I've recently used Steam to download New Vegas and every time i try to load it it comes up with the error message "failure to initialize renderer"

Could really use some help on this please

Here is the (practical, not Pie in the Sky) game requirements. Your error happens most often whe n you do not understand these or ignored them:


Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 Single (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD 64 (or equivalent) running at 2.0Ghz or greater
RAM: 1 GB or more
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space
Video: ATI Radeon X850 256MB or greater (this is clearly wrong)
NVIDIA GeForce "6600 GT" 128MB or greater (and this one is more wrong)

(Note: IMO, the practical choices for the two video cards above should be the Radeon X800 Pro, and the Geforce 6800 GS, at least, for small textures - it will take a Radeon X1650 XT (or X1800 GTO, same thing, almost) for medium or better textures)

INTEL'S GARBAGE (Graphics Chip) IS NOT SUPPORTED

Preliminary diagnostic information

First, however, what have you learned using the forum's SEARCH tool?

After failing to learn anything substantive that way, since PCs are not *anything* at all like game console systems, it adds another dimension to a question. That may not be news to you, but many noobs come here for help who have no such idea at all. There is literally almost nothing that is truly a "standard" between various branded PCs, making the game developers' jobs very difficult, and requiring that warning labels be attached to game boxes for any games with serious requirements.

Please fill it all in.

Basic Hardware Specification Chart (Empty so far)

Processor Manufacturer: AMD / Intel
Processor Name / Type: Athlon X2 / Pentium D / C2D / dual core / quad, etc.
Processor Speed: ?.? Ghz
Operating System / Service Pack: WindowsXP with SP #?, Win7, Vista ? (Oh, no!)
System RAM: ? ? GBs (MBs, if less than 1024 ? )
Video (GPU) Manufacturer: ATI / Nvidia (only those two are supported, PERIOD, so please answer which of them you have)
Video Card Model: (examples) Radeon HD 5670 / Geforce GT 240
Video Card Driver Version: Catalyst ?.? / Nforce ??.??
. . (please use the numbers, not the word "latest")
Video Card onboard RAM: ? ? ? MBs
Sound Card Manufacturer:
Sound Card Model:

(And this is only for the raw hardware & driver variations. Potential software conflicts are far more likely to be game play problems, and developers cannot test for all possible program loads.)

P. S. Please use every day business style paragraph breaks, punctuation, and spelling.