B.
strange. Do you need codec packs for playing?
I'm using DirectX 9.0b
My friend found that 9.0c ain't so stable.
And I haven't have problems with any Nvidia driver. I'm running forceware 65.62
I'm not sure but I think your ratlins
picture file is corrupted...
I'd get messy screen sometime when I edited
those files...
Ratlin files are: Pchead47 and 51.
(directory: \portrait\)
Try to reload them:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/maijala/Pchead47.bmp
http://koti.mbnet.fi/maijala/Pchead51.bmp
I don't know any other reason for that...