The following is taken from
NBA Live Series Center Forum Index -> Gripes ->
Error Starting Live 2003...
hot-pot wrote:My two cents:
If the game won't start (ie nothing seems to happen, or you get a brief black screen but immediately get dumped back to your desktop) the most likely culprit is your PC's video card situation.
Make sure your video card is supported by NBA Live 2003
Make sure you have drivers which fully/properly support Direct3D
Last but not least, make sure you have MS DirectX 8.1 installed
How can you find out if your drivers support Direct3D?
As long as you have MS DirectX 8.1 installed, you have the "DirectX Diagnostic Tool" at your disposal. Launch the diagnostic tool by: [Start] - Run - Type "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and click [OK]. On the "Display" page, you'll see the "DirectX Features" box - make sure that "Direct3D Acceleration" shows as "Enabled". If it doesn't, you either have a video card that isn't supported by NBA Live 2003, or you have a valid card which happens to be using old/crappy drivers. Update your video card drivers, re-install MS DirectX 8.1 and you should be all set.
If you can't even install the game (auturun.exe/setup.exe won't run) then you most likely have issues beyond just the scope of "installing NBA Live 2003"... Windows ME perhaps?
Double check that you have MS DirectX 8.1 installed and that your drivers support Direct3D. The newest nVidia drivers for your card as of today are the
XP v40.72 drivers. I know for a fact that the v40.72 drivers for Windows 2000 have minor issues with certain games, so if you experience anything odd with the XP drivers, you may want to also take a try at the
XP v30.82 drivers.