Halo Graphical Glitch?

[Xatticus]

I've got this bizzare problem. It involves Halo, when I installed it, it worked fine until a few hours ago it gave me the problem of "DirectDraw could not be initialized, please check DXDIAG" so i reinstalled my DirectX and installed the latest graphics drivers, now when I play, this happens

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a122/NeoSamanosuke/halotear.jpg

My specs are as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4 GHz, i may be off with the model number but the speed is correct)
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe Motherboard
EVGA nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS
Corsair DDR2 800 RAM 1 GB (2x512mb)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer Edition

any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[VBDude]

A couple possibilities:

Did you uninstall your old graphics drivers before installing new ones?

Have you run DXDiag yet and run its DirectDraw & Direct3D tests?

Are any other DirectX apps experiencing problems?

Your description was a little vague, but did this error occur while you were playing for an extended period or just one day when you started it up?

Have you tried reseating your video card (yank, blow, plug & push)?

 

[Xatticus]

1) No, I've never uninstalled old graphics drivers, i've just downloaded the latest version and installed them and they work fine.

2) Yes, both and they ran through them all with no problems

3) This is the only one of my games that is experiencing problems (well except for Steam but that's more of a connection issue than a graphics issue)

4) This is a brand-new rig i've built (about a month ago) I have not moved it since I built it.

But this is a problem that just started up, it hasn't been a lasting problem.

 

[VBDude]

I couldn't tell what you were answering in #4, but if you were reffering to my suggestion to reseat the video card that really doesn't have anything to do with moving your PC. A lot of parts come lose or experience bad connections over time.

For example, a month ago I installed a brand new video card in my system and a few days later my system would occasionaly boot without video. I pulled the card out to try reseating and discovered a ball of fuzz on the cards connectors. Removing that solved my random errors and my card has done great since. (Thank goodness!)

My suggestion to you was simply to remove the card and insert it again as a lot of random errors are solved this way.

It's always good practice to uninstall old drivers before installing new ones. NVidia even recommends that you never do otherwise.

Have you tried reinstalling Halo or patching it recently?

 

[krisz]

With the 88xx cards you will have graphical problem in Halo. It is a driver error. I am getting the same thing in single player mode. I have an 8800 GTX. Try Splinter Cell Double Agent demo you will see even more of the weird artifacts.

 

[Cybercraig]

I just installed Halo last night. Things go fine till you load up a game. Play for 15 seconds-FREEZE_ for 5 seconds. Play for 10 seconds-FREEZE- for 5 seconds. With an A64 and a 6800-O/C I have no problems in any other games. Halo seems to hate Nvidia cards with anti-aliasing turned on. I'll try some different drivers tonite.

 

[krisz]

I just installed Halo last night. Things go fine till you load up a game. Play for 15 seconds-FREEZE_ for 5 seconds. Play for 10 seconds-FREEZE- for 5 seconds. With an A64 and a 6800-O/C I have no problems in any other games. Halo seems to hate Nvidia cards with anti-aliasing turned on. I'll try some different drivers tonite.

I think yours is a whole other issue. It sounds like overheating to me. Did you check your temperatures while in game?

 

[VBDude]

Thanks for the tip, krisz.

 

[Cybercraig]

It's not playing long enough to get hot krisz. You can't play it for five minutes without this happening, yet play HL2 or Quake 4 for hours. Doesn't make sense.

 

[krisz]

Hmm well did you try to search on google to see if someone else had this kind of problem as well with the same setup as yours ?