So, out of a big bunch of games I got during the sales, a couple aren't working right, and I'm trying to figure out why, and what I can do to solve it.

Firstly, I should note that I'm on a slightly outdated laptop, playing games on it that it shouldn't be able to play. That said, I've been able to play Arkham City, Crysis 2 and many other graphically demanding games without issue, so it's odd that I'm having problems with these games:

- Two Worlds Two (which I actually want to play, and is the reason for me wanting to fix it)
- Magica
- Nitronic Rush (yeah, it's free, I'm not complaining, just thought pointing it out might help identify the problem)
- A couple of others I can't remember at the moment.

I got those 3 games from 3 different places (GG, Steam, Nitronic Rush site), and have tried redownloaing and reinstalling all. They all have the same problem:
Intros, cutscenes and menus all display fine. However, when I get into gameplay, half of the screen goes dark, there is occasional ghosting on the other side, and everything is blurred.

I have a feeling the issue is something to do with DirectX (as it usually is when I'm having issues with display), but I don't know what specifically, or what I can do to solve it.

I also tried taking screen shots when it was happening, but for some reason they all came out blank. :/

Relevant system info is attached below in a screenshot.

Also, I'm not going to start yet another graphics card thread, but I'm about to order a new desktop (using the shipping forwarding thing that someone here recommended), and want to check whether it's really going to allow me to play whatever game I happen to feel like playing in highest possible settings. Specs are:
• Thermaltake TR2 1000w ATX 80 Plus PSU
• ASUS ATX LGA1366 Rampage III Republic of Gamers Extreme
• Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz Processor, 8MB LGA1366
• 6-GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 x 1600MHz
• Western Digital 2TB x 7200rpm SATA 64 MB Cache Hard Drive
• Two(2)-EVGA GeForce GTX480 Superclock 1536MB DDR5
• Two(2)-ASUS Blu-Ray Internal SATA Internal SATA RW/DVD/Burner Combo Drive w/Lightscribe
• Windows 7 Ultimate - 64bit

I'm pretty new to being able to buy new games, so don't have much experience in knowing what works for them - I picked that setup because it's on sale and looks pretty. >.>

Thanks in advance for any help :)

If you have an Nvidia or ATI control panel, try using that to reset your video card settings to their defaults. I know that in particular, forcing Anti-Aliasing on can easily mess up some games.

have you tried disabling SLI if you have it? sounds like a split screen rendering problem...

also avoid the 480 they were and always will be hot and broken it took them a year to fix it nearly (580)

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I tried both, and neither worked, though I appreciate the effort :)

I've just found that running the games in windowed mode solves the issue. It's not an ideal fix, but at least it means I can play :)