Done the clean installs of the game ... new drive and older driver... I don't think its a DX issue but I will try that when i get home ... since i have not done so yet. But DXDiag comes up fine as well as PCMark tests. SO I would doubt its a DX issue... but I will try anything. Thanks for the input.
22 people looked at this thread and had no input? Maybe somebody in Customer Support will see it next week. (If I can keep it from getting buried.) By the way ... I also did an uninstall and fresh install of the game... no change