Hooray!!!

I've been agonizing over this for nearly a year now, and finally everything appears to be fine. I just played for about 30 minutes at 1280x960x32 without any problems!! Huzzah!

I'm not sure why this made a difference, but perhaps the settings in the BIOS were simply incorrect, and needed to be resent to defaults

So, thanks to everyone here! It's nice to be able to talk through it.

And by the way, I recommend that people take a look at Freedom Force. From what I've played so far, this is a very cool game. I only checked it out because Electronic Gaming Monthly mentioned it as a very overlooked game (and they don't mention a PC game - usually - unless it's very good). I tried the demo, liked it, and hell, it was only $15 at Electronics Boutique.

So, if you've ever thought "hey, you know what would make a good game? If they took an RPG, added Warcraft-style control, and threw in a bunch of superheros in a very stylized manner" then this is the game for you!