I've been all over that s@#*
http://www.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDHomePage.aspx
The newest ati drivers are actually pretty neat. Massive performance increases and everything! Got to be worth a try....
See it occurred to me - the hardware accelleration mode of Hammer likely uses the hardware within your computer.
And seeing as you have told me yourself that you never use your computer for gaming then it would make sense that your drivers aren't up to date. I mean they release new drivers every couple of minutes nowadays. And they release these "updates" to operating systems also.
Maybe thats why I never have any real problems with these things - I recognise the fact that I have to take it upon myself to make sure that I am using the correct tools for the job. I cannot entrust this task to Dell or Hewlett-Packard, they frankly suck. Taking value from the end-user product at every possible turn.
So seriously, if you are serious about mapping with an editor which works well and has all of that magical texture locking stuff which makes it about as easy as Lego bricks, then atleast try installing the latest drivers for your GPU. If that doesnt work then fine, stick to the manual and time consuming method, I'm sure its no big deal.
But its got to be worth a try hasnt it?
If you have some kind of horrible OEM GPU in your box then I'm sorry, I cant offer any advice other than dont buy hardware from these big firms who dont give a c@#p about their customers (HP grrrrr.....)