If you experience program crashes when running Equisim there's a very good chance they are caused by bad video drivers that run your computer's video card.

Version 3.5 "proves" this. It has an option to "Force Software Rendering". The short answer is that, if you see crashes when you open race cards or run simulations, try flipping this option on.

The long explanation is this....

EquiSim's simulations use OpenGL, an Application Programming Interface for working with 3D graphics. OpenGL is implimented in one of two ways on your computer: either in Software or in Hardware (actually, a combination of hardware and software). The Software implementation is much slower than a hardware implimentation -- but it allows one to use OGL on machines without specific hardware support. When you use the "Force Software Rendering" mode in EquiSim, it should bypass any 3D hardware accelleration delivered by your video card. If the program can run its 3D graphics stuff in software mode, but not in hardware mode, guess where the "bug" is? Yep, in the hardware driver.

-Nathan