Thanks Morgan, that did the trick!!.. hats off to you!
On a side note I was also having issues with the most recent version of Adobe flash (10.3) crashing my machine, Minimem took care of that issue as well....
**edit** I find Minimem allows me to use higher graphic settings i.e set to high WITH atmospheric shaders, Lighting and Shadows, Ambient occlusion and "shadows" Sun/Moon + projectors, and still maintain a reasonble frame rate.. woot !!!