Running a single-core AMD processor, older 7600GT nVidia card, 1gb DDR2 RAM....
Using WinXP Pro SP3 and all the latest drivers/updates for my hardware, I can run Fallout 3 just fine, COD 1, the expansion, COD2, COD 4, etc.
A simple game like Sins of a Solar Empire? Upon startup, as soon as the title credits are over, my machine, for whatever reason, will freeze up SOLID and require a hard reboot to fix. Same deal with even MUCH simpler games like World of Goo (look it up, we're talking ~1997 type graphics) and similar will freeze it up.
Stranger still is that Fallout 3 will run either windowed or fullscreen, but that the other games seem to not work at all - it seems more of my games work when windowed.
What should I look for as the root cause of this issue?