Thanks for that write up, first I've seen on the seemingly random mid-game crashes and not on load/title screen crashes. Checking BIOS stuff was further down my list since it's what fixed my crashes with my previous laptop. Was something to do with the fact that it "could" overclock (even if it wasn't actively overclocked) was causing a complete system crash and restart, it was weird and only on the first pass of graphics cards for that laptop. I just dislike doing moderately risky stuff even though I know I won't mess up when reading a guide.

Windows memory test came back clean. Going to try a BIOS update next and then the memtest86, when my job lets me be home.

And got it with the directX nomenclature. I forgot there was ever a DX9 version and that's how they distinguished the two executables.