Half life Episode one and 2 (graphics problems)

Ok guys I'm a little slow to play PC games ... i was killing doom, duke nukem, quake 1-2, team fortress back in the old school days and got side track but now im on too half life 2..... ( beat the first one a few years yonder)



So I built a new system and I'm running vista 64 with the HD 3870 from ATI....

When I play Episode 1 and 2 , I get these annoying polygonal lines that are white.... I can post a screen shot but basically It will be normal game textures then like a rock or a piece of wood is just outlined in the polygonal shape (transparent and just white edges) sometimes that is just in one spot or it's in multiple spots.... I've tried all sorts of settings but can't seem to shake it.... Team Fortress 2 plays great by the way... Also I get these checked patterns of some objects that are colored in pink and black ( like a checker board.) No im not smoking peyote... At least I hope not....


The graphics are fine in FEAR and 3D Mark so I know it's not really a hardware issue.....


Thanks a bunches

I had very few glitches with my 1950XT in FEAR, certain papers and such, the textures got all scrambled. Thought it was just an ati/driver issue.

In hl, i know there are some issues with AA and HDR. Not sure if HDR was in hl2, but as i recall the 1st version with hdr (ep1?) has issues with aa+hdr. Turn one of these off, it may solve the problem.

found the problem ! you have to go to each game and click validate game files integrity or whatever the option is when your right click on the game...

This takes a few minutes to validate all the game files.... It actually downloads some new files and it works fine after that... no more checkered pink and black squares and invisible rocks with white edges...