Problem with Textures, Shadows and DirectDraw

Taire

Hey everyone, I've been trying to figure out what happened to my PC recently because the two games I have on it have suddenly started displaying crazy textures, shadows, flickering colors and other seemingly video-related problems.

I first noticed this happening while playing The Sims 3, but it also happens during my L4D game, so I'm assuming it's not just a specific game issue but a hardware or driver issue.

I've updated my GeForce 8800 GT twice, once through Driver Detective because it said I needed it, and then a second time [after uninstalling it] straight from the nVIDIA site. This problem suspiciously began the same day nVIDIA came out with their brand new driver [186.18] but it didn't happen after I installed, I had gone looking for driver updates in an effort to solve my graphic problems, so that seems to be out.

I've tried Windows Update, a DirectX update, Defragmenting, Virus scans, Spybot scans, and the games still give me crazy "spikes" of colors, shadows and textures. I've read people in other threads suggesting rolling drivers back to "more stable versions" and haven't tried that yet, but my last driver was present when this problem occurred, and even the latest driver still hasn't fixed it, so I'm not sure that's quite the solution. While testing my DxDiag I got a Failure message in "Step 5" for Direct Draw that you'll see as well, hopefully that'll help someone who knows what that means lol.

I also noticed that by turning down or off any Shadows/Anti-Aliasing the problems seemed to lessen or nearly disappear. I'm not sure if that means I should just stick to playing at decreased settings as I'd solved my own problem, but with my hardware I'd hope to continue playing at my usual settings if possible.

I'm running Windows XP 32bit with Service Pack 3, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+, 182.18 nVIDIA driver, latest DirectX 9.0, and a 512MB GeForce 8800 GT as I said.

Here are a few screenshots of what I've been seeing, as well as my dxdiag:
Spiked Players
Random colors/flickering shadows/textures
DxDiag




EDIT: In continuing to test solutions I rolled my driver back to the 178.24 version and had just the same results, with an extra freeze/Ctrl-Alt-Delete crash as No Mercy 1 began, just after the Helicopter flies and I got into my character's 1st-person view. More of those spikes appeared shooting off from things. Does anyone have any ideas?

Iggy

According to your dxdiag information, you are currently running your resolution at 1680. Try dropping it down to 1024 or 1280 and see if it helps.

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How To Post Your DXDIAG Information

Can You Run It?


Minimum Specs:

Processor: 3gHz single core/2.0gHz Dual core
RAM: 1GB/2GB for Vista
Video Card: 128MB with support for DirectX 9.0c
and Pixel Shader 2.0 (ATI 9600/GeForce 6600 or higher)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

Steam Ports to be opened:

* UDP 27000 to 27020 inclusive
* TCP 27020 to 27050 inclusive

Dedicated or Listen Servers

* TCP 27015 (SRCDS Rcon port)

Taire

Thanks for the reply Iggy and sorry for my own being late but as it turned my motherboard was beginning to fail and I had to send it into HP for the repair. Should be returned to me Monday, though I'm not quite sure the cause of the problem.