There is no need to turn of directdraw! Plus, when you turn of direct draw acceleration in dxdiag, the game still slows down after a while and then crashes with the same error (my experience)
I have a P4 3.2 GHZ with a geforce 6600 256 mb (directx 9.0c) By the way.
What seems to do the trick for me is to simply run the game in compatebility mode!
Windows 98/ME mode did the trick for me!
In August of 2004, Zappi, Homba, Bambam887, RedScorpion and MOOXE all pitched
in to create this Close Combat site. I would to thank all the people who have visited
and found this site to thier liking. I hope you had time to check out some
of the great Close Combat mods and our forums. I'd also like to thank
all the members of our volunteer staff that have helped over
the years, and all our users that contributed to this site!