Rome TW LAN

[simmons]

I am having a problem with Rome TW, its to do with LAN i can play the game perfectly in single player really smooth, but as soon as i click on multiplayer then LAN it just freezes and i have to shut down my comp manualy! i had the some prob with command and conquer generals, and fixed this by taking the hardware acceleration down one mark, but this doesnt work for Rome TW.
does anyone have any ideas why its doing this?

comp specs:

Pentium 4
3.06ghz
512 ram
ATI 9600 PRO Radeon
Windows XP home SP2

Thanks in advance

Simmons