Thanks for the thoughts, guys. I've got a fixed swap space of 1.5GB on this machine (with 1GB of memory), so I'm not inclined to think that's a problem. I can't believe I'm into the swap area (and Windows doesn't show me being there, either).

I am running in Win95 compatibility mode. I'll try it in Win98 mode tonight; can't hurt. I'll probably try the patch, too.

Last night, I didn't have to worry about it freezing when I exited -- it froze long before [img]smile.gif[/img] I was going into Valeia for my last level-ups before calling it a night, and it hung at the gates. Windows was still alive, though, so I was able to kill it.

Fortunately, I'm in the habit of following Mamma Hissy's advice, and I saved just before going into town :D

More news later...

Win98 compatibility mode failed utterly... couldn't even load a savegame. Shut down all processes (including Spybot, ZoneAlarm, AVG, and every other protective thing) and it ran successfully. Still hung when shutting down, but at least I could alt-tab out to Windows and kill it.

I may try the patch tonight (or maybe not), and I may need to look into the video drivers or DX 9.0B again. I suspect it's video-related.

I don't think swap file is problem.
I'm using 1.5 G swap and I have 1G memory...

Touhgt I haven't run game in 95 or 98 mode...
( If XP prof. don't change mode by it self,
I haven't force it to change mode. )

Try DX 9.0b before patching.

Even the patch didn't help... so tomorrow or the next night, I'll do as Olli suggested and bust back to DX 9.0B. I think I've got an install executable around here somewhere...