshifter]

I can tell when the problem is going to arise because I get flickering lines across the screen.

I would check graphics' card for overheating, does it have a fan?

Make sure you got the latest drivers also.

[kafka]

According to Intel I have the latest driver. I'm not sure if my graphics card has a fan. Can I tell without opening the box?

[muckshifter]

Originally Posted by kafka

According to Intel I have the latest driver. I'm not sure if my graphics card has a fan. Can I tell without opening the box?

err, probably not, unless you have a case with a side window and your graphics card will not be Intel. The only one they ever made was a complete failure.

There is usually only a couple or three screws that hold the side on ... http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading...ase-covers.htm ...

Is your PC a "branded" contraption, like, Dell, HP, Comcrap, godforbidaMac ?

[kafka]

After uninstalling and re-installing Age of Empires II then running Spybot and removing all the malware the game ran without a problem for a week or two. I thought I had solved the problem but it has returned! This time I got an error message saying "Could not initialize graphics system. make sure your video card and driver are compatible with Direct Draw".

The game has worked for years without a hitch. What is Direct Draw? Do I need it? If not, how can I get rid of it?

[kafka]

I uninstalled DirectX 11 by deleting a line in the registry (as advised elsewhere) then downloaded DirectX 10. After restarting my computer I ran dxdiag and found that I still had DirectX 11, however since I did that the problem has entirely disappeared and doesn't look like returning.