right sussed it out now got new gfx card but still did the same thing.so did what u suggested Alwrmc. Tadaaa got it working,turned out to be firewall(mcafee) .but heres the weird part,when firewall was switched off for some reason it automatically blocked the program thinking it was trying to access the internet even when not connected,but it was'nt notifying me of this fact.So I tried setting the program to allow on firewall and everything works fine now.
If anyone else has the same prob and they have Mcafee firewall try that.
Many thanks to all who helped and forever grateful for pointing me in the right direction.
the game runs like the proverbal dogs b******s now
P4 2.6
Radeon 9800 pro + Artic cooler
1024 ram
win xp home