Weird Bioshock problem.... ATI inside

Previous post I had was about upgrading my father in laws video card....
Turns out, he has an ATI x1300 512 card (not great, but at the time it was okay.)
When he plays Bioshock (store purchased copy, no weird crap going on) it looks (most of the time) like you're running under a shelf. There is no graphical display on most of the screen. So, we take my 4830 (which runs Bioshock no problem) put it in his machine and same thing.
Specs are:
-(recent) 2gb ram from a 768mb upgrade (no change in display)
-3Ghz P4 (ya ya...)
-Some ungodley setup of hard drives and cd/dvd drives and backup drives (I don't even want to know myself).
XP 32
-ATI x1300 512 (didn't matter when swapped to 4830).

I'm wondering if it's a Bioshock issue. I've messed with all settings going from max to least and everything inbetween. He is an 'older fellow' so he has every program ever made running on his machine at all times... I've convinced him to do a clean XP install just to get rid of 4 years (or so) of crap).

?!?!

I'd have to go look at the current version, but I'm pretty sure it's at least 9... (I have issues running Crysis (go figure) in 10 so the -dx9 is my friend)
I'll post back.