Forum:ME1 - visible filter troubleshooting

After a couple weeks of going through EA support on this issue and finding no resolution, I turn to the Wiki community - hoping someone's seen something like this or could give me some decent advice.

The game loads fine and runs without issue. On the ship, the graphics are crisp and clear. But on the first planet-side scene, there is a red snow-like effect across the screen. At first I just thought it was supposed to be there, like red sand kicked up everywhere. I made my way through the scene, the obelisk blows up, and back on the ship everything's crisp and clear again.

Next playable scene after the ship is on a station, and a white snow-like filter is showing. And when you rotate the camera, it's like a filter - part of the character is visible, the rest is obscured by the snow-like effect. Here's a visual.



I've got a ATI X1400 256MB card that supports DirectX 9.0c and passes all the DirectX tests. I've tried max/min/default resolutions, emptied the temp folder, ended all background tasks, done a Microsoft clean boot (MS services, minimal programs loaded), have the latest video drivers, tried each filter setting in the in-game settings, etc. No relief.

I'm figuring there's got to be a setting I can disable, maybe in the .ini files, that will remove that effect.

Any constructive assistance would be appreciated. Thanks much.