For what ever reason the initial graphic settings in the Prefs.ini cause all sort of problems with my ATI graphic card.

Elemental Start Screen

1. Load Screen/Game start screen - can't Alt-tab and  hides all sorts of messages like your firewall telling you the Elemental.exe want's to access the internet or Display Driver failed to initialize, etc. For each new release (new .exe) I have to edit the Prefs.ini file to windowed mode to see why the game won't start.

Check Boxes for video options

2. I have to turn off all of the check boxes in video options to eliminate graphic issues, graphic options should be off, not default to on. Having them on seems to cause all sort of graphic issues.

Video Texture Settings

3. I have to lower the default texture Settings otherwize clicking on any new screen once a game is started (Research, Unit Design, etc.) crashes the game.

see http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8105715/DX_Error_Elemental.zip for a copy of my Dxdiag and Prefs.ini files.