CS:S problem

[kaltag]

howdy, I've got myself a bit of a problem with CS:S it seems. Everything was working fine and dandy on my old machine. Sold that machine and copied the steam folder to external drive and coped folder back onto new but slower machine. Everything works beautifully for a few weeks. Someone makes me a ridiculously sweet off on THAT machine which I accecpt and move to current machine (specs below). Copied steam folder once again just like before but now when I try to run the game I get this error:Failed to set video mode - resetting to defaults. Game will now restart with the new settings
It tried three times and gives up and tells me I don't have a direct X7 compatible video but I do and it's the exact same card from the second system. This was on a fresh install of windows. Ok so I wipe the folder and just download the steam installer thinking something got b0rked from copying it. Wait 3.5 hours to download everything and I get the exact same error! Ok, maybe the copied version screwed up something in the registry. So I reload again and just run the steam installer which takes another 3.5 hours. What do I get but the same error AGAIN! Now I'm a bit mad and accept defeat and I'm hoping someone here has/has seen this problem before. And before anyone asks I do have the latest directx and latest Nvidia drivers and latest mobo drivers. System is not overclocked. Thanks for any advice you can give.

System specs:
2.53 P4
MSI p4mam-v mobo
512DDR PC3200
Geforce 3 ti 200 (also tried geforce 4 mx440)
XP home

[apu318]

Does that mobo have onboard video? If it does, make sure you have it set off in the bios so that your AGP card is the primary display device. Is it just source that gives you this issue? Or does HL2 or CS 1.6 give you this problem? If you can get into the game using the software video rendering mode, screw around with the resolutions. Also, it wouldnt hurt to try using old video drivers. This is kind of crappy advice, so I suggest you go make a post on the steam forums. Or do a search. Theres tonnes of posts so I'm pretty sure you'll find a thread with your problem.

[termin@tor]

I had the exact same problem. I think it's a bug with the nvidia drivers. Which ones are you using?

Try turning AA and AF to "Off" and Vertical Sync to "Application-controlled"
I believe that worked for me. You could also try a different set of drivers. For that kind of card, I would try the older 4x.xx drivers. Newer drivers are pretty much only for the top-of-the-line cards. Once the next generation comes out, the last generation of cards become "outdated" and nvidia doesn't really care about whether their drivers work with the older cards or not.

[Drec]

ugh i just installed xp pro and got the same problem, someone figure it out...

[kaltag]

Problem solved! It is an issue with the latest Nvidia drivers. Installed an older version and problem cleared up :). THANKS FOR THE RECOMENDATION :D

[Drec]

well now i can play CS:S but not BF2 ahh..