What does "could not initialize Direct 3D" mean

Question

Suddenly my games (mostly from Big Fish Games) won't play.  A few days ago I downloaded a game with trial period as I always do before buying.  Played 4 levels and kept getting access violation codes.  No problems whatsoever before.  I went to another website and played the same game with no problems.  Therefore, I contacted BFG and am still awaiting a response.  However, I thought it was just THAT game but when I tried some other previously owned games from them, I started seeing the same message along with a crash.  Today, I cannot play any games from any website, I get the following message now:  "Could not initialize Direct 3D, please ensure hat DirectX and graphics drivers are installed."

I ran the dxdiag thing and it says no problems found.