hi, i've installed splinter cell pandora tomorrow on Vista enterprise edition. the diagnostics indicate all necessary h/w are in place (green tick marks). however, when i start on single player mode, i get the following error "splintercell2.exe has stopped working. windows is checking .." and the program aborts.
can someone pls help me.

What are your system specs?

Freezing during check can sometimes be caused by antivirus.

DELL Laptop, with the following specs:

System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model XPS M1330
System Type X86-based PC
OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Enterprise
Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz, 2001 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A12, 7/8/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6001.18000"
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 1.99 GB
Available Physical Memory 1.04 GB
Total Virtual Memory 4.21 GB
Available Virtual Memory 3.04 GB
Page File Space 2.28 GB

What is the video card/chip? Is it the Nvidia 8400M or the Intel GMA chip?

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile Report


Report Date: 05/01/2009
Report Time[hr:mm:ss]: 09:39:03
Driver Version: 7.14.10.1253
Operating System: Windows Vista (TM) Enterprise* , Service Pack 1 (6.0.6001)
Default Language: English
DirectX* Version: 10.0
Physical Memory: 2037 MB
Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB
Maximum Graphics Memory: 358 MB
Graphics Memory in Use: 132 MB
Processor: x86 family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13
Processor Speed: 1995 MHZ
Vendor ID: 8086
Device ID: 2A02
Device Revision: 0C


* Accelerator Information *

Accelerator in Use: Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family
Video BIOS: 1588
Current Graphics Mode: 1280 by 800 True Color (60 Hz)



* Devices Connected to the Graphics Accelerator *


Active Notebook Displays: 1


* Notebook *

Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Display Type: Digital
Gamma Value: 2.20
DDC2 Protocol: Supported
Maximum Image Size: Horizontal: Not Available
Vertical: Not Available
Monitor Supported Modes:
1280 by 800 (60 Hz)
Display Power Management Support:
Standby Mode: Not Supported
Suspend Mode: Not Supported
Active Off Mode: Not Supported


* SDVO Encoder Report *

** Encoder 1 **
Vendor ID: Silicon Image
Device ID: 174
Device Revision: 0
Major Version: 1
Minor Version: 2

* Other names and brands are the property of their respective owners.

That may be why. You don't have a real video card. You have a video chip that leeches RAM off of the system memory.

There is a slight chance it MIGHT work if you try it at the lowest possible graphics settings for the game. Graphics chipsets (not actual video cards) share memory with the system and on a game it is often too much for the system to handle so it either freezes or kicks you out of the program entirely.

The other problem with chips is that they have software shaders and not hardware shaders.