... I have always run in to this problem...
MB,
I have to disagree with the others here. The message
"CFS2 HAS ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM" is generally related to a hardware hiccup when it occurs during heavy action. Having been in your spot before on a lesser machine, your comment (above in bold) sounds very reminiscent of some frequent past problems with memory leaks and processor loading. I surmised that the machine just couldn't handle the rapid loading and processing of all those intense effects as the action heated up. Complex (or even improperly formatted) DP's that come with add-ons can cause these messages on lesser machines. Moreover, background programs can sometimes add to system loading and resources availability, especially AV/firewall security when it tries to scan every single file that the sim calls up on the fly (an easy fix - just set the AV program to ignore everything in the CFS2 folder and its sub-folders).
My problems greatly diminished as i continually upgraded the critical components of my previous old rig piece by piece, i.e CPU, video card and memory modules. On the surface you seem to have sufficient hardware, but as i learned, just having
adequate types of hardware and memory capacity sometimes doesn't cut it. There are just times when you need the better grades of such equipment for handling the heavy loading. After many useful upgrades to the old girl, i finally just built an entire rig with high end stuff and that settled it for good.
Your old Dell probably has a scalable motherboard which means you don't necessarily need a brand new computer, just gradually upgrade to a newer, stronger processor, better gaming-quality memory and maybe even a higher end graphics card - all compatible with your old motherboard of course -
as your budget allows. These components can always be purchased piecemeal at bargains if you do some shopping around and don't try to get the latest, greatest thing. But a warning here: i once made the mistake of upgrading to a high end graphics card that i presumed was indeed compatible with my mobo, according to specs, but turned out to be another source of trouble in CFS2. So be extra careful in mating the new parts.
One thing i know from experience, if this is an ongoing error message that you get in almost any intense combat scenario regardless of location or objects used, tweaking sim objects won't help. You have a system related problem in graphical processing. Short of hardware upgrades, you could also try going into the sim's SETTINGS and reducing image quality and scenery density, but the trade-off is obvious. But in the long run, you'll still need to sort out the communication between your sim and your hardware configuration.
