The game starts up and goes as far as the main menu screen just fine. But when I attempt to start a new game, the "loading" screen comes up with the progression bar, gets a little over half way complete, then crashes with the following error: internal device driver error idirect3ddevice9:: present().

I have the latest video drivers available as well as DX9.0c. After trying the Direct X web setup utility, a few of my DX files were updated and on the next Half Life 2 Ep1 attempt, I was able to see the opening sequence of a new game before it crashed with the same error. Ever since that one time, it crashes at the same point of the loading screen again.

Granted, my computer is an old one by todays standards, but it plays Half Life 2 just fine with graphics pretty much maxed out so I figured it should be able to play episodes 1 and 2 ok as well.

My computer:
Alienware Area 51
Pentium 4 3.2GHz with 1 Gig Ram
Windows XP SP3
ATI Radeon 9800XT 256MB
Catalyst 10.2 Drivers
Direct X 9.0c

I knew I didn't have a good feeling when I updated those drivers!! The following is why I took the version 10.2 drivers. Just to make sure - this is NOT correct?

ATI Catalyst™ Display Driver
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Version 10.2
Operating System(s) Windows XP - Professional/Home

AMD has moved a number of DX9 ATI Radeon™ graphics accelerators products to a legacy driver support structure. This change impacts Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux distributions. AMD has moved to a legacy software support structure for these graphics accelerator products in an effort to better focus development resources on future products.

The following products have been moved to the legacy software support structure (including Mobile and All-in-Wonder Variants):

ATI Radeon 9500 Series
ATI Radeon 9550 Series
ATI Radeon 9600 Series
ATI Radeon 9700 Series
ATI Radeon 9800 Series
ATI Radeon X300 Series
ATI Radeon X550 Series
ATI Radeon X600 Series
ATI Radeon X700 Series
ATI Radeon X800 Series
ATI Radeon X850 Series
ATI Radeon X1050 Series
ATI Radeon X1300 Series
ATI Radeon X1550 Series
ATI Radeon X1600 Series
ATI Radeon X1650 Series
ATI Radeon X1800 Series
ATI Radeon X1900 Series
ATI Radeon Xpress Series
ATI Radeon X1200 Series
ATI Radeon X1250 Series
ATI Radeon X2100 Series


AMD may periodically provide Windows XP and Windows Vista driver updates (for the products listed above) for critical fixes only. No new features will be provided in future driver updates. The Linux ATI Catalyst™ driver will only be supported in Linux distributions prior to February 2009 for the legacy products listed above.

Any customers using a combination of a ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series, or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series product with any of the legacy products listed above in a single PC system must use the ATI Catalyst 9.3 or earlier driver. All future ATI Catalyst™ releases made available past the ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 release will not include support for the legacy products listed above or any of the features associated with those legacy products.

OK. Uninstalled 10.2 and installed Catalyst 9.3...unfortunately nothing changed. When I attempt to start a new game, I get the same error. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

An update: Before trying to load a new game, I disabled HDR and changed the resolution to 800X600 - the game loaded and ran ok. Then I reenabled HDR and changed the resolution back to 1024X768 and all was well for the few minutes I was "testing". This is more of a work-around than a fix, but it looks like I'll be able to play the game now.