[free]

I thank you two.....WillowIx and
Bungleau
for your help.

what I probably will do is to install into software mode.

Yes, i have done all that....defrag, no background...etc..etc...
I have a Gainward "golden sample" 450 geforce3 vid card. directx 8.1.
fairly late drivers, certainly later, by far, than the game release date; *that* could even be a problem!
anyway....as i say, i did not ever "crash"! upon leaving the towngates, only once in a while would the system just hang up where the mouse hourglass curser just ticks ever onwards...
only happens when i do some changes to the stats in the characters, even with only three of them. the more trading, the more chances of hanging up.

but i had gone into the cypts and back out and in again and town to cypts and out and in: *Probably* not a "codec" issue!

the only other thing that might be causing it is that i ran the game in
1078 X [?]700 resolution, with my 19" monitor, at 32 true color.

so.
*would* it help to run the game in hardware mode with , say, 800 x 600, or even 480 by 600?!!

I have lots of ram...356 worth.
lots of hd space.
a 1000 meg fixed swap file.

My athlon, even with the athlon bridge patch, that was applied, is "supposed" to be a bit flaky transfering files!!

My own diagnosis has to do with something about the file transfers when i, say, buy ten items and sell 4 items, taking 20 minutes of carefull pondering for the best deal, and then lock up: what a d...r...a...g : kills the game for me, this does! but there Should be lots of room, for this file transferings!
so maybe the resolution could be a factor, but i do not want to spend there days changing resolutions either: probably will just run it under software mode.

i recall someone saying that sometimes the hourglass is suppossed to "run forever"...but five minutes?!! *could* it be just that, that i need to let the hourglass run ten minutes, at the gate, after much town activity?!!
---not a good game program design!

thanks...freestone