I seem to be having a problem that many other people are having. I bought FS2004 yesterday and I am yet to get past the splash screen. I have updated my video card drivers and my sound card drivers along with downloading DirectX 9.0b off of Microsoft's website. I have deleted the fs9.cfg file and tried the no cd patch. It installs without a hitch but ALWAYS hangs at the splash screen. My System:Athlon 1.1ghzSB Live!Nvidia TNT2I-Will Ka-266RAli Magik chipset256 MB Crucial DDRANY help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Do you have Norton Antivirus software installed? If so, try uninstalling it from your computer, retry fs2004. If fs2004 works, try reinstalling the Norton, and see if fs2004 still works.W. Sieffert

A few entries to try....In the display section of fs9.cfg, try adding these entries:RenderToTexture=0TextureAGP=0PanelAsTexture=0If they don't work, try adding this last entry:Stencil=0I also have to warn you that FS2004 will be using all of your memory that's installed on your system. If you have any RAM chip that's marginal, FS2004 will catch it....Also, make sure you have installed all appropriate patches and updates for your motherboard. You mention upgrading video and sound, but no mention is made of your MB...John

And no mention is made of your OS. Because you have not mentioned this, the advice can't be specific, but you have to be sure you have your personal documents (ie "my documents" in Win9x) shell extension correctly installed and also that your Internet Explorer installation is not broken in any way. If either of these things are at fault, or you have manually moved your personal documents folder, then these will cause the splash screen hanging.