UPDATED 9/16/07 gaybar'd

[allisvoid]

so FF is finally out and TF2 and my HL2 decides to stop working. i get to the "Loading..." box in the bottom right on all HL2 mods and then it goes to a black screen. i have tried: installing hl2, reinstalling steam, every possible solution offered on the steam support system from going back to old video drivers, old dx drivers running in window, with no sound, in the lowest res to the highest, different refresh rates, tested my memory, i pass the steam diagnostic tool thang... basically i am clueless and im turning here for ideas. tfc is the only game i play and i cant play ff or tf2 and i've been waiting since birth it seems for each. whats your take? should i just reinstall windows...................?

oh and it was working, played ff for a bit... i went to work, came home and it decided not to. tfc works fine.

UPDATE

i now get this picture after the black screen comes on for ~4 seconds



no its not vista - its a vista theme - i run xp pro and it is up to date

i hear the normal sounds as if it were working correctly

i cannot hear the menu items activating so its not getting to the menu it's stopping before that

funny part is i did nothing it just started doing this... i had been running it in window since the problem started so i don't have to win+d or alt tab

wtfbbq

[Pigeons]

Not the most fun way of doing things -- but have you tried a reformat?

[zSilver_Fox]

SDK Base installed?

[allisvoid]

Originally Posted by Pigeons

Not the most fun way of doing things -- but have you tried a reformat?

im trying to exhaust all ideas before i go to that... though right now its looking like im headed in that direction. im rar-ing all my back files so i can move them to my gfs laptop and then reinstall...

Originally Posted by zSilver_Fox

SDK Base installed?

yep

some specifics:

AMD 64 4000+
1GB OCz PC3200 DDR400 Dual Channel Ram
Geforce 7800GS 256MB AGP