Direct X error message

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I'm trying to play are you smarter than a 5th grader-make the grade by THQ. The following error message comes up:

1) "Failed to find appropriate format!"
and
2) The DirectX Device could not create a 648-480 32-bit window. Make sure your device settings are correct.

What does this mean, and how do I fix it?

what's your hardware configuration?

I have a Lenovo T-61, if that's what you mean...

Game System Requirements: Windows® XP/Vista, Pentium® IV 1.2 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 32 MB video card, DirectX® 9.0, DirectX compliant sound card.

The T61 has an Intel GMA X3100 integrated chip for graphics processing, wich only supports up to directX 8.0. Computers with integrated video are rarely capable of playing modern games, even the not so demanding ones.

*head explodes*

Then why WAS it working originally? O.o

have you tried reinstalling directX? or the game

did you change the settings since then? If so, try re-installing.

i don't know if the setting have been changed since I sent the computer away to tech support for another, unrelated (hopefully) issue.

An unpleasant thought, but there have been instances of "tech support" places that "harvest" hardware (graphics cards, sound cards, memory, hard drives) out of customer's machines. Sometimes with the excuse that "they were broken".

I've done that myself, in a sense, when I discovered that a friend had put a graphics card in their machine, when in fact the on-board graphics were better than the card! I needed a graphics card for another machine, so I "stole" it. Actually, this was done with that friend's full knowledge and permission.

So... is their a chance that you had a graphics card before your machine went to tech support, and you haven't got it now?

(They might have genuinely made a mistake - removing non-essential hardware to track down a problem is standard practice. They could have taken out a graphics card, sorted out the prior problem, then forgotten to replace the card.)