Direct3D: D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE

[virgali]

I'm getting a weird error that prompts me to shut the game down It first happened yesterday, I've been playing AL for a while and this never happened before. Untill yesterday and now. I was playing a residential lot with 6 household sims, 3 visitors and a butler when it first happened. The 2nd time it happened even faster under the same cirumctances minus the butler this time.

I don't have an error log yet since I'm going to replay the lot again now but it said something like this: "Cannot find DDR3D the program will now be shut down".

Sorry about the vaguenes of the post I'm going to the lot again and check if I can reproduce the error.

Edit: Ok I got the error again. I couldn't get in debug mode to make an errorlog though I tried to take a screenshot but that mysteriously failed too. It said Direct 3D is giving and error. That's all I remember unfortunately.

Edit 2: Finally I got it again and I wrote it all down: "Error Direct3D: D3DERR_NOTAVILABLE! Will proceed to terminate program"

So anybody here that could help?

P.S The error was written like that, in all caps.

[Madame Mim]

A very short google search says update your drivers, ensure your directX is compatible and then (if these don't make the universe all warm and fuzzy) start worrying about the health of your video card.

[virgali]

Silly I never thought about googling it! Thanx a lot. I've grown weary about updating my drivers (I used to do it all the time) since an incedent where the update caused everything to crash and made my pc make noices I've never heard before.

I was concidering buying a new pc when I figured I'd just uninstall whatever it is I installed that night before going to bed and voila! Everything worked just fine. It wouldn't surprise me if my videocard is exhaling its last breaths tho.

Edit: Ok, I updated my drivers and I'm having evn bigger problems now. Everything flashes and then disappears. I got an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE. Is there anybody else who uses this videocard? What drivers do you use for it?