Despite the bad press that this game has received, most, and I mean most of the problems can be avoided by setting the pc up so that the game can run on it.
I have played for countless hours, both locally and on Gameranger with a tiny number of problems.
If you want to see most of the solutions in English and French :
http://www.hitenter.co.uk/tvt
It will be a shame if this games bites the dust, it really is good, and in multiplayer mode it is totally addictive.
Rob G