Vista - Bad gaming graphics quality

Hi, I have a problem with gaming graphics on Vista x64 SP1 - every game looks very bad, with almost no details, though I set all settings to highest.
My config is: IC2D E6550, 2G RAM, NVIDIA 8800 GTS 512 with 169.25 (also tried 174.74 beta) driver.
Here's an example of how recent Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 looks with everything turned to highest:

Also Google Earth looks same crap in DirectX mode:

And it works perfectly fine in OpenGL mode.
I was thinking about a DirectX related problem - because ALL games look like that - old, new...
If you could point me to the solution, I would be very grateful

Thanks.

Question....are you using any graphic card tweaker like nHancer or RivaTuner? It's unlikely the drivers...I remember suffering this issue, and the only thing that I could narrow it down to was a setting change made by nHancer (nVidia Tweaker).

When i'd fresh install drivers and install nHancer (then modifying the settings etc) any DX game i'd play would have the same problem you're encountering. When I uninstalled nHancer and tried again...the graphics were still the same.

I'd proceed to uninstalling the drivers, cleaning/sweaping the remains in Safe Mode (using whichever cleaner is liked; Driver Clean Pro.NET, Guru3D Driver Sweeper) and reinstalling the SAME drivers......when all is done, the graphics are fine...the moment I reinstall nHancer, same graphic problem.

This was something I encountered a long time ago, so I'm not sure if it applies here....get the driver cleaners I mentioned above and install them. Once you have, uninstall the drivers, reboot into safe mode and run these apps. Once that's done, go back into regular windows and install the new drivers. Refrain from using any tweakers (if you did up till now) and just set the basic functions in the nVidia control panel.

Let us know the results.

r2rX

2Gb of ram is rather small by the way however it should make no difference to the quaility.
Yeah but i would try what he sudgested.