Half Life 2 graphical problems

Hello there, this is going to be my first post on this cool looking forum.

I just recently (as of a week ago) received my brand new Dell XPS 410 that has a GeForce 7900GS, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB Hardrive, and it also runs Windows Vista. I went ahead and installed Half Life 2 and Steam (the installations went smoothly) and when I decided to play Half Life 2, I wanted to put it on the highest resolution. The highest resolution for my 20 inch widescreen is 1680 x 1540 and the highest resolution for Half Life 2 is well below that. However, when I go ahead and place the game at the highest resoultion, a quarter of the screen gets covered in small holes. I have no idea why. Can somebody please inform me what steps I can take?

Also, I heard there is a 500 MB patch out for Half Life 2 that is made for users of Windows Vista, does anybody have the link to it? Thanks a bunch in advance. 8)

No, on lower resolutions there are no graphical problems whatsoever. As for trying to describe the holes....that's a little hard. If I can I'll try to get a screenshot of the game and post it so you and others can see what I'm talking about. But for right now, what I mean by holes are like small black dots covering a small percentage of the screen. I've talked to other people about it and they've concluded that it may be with the GeForce drivers having problems with Vista. Ah, and thanks a lot for informing me about the updates.

Yeah I'll try to get a screenshot soon as possible. A guy from Best Buy Geek Squad said there was a 500 MB patch out for Vista users and I've been trying to find it ever since. Yeah, I am waiting until the first service pack comes out for Vista to correct these problems. I mean, I hope the problem can be corrected because I would love to play this game on higher resolutions.