HELP! Blurry sprites : games now unplayable

[mapzilla]

A couple weeks ago I finally broke down and allowed my Dell laptop to run the updates it have been bugging me about for over a year. 2 glaring changes occured, one of which has ruined my emulation experience.

1) Program menus off the start buttom are now extremely sluggish and semi-transparent (Explorer menus work fine).

2) No matter what emulator I run now (Yame, epsxe, Snes9x, etc.), character sprites become EXTREMELY blurred whenever there's movement. Graphics are crisp and sharp when my character isn't moving. Motion blur was not a problem before I ran the updates. The emus on my computer at work don't have this problem (windows 98). At first the different is subtle. But after 5 minutes, my eyes feel like popping out of my head.

I can't play my games anymore for fear of going blind. Dell support can't figure it out. Can anybody here? Am I the only one with this problem? HELP!

OS: Windows XP
RAM: 384
1 GB mHz
Direct X (version 5?)
Geoforce 2 powered monitors (default and plug n play)

[Lefteris_D]

Have you tried reinstalling everything?

[mapzilla]

I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.

[Robert]

Sounds like video drivers. In XP you can roll back to previous drivers. Try it.

[montpics]

Update your DirectX or drivers to the latest version if necessary.

For me, I would go to ask the technician for that matter.

[mapzilla]

Thanks for all the advice so far. I'm going to try backdating the driver (updating didn't work) and/or updating DirectX tonight. Unfortunately, System Restore wouldn't let me predate the updates.

Just curious, I have heard the term "noise" pertaining to graphics. I ran Mcafee virus scan the night of the updates. It deleted several "volume" files that didn't appear to have anything to do with sound. Could "noise" settings cause problems?

[montpics]

I think you really should seek the technician if the ones above still won't work. Most of my friends' laptops broke down easily, don't know why is happening like that. Just I don't have confidence on buying a laptop.....