Sid Meir's Pirates!
 

I know this game has been out forever but I just picked up a copy tonight. Looks great, plays well, but its crashing left and right. I've tried updating drivers, modifying settings, I got the 1.02 patch.

I believe the problem is with the sound, but I can't prove it as the game locks up in no specific spot at any given time.

Any items you guys found with this game that I might be able to work with?

I've got a Dell with 512 RAM, on board audio and video (was a pretty basic machine a few years back)

I've never had this much trouble with ANY game, let alone an older one like this. Any suggestions would be helpful. I really love the game and want to enjoy it!

Love the game, am tired with it now but my 8 yr old son still plays it every weekend (but no dancing for him). Have a Dell 4700 with 512MB, XP, onboard video (recently upgraded to 6600 card) with onboard sound and have played Pirates with minimal crashes and a little video anomalies, nothing major ... you system should work also.

I did not do anything with sound but I think the one tweak I had to do was Hardware Acceleration under Display --> Settings --> Troubleshoot. Acceleration is probably set to Full, change it to None or the notch just after None.