Are all of your games working except this one? If so, a general axiom in my experience has been there will always be one game which inexplicably breaks, though all others work fine. Be careful you aren't polishing the walnut staircase while the rest of the house burns down around you.

Otherwise, if you're OK to proceed, try the following (ordered from least harmful to most risk):

Try setting your display to 256 colors and then run the game. (Perhaps try setting it at 640x480 and 256 colors; normally you shouldn't have to do either, of course)
Try an earlier Nvidia driver; 45.23 seems to be the most recommended around here.
Do you have the SiS Chipset/AGP drivers installed? If so, remove them; if not, install them. Or maybe a different version might help.
Try uninstalling DirectX and reinstalling with an earlier version of 7.0a, 8.x, or 9.oa or 9.ob or 9.oc (there are many releases of the 9.0c track. Here is one such DirectX removal tool: https://www.cherubicsoft.com/dxremover.html

Thanks for the ideas. All other games I've tried so far have been working, although I have a lot installed that I haven't tried yet. I think my directx 9.0c came with Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. That is one of only two games installed that needs a 9.0 version, the other being Myst V.

I tried setting the desktop to 640x480x256, and downgrading the nvidia driver to 45.23, and downgrading directx to 8.1. I used dxeradicator to uninstall 9.0c then installed 8.1 from my Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project retail disc. I ran dxdiag to verify version 8.1 and ran the directdraw + direct3d tests successfully. MC still freezes before the main menu displays if DirectDraw=true in the prefs.cfg file. I tried running the directx6 installer from my retail MC1 disc, in case it has some necessary bits that are not included with 8 or 9, but it just says it doesn't have to do anything.

Try lowering the RAM to 256MB (A reach, but something to at least eliminate).

Do you have any older/alternate video cards to test in place of the 6200?

GeForce 5200 and nvidia driver 77.72 could be a problem. People tend to use some in the 4x.xx Region cause it worked better maybe try it?
Have a nearly similar system here will try it the next days myself...if i can somehow repeat the problem with my 5200

Thanks for the new replies. Meatball, I don't have any smaller ram sticks to swap with. The only way I might be able to try that is with XMSDSK. I have a Radeon 9250 that I used to use in this machine. I don't remember exactly why I replaced it but I think it had to do with performance. It would be a couple of days before I have time to swap it for testing.

Peter.Mengel, I am now with the 45.23 driver and still having the problem. If you can try it would be great. Thanks

Just tried the Microsoft MC Gold release on both my 98SE machines:

Athlon 2600+ w/ Voodoo5 : No problems

Xeon 3230 w/ Radeon 9800 Pro : No Problems

I know it doesn't help much not having an NVidia board, but I'm using the latest DX9 install with both builds.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-08-08, 00:42:

Just tried the Microsoft MC Gold release on both my 98SE machines: […]
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Just tried the Microsoft MC Gold release on both my 98SE machines:

Athlon 2600+ w/ Voodoo5 : No problems

Xeon 3230 w/ Radeon 9800 Pro : No Problems

I know it doesn't help much not having an NVidia board, but I'm using the latest DX9 install with both builds.

Thanks, I think that does tilt the pointing finger closer to the gpu and/or driver. Before I attempt any more driver versions or swapping a video card I want to make a backup of my C: drive.

Hi, guys, I just had a chance to swap video cards to test. The game works with the Radeon 9250, and when I swap back the problem returns.

My FX5200 and Radeon 9250 are both PCI and have 256MB DDR ram. However, the FX5200 is 128-bit and DirectX9 while the 9250 is 64-bit and DirectX8.

I wanted to try uninstalling the nvidia control panel applet and system tray utility, then install only the driver without the extra utilities. But I can't find an uninstall tool, and in Control Panel the only nvidia thing is the driver.

Edit: It turns out I was mistaken in my original post and the driver version was 45.23 all along. I just tried installing the 77.72 driver and now it works!

Well a bit to late, but i could try it out i had smaller flickering Problems with my FX5200 128bit while my FX5200 64bit did run fine. Both Zotac Cards, Both PCI!

Thanks Peter.Mengel. Good to know. Which driver version are you using? Mine was locking up with 45.23 but finally worked with 77.72.
I like Zotac's cards 😀 My FX5200 is PCI and a PNY Verto.

Dracolich wrote on 2022-08-18, 17:17:

Thanks Peter.Mengel. Good to know. Which driver version are you using? Mine was locking up with 45.23 but finally worked with 77.72.
I like Zotac's cards 😀 My FX5200 is PCI and a PNY Verto.

43.45 and 45.23, weird part is the 128 Bit does weird stuff always on older games. But Imroves Speed in Newer games.