First off... I recently upgraded my computer signifigantly after my old one, er, caught fire. It's mostly got the latest equipment, save for a GeForce2 MX400 graphics card (drivers are current as per Nvidia's latest release), and Win98 SE as the OS.

Now for the problem- I can't get either of the DirectX modes to function properly. When I go to use them, the window for the game appears, resizes itself to the setting I specified, then stops. Nothing else happens graphically (window border, then a nice image of my desktop through it- the window does not get graphically updated AT ALL with any new information, not even a blank), though I can hear the game running (music and the button mouseover sound effect work fine, though clicking produces no response). This is ONLY for the DirectX8.1 and 9.0 modes- when using OpenGL, all is well and the game runs fine. DxDiag reports no errors and other programs using DirectX appear to run properly, so whatever is wrong would seem to be with the VO client.

Since I can't change settings in-game, I switched back to OpenGL by directly modifing config.ini (Thank you for keeping it plain text!). Dumps of the logs are below:
DirectX8.1:

bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:13] Initializing d3d8.1...success!
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] Setting up Mode List
Found 'NVDD32.DLL', 'NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400' driver version 4.14.10.6694
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] Device has 63754240 bytes total.
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] D3D8.1 is valid.
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] SetMode(29, "Vendetta");
HAL (mixed vp)
Creating D3DDevice (window, 800, 600, format = D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8, depth = D3DFMT_D24X8, aa = 0)...success.
Initializing Device Objects...success.
Restoring Device Objects...
0[0]
1[0]
2[0]
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] ValidateDevice(-1) : D3DERR_CONFLICTINGRENDERSTATE
3[1]
4[0]
5[0]
6[1]
7[1]
8[0]
9[0]
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] ValidateDevice(-1) : D3DERR_CONFLICTINGRENDERSTATE
10[1]
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] ValidateDevice(-1) : D3DERR_CONFLICTINGRENDERSTATE
11[2]
12[0]
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] ValidateDevice(-1) : D3DERR_CONFLICTINGRENDERSTATE
13[1]
14[1]
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] ValidateDevice(-1) : D3DERR_CONFLICTINGRENDERSTATE
15[3]
16[0]
17[0]
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] ValidateDevice(-1) : D3DERR_CONFLICTINGRENDERSTATE
18[1]
bahamutzero : [12/30/04 09:04:14] ValidateDevice(-1) : D3DERR_CONFLICTINGRENDERSTATE
19[2]
success.
Reloading Textures...done.

DirectX9.0:

[12/30/04 09:06:22] Initializing D3D9...success!
[12/30/04 09:06:22] Setting up Mode List
Found 'NVDD32.DLL', 'NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400' driver version 4.14.10.6694
[12/30/04 09:06:27] Device has 63754240 bytes total.
[12/30/04 09:06:27] D3D9 is valid.
[12/30/04 09:06:27] SetMode(9, "Vendetta");
HAL (mixed vp)
Creating D3DDevice (window, 800, 600, format = D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8, depth = D3DFMT_D24X8, aatype = 0, aaquality = 0)...success.
Initializing Device Objects...success.
Restoring Device Objects...
0[0]
1[0]
2[0]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] ValidateDevice(-1) : 0x88760821
3[1]
4[0]
5[0]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] no bumpenv(0) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
6[1]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] no bumpenv(0) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
7[1]
8[0]
9[0]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] ValidateDevice(-1) : 0x88760821
10[1]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (3) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (3) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] ValidateDevice(-1) : 0x88760821
11[2]
12[0]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] ValidateDevice(27692618) : 0x8876081d
13[1]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] no bumpenv(0) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
14[1]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] no bumpenv(0) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (3) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (3) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (3) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] no bumpenv(0) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] ValidateDevice(1) : 0x8876081d
15[3]
16[0]
17[0]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] ValidateDevice(-1) : 0x88760821
18[1]
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] exceeded max simultaneous textures(2) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] (3) : 0x80004005
[12/30/04 09:06:28] ValidateDevice(-1) : 0x88760821
19[2]
success.
Reloading Textures...done.

Very strange.
If you can, try setting windowmode=1 and see if that causes the game to run in dx mode. Also, try 16bpp mode instead of 32bpp.

Well, that actually worked. It was already in windowed mode, but switching to 16bpp not only let the game load and run, but I could go into the menu, set it to 32bpp, and it would restart just fine- not a problem to be seen anymore, at least in the game. Prehaps there had been some setting that was making 32bpp sneeze, and that couldn't be reset until the game had managed to load the DirectX drivers successfully at least once.

Sounds like the bug I used to have with my GeForce FX 5600 where if it started in 32bpp 4x AA mode, it downshifted to 16bpp mode and gave all sorts of artifacts. I fixed it by turning off texture compression and upgrading my drivers.