Heres a little something a figured out a few weeks back and was meaning to post it for those who are having problems running newer games.

Windows XP does not install AGP texture acceleration by default when installing Direct X. If your video card is capable of those you are losing a tonne of performance without this option.
To check run DxDiag and choose the Display Tab. You'll notice three boxes mid screen, Direct Draw, Direct 3D and AGP Texturing. If the last one is grayed out, you don't have it.
Here's what you do. Download the latest VIA 4 in 1 drivers from Viaarena, but don't run it right away. Extract all the files to a seperate folder first, and then run the Setup.exe under Windows 2000 compatibility. This will install the necessary drivers to allow DX8 to use AGP Texture Acceleration.
It goes without saying to disable AntiVirus first and this only applies to Windows XP and VIA chipsets. Hope this helps some of you.

Not that this will make any difference but XP uses Direct X 8.1
You can also download the 4 in 1 drivers at www.guru3d.com/files/via/

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Damn those VIA chipsets - whoops, what a giveaway ;) - we must assimilate them all!!!

Yeah - what he said - sounds like a smart guy to me ;)