Okay, apparently lack of hardware acceleration makes FS start in "safe mode" (software acceleration). But how does it make this decision? Is it also related to any card's video memory?Here's the situation, and it's not quite the usual one. Dell laptop, Windows 2000, 1GHz with ATI M4 chipset. FS runs great on it, but I wanted to try undocking the instrument panel to display on a second monitor.So I got a Margi Display-to-go 4MB PCMCIA (Cardbus, actually) video adapter. It works find, desktop extended, etc. Dxdiag says M4 working fine. BIOS set to use M4 as main display. Latest drivers.But! When I start FS, it complains of no acceleration and goes into safe mode. I figure it could be a couple of things. The Margi card is only 4MB. It is unaccelerated 2D. But that shouldn't matter to FS for the panel, should it? Heck, FS shouldn't even assume that I'm going to use the second monitor for anything... or does it?Does a second monitor card have to be of some minimum capability for FS to use acceleration on the main card?Thanks for any ideas...Kevin

Press start, run..., type dxdiag, OK. Let directx diagnostic stabilize. Check which version of directx you are using. I recommend updating to 9.0a.After it stabilizes, check to see if you have two display tabs, each cooresponding to one graphics card. If so, check to see that the card with the 3d capability has the DirectDraw, Direct3D, and AGP accelerators (if AGP) enabled. Test the functions.Do the same with the other Display tab.Restart fs2002, select settings, display, hardware tab, and check the "Enable Hardware Acceleration" checkbox on the card that has 3d capability. You can try the hardware acceleration on the other card and see if it will enable.

Just wanted to say "thanks!" for the encouragment, and the info about dxdiag showing both video cards. Didn't know that!Dxdiag reported no hardware acceleration available for my main video card after I plugged in the external card. It also showed that my audio had stopped working.Turned out I needed to do two things: first, update my audio drivers (what the heck?!) and second, plug in the PCMCIA card before booting. The latter is apparently not a requirement for other laptops.Thanks again, all works well. So I think I'll hold off getting DirectX 9 for now. One thing I've learned with Microsoft systems is to stop while you're ahead .Kev

>Thanks again, all works well. So I think I'll hold off>getting DirectX 9 for now. One thing I've learned with>Microsoft systems is to stop while you're ahead .:-lol How true this is ;-) But seriously, DX 9.0a is a huge step forward, I don't think you would regret it.