Hi! Can someone help me?
I've got a PIII @733MHz, 256M sdram, some pretty old material (Jul2000) but running quite well under XP SP2. It had a riva tnt2 32M, but it can't run some of the newest games (e.g. rollercoaster tycoon3).
so, i've bought a radeon 9550 128M and got it installed with the drivers that came with the board.
now, the problems:
the system is very slow, computer keeps freezing (stop and goes all the times), sometimes it restarts, sometimes "recovers form serious errors", sometimes gives a "nice blue screen" with some kind of dump and problems reported on ati2dvag
however, it doesn't give (almost) any error while playing RCT3.
I have MUCH more problems while doing some normal things like using outlook, word, explorer, etc.
I looked at the "CPU usage" and noticed lots of peaks, and a average usage of 50% while doing "nothing" (i.e. just looking at the task manager...)
So, that's what i've tried:
1. downloaded catalyst 5.2
2. removed ati drivers with add/remove
3. restarted computer
4. updated drivers using the install program from ati
5. restarted computer...
ang got the same problems

So, I unistalled the drivers again, and currently i'm working with default drivers (Standart vga mode?), no problem whatsoever with outlook, word, excel, explorer, etc,... and NO RCT3...

The guys from the store told me to try installing the windows framework (is it the .net framework?) and the other catalyst 5.2. (the one that requires it). I didn't try it yet, because it does not make sense to me, and i'm not sure about the framework thing...

Any ideas?

You should install .net on your computer anyway. Both ATI and Nvidia will be building their drivers to work with .net in the future. Several different kinds of applications require it now anyway.
As to the card, given the fact that it is a PIII, is the motherboard a BX board? If so, it may be that your AGP slot cannot support 4X and might only emulate 2X at best. If that is the case, it is surprising that the board is running at all. They still make cards for the PCI slot to work with older motherboards and work just about as fast as some AGP cards.

I'll give it a try... and post the result later.
All I can say about my M/B is this description:
M/B 586, azza via-694 p133
(came with receipt when bought)

The via-694 chipset supports up to AGP 4x, btw.

I believe the following link is what you have:

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/legacy/pro133a/

It uses the VT82C694X Northbridge.

'course, I've been known to be totally wrong.

I checked the bios: it has agp-4x enabled.
it also has:
agp aperture size: 64M
agp driving control: auto
agp fastwrite: disabled

should i have a different aperture size? or anything else different?

Basically, AGP aperture size is the amount of memory you allow the video card to take from system memory, after the video card uses up all its memory.

Setting it at 64M is the norm. Increaseing it, may or may not help.

Well, finally I tried again.
Downloaded .net framework
downloaded catalyst 5.2. control center
installed it all.
restarted the computer...
and there it went again:
cpu usage always over 50%, and mostly around 100% (freeze...) while doing "nothing" (only task manager)
I didn't wait until ati2dvag gives problems, but the sympthoms are the same as before.
so, I unistalled the lot, and here I am, able to use the machine again...
any suggestions?

Okay, try this....

Remove everything ATI. Then use either the ATI removal tool (which may be on your ATI cd). Or download the Driver cleaner http://www.drivercleaner.net/

Use the drivercleaner to remove any ATI and NVIDIA (riva tnt2) drivers you have or use to have.

Reboot
Install just the ATI drivers. Don't install the control panel. So, you should be able to do a custom install.

hi can any one help me i hav an ati radeon 9600 pro and it keeps on frezing and i dont no how to stop it plz can some 1 help me

Try using this driver:
DHzer0point
Go here
http://www.hwupgrade.it/download/file/2421.html for Dhzer0point Catalyst 0.5.8
http://www.hwupgrade.it/download/file/2350.html for Dhzer0point Catalyst 0.5.6
I am using Dhzer0point Catalyst 0.5.6 now. I have had some problems with my card GeCube 9550 Infinite gu
While playing a game the image was freezing or i was getting this message:
the video card stoped responding to the driver command (somenthing like this). Now the image makes a flick from time to time (in puts the game in the menu bar an then it puts me back in to it) but no more crashes.