I've downloaded the most recent drivers from NVIDIA (twice)--that's what's been on my system when this problem occurred http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_61.77 Dated July 27, 2004. If there's a different set of drivers, I ain't seeing it.
I am using neither an MSI card nor a Detonator driver. Mine is a PNY brand GeForce 5200x. As suggested, I upgraded to DirectX9.0c. Didn't work. Oddly enough, the game works great on my crappy 1.2 gig refurbished gateway laptop that I use for taking notes in class (with DirectX 9.0b). But the screenshots show exactly my problem--though I can't even get past the initial screen. I am also running SP1....tried downloading SP2 to see if (wishful thinking
Rec'd the game today from Amazon. Installed it fine. Loaded it up. The intro movie runs fine. But then the generic screen with all the various little pictures comes up and stays there for upwards of 45 minutes (haven't gotten passed it yet). The individual pictures come up VERY slowly and fade out just as slowly. Music is playing this whole time but hitting ESC does nothing. My PC: P4 2.6 Ghz NVIDIA 5200x video card (Lates