I'm having some issues at the moment with my graphics card.

I have an ATi Radeon 9600 Pro, and whenever I try to load a game that requires DirectX 9.0c it just opens then closes itself.

I ran the dxdiag tool and it got through DirectDraw fine, then when I try to do Direct3D every single test just fails. It's quite an old card, but I dont want to have to buy a new one as I don't play many games on the PC anymore.

This has been an issue since I got the latest drivers before I reformatted my computer about a month ago. So I'm thinking it might be the ATi Catalyst 7.1 drivers, but I just want a second opinion.

The games that won't open are:

Hellgate: London (Beta)
Half Life 2
Counter-Strike: Source

Hellgate is one that's really puzzling me, the 9600 Pro is a pixel shader 2.0 card, yet when I try to start up hellgate it's telling me i'm not meeting the requirements.

Thanks for any help people, really appreciate it .

Just a slight nudge to make people aware that I've uploaded my dxdiag files now.

update your video card drivers?

Does the catalyst control centre not update the card drivers?

well if you're using the 7.1 drivers, then no it doesn't

But the current Catalyst/Driver set available from Oct 11 '07 is v7.1?

Maybe just try the driver download rather than the package software

sometimes a simple uninstall/reinstall of drivers can work wonders

although if that fails, replacing the graphics card may be the way to go.....it could simply be knackered

Tried reinstalling without Catalyst, downgrading, getting the 7.9 drivers etc but nothing seems to work.

I really don't want to dish out a load of cash for a gpu, it just doesnt seem worth it anymore .

Hellgate is a very new game and according to wikipedia your GPU is the minimal supported

Requirements     Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1.8 GHz(XP) or 2.4 GHz(Vista) Processor, 1GB RAM(XP) or 2GB RAM(Vista), NVIDIA GeForce 6200/ATI Radeon 9000 chipset or greater, 6GB Free Hard Drive space, DirectX 9.0c compatible sound, Internet Connection required for multiplayer

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

the latest is 7.10 we've been through .1 -> .9 already, maybe you got this muddled up (easy to do)

There are new DirectX for nov out now too http://www.filehippo.com/download_directx/
DirectX 9.0c (Nov 07)

If the tests still fail even after using previously working drivers then it doesn't sound too good. Can you email the manufacturer for support? Also, if the card needs additional power running to it make sure it's connected.

I guess you could test it in a friend's computer just to be sure it's your card and not your actual setup/windows.

Thank you Ahmad, I will contact Asus directly, I'll see if they have any drivers required to download as it's manufactured by them. All the others need to begin to read posts correctly.