Performance issue with ATI X1950Pro AGP?

[nievkNYC]

I really would like to play this game but I get no further than 5 mins before my screen goes black and I'm forced to hard reset.

The window's App event log shows two events that it attributes to kb.exe
Basically the game stops the Windows Desktop Manger from restarting once it crashes.
First event is
"A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (kb.exe)"

Second event is:
"The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because composition was disabled by a running application"

Then there's what looks like a crash event"
Fault bucket 477082114, type 5
Event Name: RADAR_PRE_LEAK_32
Response: None
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: kb.exe
P2: 0.0.0.0
P3: 6.0.6001.2.1.0
P4:
P5:
P6:
P7:
P8:
P9:
P10:

Bought the online Atari version, updated to 1.6.5
Vista Premium, all the latest patches
Radeon 1950 drivers 9.1
updated November DirectX
Quad 6600 , 3GB RAM
I even tried setting the process affinity to 1 CPU, no luck.
I sent the dxdiag.txt to support and didn't even get an auto-response.

UPDATE: I since heard from Support and am going through a series of a suggestions.