well i changed from the most recent diamond drivers to the Aureal and Nvidia reference drivers
 
 ... in the process i realized my DirectSound was emulated, not hardware, so i disabled that accelleration. henceforth QuakeII would work, when before it wasn't working either. So i feel i have made progress on the display/sound drivers issue...
 
 however, now my joystick is playing up. well, i mean that around 80% of the time, X-Wing Alliance says 'joystick not connected', and won't let me proceed. If i do get through to the game, i get the same crash-to-desktop error as before. I have a weird combination gamepad/joystick from Radioshack. 
 
 Is there a joystick-troubleshooting procedure?
 Should i re-install XWing, now that i changed drivers?
 
 ta
  
 
  
  
    What are your system specs? What operating system are you running? Have you checked the game controller settings listed under the control panel? 
 
 D
  
 
  
  
    Another question - which make/model of joystick is it? I'm trying to get a grasp of your setup. :)
 
 D