THIS IS A SERIOUS UPDATE.
IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS
IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS
IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS
IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS
IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS Okay, here's what I did. It's ALREADY been suggested, but I failed to follow the instructions. Here are the steps!
1) Go to "Add and Remove Programs" and scroll down to the N section. Uninstall all Nvidia drivers (there were two of them on mine. One was "nvidia display driver" and the other was "nvidia performance driver", both of them I had recently installed trying to fix this problem). Make sure they are uninstalled.
2) Download and install driver sweeper:
http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/3) THIS STEP IS THE MOST IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (all the !! marks are because I'm excited this works). You need to restart your computer in SAFE MODE. This doesn't work unless you restart your computer *** in SAFE MODE ***. Usually you do this by pressing F8 when it tells you to about 10-30seconds after you first push the power button to start up your computer.
(After you are logged onto safe mode, it may say "you need to restart to blah de blah de blah about new hardware." Tell it no, you don't have to restart.
4) Now that you are in safe mode and logged onto windows normally, run Driver cleaner. Search for ATI display drivers and Nvidia display drivers. Then hit the "Clean" button. Now close the program and reopen it, and double-check the same steps. Search for ATI and nvidia display drivers, and make sure that none are found. When this is done, restart your computer back into regular XP.
5) After I rebooted into normal mode, I ran driver sweeper a third time just to make sure. It found NO files for ati and nvidia display drivers.
6) Now I installed 180.60 (not 180.70.) Other people installed 180.48 and got it working, others isntalled 180.70 and got it working. Mine worked fine with 180.60. I assume the version of driver you use doesn't matter, so try with whatever you can find for your version of windows.
7) Restart after you have installed the drivers.
8) FLIP OUT when you realize that your textures are showing up again. I almost decapitated myself out of rage, but luckily I got this fixed in the nick of time.
Thanks to all who helped!
IMPORTANT NOTE!
DO NOT MESS WITH RIVA TUNER AT ALL. If you mess with it (changing settings) it will mess your game up like before. If you do this, to fix it just choose the Rivetuner option "reset all driver settings back to default" and it will say "do you want to restart?" you HAVE to choose yes restart, otherwise the problem won't go away.I'm off to play now. I will keep checking here.
I've got a GTX 280 with the most recent drivers (180.48) and DirectX is also updated completely. I have the Steam version. I "verified the integrity" of my files and there were no errors.
Other people are also having the same issue. Any solutions? One person has already said he tried all drivers in the last ~2 months and none of them changed anything.
Here's what it looks like on my end:

This post has been edited by fflaguna on Dec 3 2008, 20:22