Radeon 8500 in D3D games crashing to desktop, Cat 3.2

[alkemyst]

I have a Radeon 8500 128mb and have started actually gaming with it....Serious Sam 1 will crash to the desktop immediately if I set Direct 3D, OpenGL works perfectly.

I have seen various rumored solutions on USENET, but not much of a general trend except the Radeon cards don't like older D3D games and to use OpenGL.

Anyone know the solution and the penalty if any by using it?

Thanks

Chris