Dear Jan ,
I am like your son is A vivid Gammer on here myself . I love my 3d Graphic games my Shockwave games and Just about any other non violent game under the sun that you can think of lol .
I too was having the Same freezing up problem As your son is having When I was Playing the More newer games and Even the shockwavegames too.
Come to find out It was not the Video cards drivers at all. But your Physical Memeory (aka RAM). I started out w/ 128 MB of Ram here in my Gateway when I first bought it. But soon discovered that Wasnt enuff To pull the "stuff" that I was needing to pull in here . So I upgraded once to 512MB of ram . Still it wasn't enuff. (considering that the XP alone take at least 128 MB to run it, Norton System Works Atleast another 64 to 100 MB of Ram, and so on )
And YOu have to take into consideration that For the newer and more powerful games , like your 3d vidieo Games, Require more system resources and in Turn require more Physical Ram to operate them .
Now What I done I took my system back in for the @nd memory Upgrade. And That Time I bumped the RAM Up to 784 MB's of Ram. Now Since I have bumped the Memeory Up to that Level , And Have set the Windows Virtual Memeory to 1282 MB of Ram . I find now that I dont Have no Probs , W/My 3d game playing (by the way some of those newer 3d games requires separate "gaming" drivers, which is separate and different from Video Card Drivers. ) Or anything else that I do on here Such as Run and Operate My high Speed DVD Player, or Listening to my "tunes" As I play my 3d Games.
Im trying to explain this to the best that I can and from my expereinces that I have had w/mine . k lol. For All that Fancy Techinal Jukus lol that a puter dummy like me doesnt understand , Ask the Nice Folks at www.pcnineoneone.com They are very friendly there and more than willing to help . Great People there.
I hope that this has help you out to some extent.
Denim:7