"Hardware Driver Error"!

[Haljackey]

Hello everyone, this is the first time I've ever had a problem like this, so I'm not too sure weather or not this belongs in this area of the site.

Nevertheless, I have run into a "Hardware Driver Error" when I run SC4.  A box appears below and SC4 discontinues running:




More information:
-It then later assumes to run SC4 with the software renderer, but will not engage the hardware renderer.  Has anyone else had this problem?  I am not sure how to get it back to hardware.
-The "Hardware Driver Error" states that it cannot initiate Direct Draw. Would anyone know where this file is and how I should go about "initiating" it?
-This just happened to me today. I have not had this problem or any others prior to installing SC4 back in 2003.

If you need more information, then let me know!  I'm assuming that my Graphics card shouldn't be a problem because I haven't had a problem with it until now!

Any feedback is appreciated, and I thank you for your time!

Best,
-Haljackey

[Masochist]

Hmm...the only time I had that problem was the VERY first time I installed SC4 back in Dec. '05.  I had just gotten my first computer from a pawn shop, and it told me that because all the drivers on there were gone.  When I updated all my drivers, that message went away...

So maybe it's a driver issue of some sort?  That's my guess...almost certainly wrong, but just a guess...

[Haljackey]

Masochist: Its possible.  I just reinstalled my graphics card and downloaded the latest version of DirectX today.  I was hoping that may solve my problem but so far it hasn't.

The main cause is the "Direct Draw" application.  The error says it cannot initiate the program.  I am doing some online research about the problem, but so far, nothing has turned up.   

Thanks a lot for your advice though! I will continue to check and update other drivers and see if it solves the issue.

[callagrafx]

Run the DXDiag program in your Windows/system32 folder.  Any problems with DirectX will show up there.

[Haljackey]

callagrafx: I did, and it solved my problem!
-It was disabled for some reason.  Once I did the tests, and it checked out, I decided to run SC4 with the hardware renderer.  Everything is back to normal! 

Thank you so much!
-Haljackey