Azhura

My specs are a Pentium 4 3.20ghz processor with a little over 1 gig of ram. My graphics card is an ATI Radeon Viper 1650 Pro.

I downloaded DirectX10 for Windows XP and my graphics haven't been the same (in a bad way) ever since. Immediately after downloading it Bioshock ceased to start. I frantically searched for a way to uninstall DirectX but there was none. I ended up going to the registry and deleting some .dll's related to the fix. After doing this, Bioshock started up normally, however, later on I found out my DirectX had been damaged.

It started when other games started showing up very crappily. I'm talking about games I've played before. Here are some samples of C&C 3: Kanes Revenge that look absolutely blurry





I played this game before and the graphics were extremely pristine, now they're blurry as hell.

I started out on my quest to fix DirectX by attempting various uninstall methods that didn't work. I finally found a program that uninstalls it and reverts your computer to DirectX8.1 using your Windows CD. I then had trouble upgrading from DirectX8.1 to DirectX9.0c, however, I did get it to upgrade to DirectX9.0b. At that point, it still wasn't getting to version 9.0c. I finally found a fix that involved swapping around setup .dlls to get the setup to update correctly and I now have DirectX9c which checks out perfectly fine on dxdiag.

Even with DirectX9c apparently up and my graphics drivers updated (yep, checked those), I am still getting the blurry graphics.

I've checked other PC games that I've played in the past like Spore and did notice that even in Spore the trees, creatures, ships, etc. had a blurry haze and were not sharp or as refined as before. I downloaded the DirectX10 for XP/Alky Project from http://www.technospot.net/blogs/down...-alky-project/

If anyone could investigate what that actually does or how I can reverse it, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, if you can tell what's wrong w/ my system through looking at those blurry graphics, I'd appreciate any info you could provide as well.

I know it was dumb of me to download the mod, but I had read a lot of success stories below in the comments under that blog. I am wondering if the alky project edited my system files because I do recall it extracting some things into a windows or system folder, not sure. I know it's not a virus, as I've heard of people actually getting it to work.

I don't know if the Alky project is still somehow on my computer (doesn’t show up in searches). I know that when I tried to play Bioshock, even after I deleted some DirectX .dll's, I still got a little "Alkylog" generated in the folder, even when the game would start up successfully. So I'm wondering what is actually generating that log, and how can I reverse all this? Is a reformat my only option?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

blah789

If the version you installed didn't come with an uninstaller, I don't know what to suggest besides a repair install of XP, since DirectX is an integral component of the OS. The side effect of this is you'll lose a lot of settings, and you may have to reinstall, or reconfigure a lot of settings.
Warning: Do not attempt a repair install if your Windows XP CD doesn't have SP1 or higher integrated and you have a hard drive over 128GB. Slipstream a service pack into the installation CD first: http://www.helpwithwindows.com/Windo...ce_Pack_3.html

Also I wouldn't install DirectX 10 on XP if I were you (since it's not released by Microsoft). See what happened to this lad:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/micr...ll-xp-pro.html

Azhura

Would a repair install do it or would you suggest a full reformat?

The only reason I think I may need a full reformat is that the alky project may be deeper than just my DirectX files. I deleted the alky project-related files in my systems folder and did a full reinstallation of DirectX and now have Directx9.0c (as detected by dxdiag) on my system, whilst still experiencing the graphics problem.

So reformat? Or?

blah789

Do you have any important files? (documents, bookmarks, e-mails, pictures, videos, etc.) If you do, back them up first (and make sure you can read them back). A full format would wipe everything (and it would be a bit of work to reinstall all the drivers and programs and tweak the OS settings to your liking). I'd try repair install first and if it doesn't work, try reformat. BTW I think SP2 and SP3 both have DirectX 9.0c bundled in them (not with the latest updates, but they have them).

Azhura

Yeah. Getting DirectX 9.0c back on down from the buggy "Dx 10 for xp" was my main goal, and I did it before I came to this forum but it persists.

I had gone and gotten a hold of a DirectX uninstaller that uses your Windows CD to automatically reinstall DirectX (8.1 in my case). I then tried to upgrade 8.1 to 9.0c which didn't work. So I upgraded 8.1 to 9.0b. Then I tried to go from 9.0b to 9.0c, didn't work. It turns out that the DirectX setup installer has some bugs, so someone had a fix where you switch out the setup.dll's and a few other .dlls and files from the Dx8.1 install and put them in the dx9.1c install, it worked, and it installed dx9.1c onto my comp but with some errors (mainly network play errors which I fixed through a run command fix).

So I finally had gotten Dx9.1c onto my system, but the problem persists, that's the only reason I'm looking at a reformat. Whatever this alky thing is, it seems to be deeper than just the DirectX folder/registry.

I do know that when it was on, I couldn't start Bioshock, but when I deleted some .dll's related to alky, Bioshock worked, yet the "alky log" was still being generated with error messages in the notepad.

There are a few sites still supporting the alky project and distributing the files. I say they need to stop or at least warn people that it could do major damage to their systems (at the very least they should tell people that it's mandatory to have system restore enabled in case anything happens).

So I'm burning my last files/music/programs to a CD and then attempting repair. If that doesn't work I'll attempt a reformat.