I'm not really sure where the problem comes from to be perfectly honest. 3 times out of perhaps 30 or 40 attempts have I managed to get to the first real map in the game (i.e. gotten past the tutorial) and while I do "appear" to be able to play longer at lower graphical settings, one of those 3 times was with settings/resolutions at what I would call optimum settings for my rig.
To avoid being acused of being a slacker I just tried you suggestions with the "-dxlevel 90c" and with doubled up paging file of 4Gb and both them at the same time but it makes no difference.
If by substituting the mm.exe file you mean Steam vs. Retail then yes. I have bought the Collector's Edition and just last night - after finding out that the patch didn't do anything for my problem - I uninstalled the game and downloaded the Steam version overnight to try again from scratch but the problem remains with no discernable difference between the two versions.
The funny thing is that I've never experienced a similar error in Half Life 2, CS
ource or Bloodlines, yet it rears its ugly head within minutes every single time I try to play Dark Messiah. Somtimes I only manage to hear the opening dialog:
"Master Phenrig. Where are you?"
"I'm here Sar..." *CRASH*
and other times it is not until the very end of the tutorial where you're praticing combat that it decides to go belly up and, as I said, a few times I've managed to see the beginning of the "real" game ... almost as if it can sense when I'm nearing the brink of giving up and just before that happens it leans forward exposing just enough cleavage to keep me rooted in place waiting for more but the damn tease always sit back up straight again hiding the goodies ... that hussy