I have never found an actual answer to why this happens or how it happens. Everytime I start a steam game on directx 9 I get the black screen of death. In case you dont know what the black screen of death looks like examine figure a:
I have searched around and setting it to dx7 doesnt work. I actually reach the graphics qualifications and it used to work. I am thinking it is something stupid like printer interference.
figure a
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how long do you wait for the games to actually load
I let it load for an hour or so.
it could be one of many things
start > run > dxdiag
give us your system specs and run the directX tests