the first few cutscenes in the beginning of the game run fine. when it gets the point where it shows the man reading his diary and the caption says "6 years earlier" or some such, the graphics blink furiously. from there the blinking continues, so much so that it hurts my eyes. what do i do?

For obvious reasons, stop the game and don't try to continue watching through the blinking.Use the cutscene-skipper to skip the intro of the game, you can configure it in the custom keys menu.If that doesn't work, let the intro pass, but don't look at the screen, it only should take a few minutes to get through the intro.Also, what are your computer specs?

If I am understanding this issue correctly, then I think I've had this problem as well. It was so bad that I had to call Dell and figure out what in hell was wrong wit my computer. The screen would "matrix" (meaning that it would turn into the famous falling numbers screen known from The Matrix), except it wouldn't have falling numbers. It just looked very glitchy and pixelated. It also was in like 20 different colors. It turns out that by playing DCotE somehow fried my video card, and now I must get a new one. I looked through all the system requirements, and it seemed that my old card fit the requirements. I can't give my specs because I can no longer turn on my computer (right now I'm using somebody elses laptop). However, I remember that I had 256 MB of RAM, and that I met a couple of the other requirements. So I really don't understand why the game destroyed my video card, and now I have to purchase another one. In your opinion, what would you say was the issue? I know I haven't provided enough info, and I'm sorry about that. Do I need more RAM? I probably should know these things before I buy a new card so I know what exactly I should be looking for.Thanks if you can help!EA