While working with Blender, my mouse cursor disappears when I move it down to the buttons. This is very annoying as I have to wait for it to reappear before I can tell if I’m close to the button I want to click. Why does it do that, and how can I fix it?
Change your hardware acceleration settings.
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What operating system? What graphics card?
Well, I haven’t tried changing the settings yet, I’ll do it. I’m on Windows XP, although I’m not sure what graphics card. Whichever one came with the computer I guess Lol it’s an HP, does that mean anything?
it means you need to get the latest video drivers
and possibly turn off the mouse shadow in the mouse control panel (the tab with the cursors)
thanks for the tip. I turned of the shadows, and voila! works like a charm now. Hmmm… methinks my pc is crappy and needs upgraded though Lol 
Oh well, at least I can see the mouse now.
No, it’s not your PC. It’s just that the person who invented mouse cursor shadows needs to be shot (just like the person who invented gradients on buttons 
Well, even though I’ve fixed the mouse issue, another one has arisen. My comp runs blender very S L O W L Y. I click a button, 3 seconds later the button depresses. I can hardly work with it. 
I need a better video card, I think…
My friend’s computer is brand new, and holy crap! I can actually do stuff! Now, I never thought of my computer as old (bought in 2001), but this is just ridiculous!
He’s waiting in line after the person who invented obsessive and frustratingly annoying whining and complaining 
What I want to know is, is there any way to speed up my computer, short of getting a new video card (or computer)?
find the bottleneck(s) and fix them
you haven’t said much about your hardware btw, but here is what I assume
some intel chip
windoze xp
probably a 5400rpm hard drive (ide, slow), 20Gb?
you really need to upgrade your graphics drivers if you haven’t already
also, a faster hard drive can make a surprizing difference to a computer’s response time for pretty much everything. As can more ram
blender runs better on intel cards at 16 bit color
getting a new graphics card (geforce 2 mx cards are like $30 I’d imagine) will certainly help, even if it is pci
Like I said before, I’m not sure what kind of chip it is, but I do know that I got windows xp and a 33GB hard drive. Also, how do I upgrade my graphics drivers? Do I have to get a new chip?
oh geez, thank you once again Lol. I turned it down to 16 bit, and once again, you were right. Wow.
either you go to hp’s site looking for drivers
(probably pretty painful, and you are unlikely to get the latest ones, but the ones you get from there may work better if hp has changed the hardware any)
or, you find your chipset (display properties should say what kind of graphics card you have drivers for currently) and get the current ones from intel’s website
(also pretty painful, using google is almost a requirement)
I click a button, 3 seconds later the button depresses.
ati-card? (just guessing…)
Ulli