Sometimes I can play for an hour, then all the sudden in the middle of nowhere the game crashes to the desktop, or sometimes it gets all buggy and the graphics screw up. This is random stuff.

Got a ati 9700 pro video card, PIII 800 mhz, 512 mb ram, win 98, gamesurround muse xl scard.

Nothing i can think of, you got good enough system to run it fine, specially with that graphics card. Have you installed any mods, if there is a corrutp one it may be causing it to crash or any other files been edited? Try uninstalling and reinstalling if you have edited files but not sure which (jus make sure you back up your save game!)

nope there aren't any mods, just the game itself.