I remember the microcomputer era (I had an Amstrad CPC 464) and some games lasted up to 15 mins to load, and sometimes it failed in the last minute. I really hated it, totally frustrating. Young guys don't know what is to wait for a game :)

LOL, good times, and bad at the same time! I had to pierce my tape recorder with a hot nail to be able to reach the azimuth screw, the Spectrum was so fussy! But when I was already spoilt by the PC cozyness, I eventually decided to make an upgrade also to shorten Myth's load times. And now I'm even considering to buy a console again, my last one was the Intellivision, for the times Windows gets screwed and I want to play but I don't want to bother fixing that darn sorry excuse for an OS.  

At least it's better these days than spending hours editing autoexec.bat and config.sys files whenever you install more hardware ytring to claw back your memory .  Modern gamers don't know they're born!  A hardcore gamer is one that spends hours staring at text files trying to eek a extra couple of kilobytes of memory while still keeping your soundcard or CD drive working.  All without the use of the internet to Google other peoples answers.  I shudder even today when I see the Tie Fighter Collectors CD in my PC games collection.

ROTFL! Although my first own PC after the Spectrum was already with Win 95, before DirectX3, and, much better, DirectX5, DOS games still were the majority, some times I had to edit those darn files too. But while the web was still poor, compared to now, usenet OTOH was thriving, so I had a huge advantage compared to BBS or no connection at all times. DirectX5 was really a milestone for Windows gaming. My current trouble is messed up CD and DVD drivers, so that I can't play games that require the CD inserted and haven't no-CD patch available. I strongly suspect some game's copy protection system.

I love Directx and can forgive it for killing OpenGL for the simple fact it makes playing games so much easier .  CD and DVD should use standard drivers in Windows, perhaps look at updating your motherboard chipset drivers which will install new IDE controller drivers with any luck.

Thx, I'll check again, last time I did they had still the old ones for my mobo on Asus site. I fear a malfunctioning copy protection program corrupted them each time I repaired them, though, as the drive was recognized again for a short time even copying generic drivers from the Windows CD, just to stop working correctly shortly after, and it's not faulty HW, under Linux it reads and writes correctly (although this Samsung is fussier with some blank CD-Rs than the Sony I had before). I preferred OpenGL too, but I can't deny since version 5 MS did a good job with DirectX.