Suddenly - games won't load. The only thing I can think of that I have changed or added to my computer in the last week or two has been TurboTax. But suddenly I cannot start BF2, BF2142, or Company of Heroes. All of these games worked beautifully before. An old, old game, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, runs. No other game does.

I have an FX-55, 2mb Patriot ram, ATI 1900 in crossfire, gobs of hard drive space.

Anybody have an idea?

Can't be arsed running a search for what turbotax is....

Anyway what happens exactly and have you done the usual of reinstalling stuff blah blah blah.

On BF2, it will get through the first introductory screenshot, the screen goes black, I can see the screen "flickering" even though it is primarily just black, like it's trying to start, then it kicks me to the desktop.

On Company of Heroes, the game will go through all of the introductory screens to the main screen where you basically pick what map you're going to play, it will get betwwen a 1/3 and 1/2 of the way thru loading the map then it stops and kicks me out.

God I love Microsoft.

If the problem began with TurboTax, you'd be better off sending Valentines to the IRS right now.

BTW, you didn't answer the question about "reinstalling stuff blah blah blah."

Sorry, you're right. I did a complete reinstall of BF2 and it did not help. Since that didn't work, I didn't try reinstalling the others.

If it's TurboTax, maybe the problem will go away once taxes are done and I uninstall it. But it would seem to me that if a program with as much widespread use as TurboTax was causing problems like this, there would be a lot more screaming going on.

Even if no one is able to help me resolve this, I do appreciate the replies. I'm just trying to avoid having to reformat and start over.

That first "blah" would be DirectX. Have you tried reinstalling that? It sounds like your errors are occuring when you game tries to gain control of your screen and switch the resolution, etc. That would be when DirectX is initialized and begins to work it's DirectDraw magic.

My guess is either your DirectX install is messed up, or there's something wrong with your display drivers (the second "blah" ). Run a test on dxdiag to make see if that works and let us know.

I seriously doubt it's TurboTax.

LOL. I roffled.... Do I need an interpretter(sp?) now?

I reinstalled DirectX last night, no help. I also did a reinstall of the software that came with my Dell 30", no help. ( Everything still worked fine after I first hooked up the Dell, so I don't think it's a problem with that. ) I'll see if ATI has new drivers tonight and give that a whirl and I'll run the dxdiag.

Thanks for the help.

Okay, I'll try...

Lol: A spontaneous burst of hilarity-induced laughter that embarrasses the originator in a cubical environment.

Rofl: To stumble off one's chair, as the result of a lol, in a pleasantly-uncontrollable spasm, usually involving violent rocking motions, bizarre leg-lift-like exercises, and the inability to breathe.

So far, no good, eh? Please uninstall previous drivers before installing new ones.

Let us know how that goes.

Sorry for the delay in replying, had to go out of town on business for a few days and I don't have a laptop.

I completely uninstalled all of the drivers and everything else I could find that was ATI related, made some changes in the registry, and then did a complete reinstall. It seems to have done the trick. I still do get randomly kicked out to the desktp on BF2 sometimes, but so far that only occurs on BF2, no other game.

I still don't have any idea why my system seems to have just changed seemingly overnight, perhaps that just one of those little Windows mysteries. You go to bed one night and everything works, then the next day it doesn't.

I greatly appreciate all of you who offered your help. Thanks very much.

lol see my sig.