age of empires - directx

My folks computer is having the strangest problem. They had Age of Empires loaded onto their machine and attempted to load Age of Empires 2. The problem was that their computer only has 16mb of ram. (Compaq Presario 4506). Therefore the game returned an error message saying that 32mb of ram was required.
So I uninstalled AOE2 and reinstalled AOE. However it now returns an error message that "the graphics system could not initalise" - pointing to a compatibilty problem with the grahpics card or/and driver with Directdraw...even though it worked before.
I've reinstalled the graphics driver, sound driver, checked DXDIAG for conflicts (none listed) and directdraw test was ok. Also I've downloaded a later version of directx (originally v3...now v7) but the error message still returns. Other games that use directx work with no problem...indicating the game.
Its obviously a problem with the game itself and i was wondering if anyone was aware of a fix before i go into the registry and get the butchers knife out!!
Thanks

Steven

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Originally posted by Triple7's:
As strange and simple as it may sound, many games will give you that error if your color\resolution is simply not set correctly for the game, check the game specs. Also, according to MS, DX5 is required (actually specified) for the game. Some games simply will not function correctly on other versions of DX. I know you said DX3 was installed before but stranger things have happened. Anyway, DX5 will be on the game cd. Unfortunetly, you can't "downgrade" DX so removal of version 7 would required first. Play with the resolution first and see if you can get it going. Here are a couple of MS articles concerning that game and error message.

Good Luck!

AOE Err Msg: Could Not Initialize Graphics System...:
http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q198/6/10.ASP

AOE: Error Message: Could Not Initialize Graphics System:
http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q179/9/20.ASP

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Thanks Triple7,

I've already tried playing about with the display settings..and have tried different versions of directx (remembering to remove current version..of course!!).
I've looked at the KB articles and there's a suggestion of trying to access the game from a different route. Funnily enough I've only tried starting the game from autorunning the cd...also i haven't tried the monitor thingymajig on the taskbar so i'll give those two a shot...fingers crossed.