Display problem upon starting game

[Eraser_tr 1]

I'm getting a display problem trying to start Arma unlike anything I've seen before. Arma worked fine a few months ago, but I reinstalled it to play with a friend who just bought it and this happens.

When the game starts, the screen goes black and the power light flashes on and off steadily. I can cntrl-alt-delete of alt-tab back into windows just fine and in task manager appears to run fine.

I encountered the same exact problem with Children of the Nile as well and the demo worked roughly about the same time frame as Arma.

Obviously the same root problem, I thought display drivers or direct x but both are updated and still happens, it's as if newer drivers and direct x between when they worked and now broke both games.