by FreeFlier » Fri Jan 01, 2010 8:15 pm
Both issues are well known to this forum and are related to Nvidia graphics cards and/or Nvidia driver files available. I've given up trying to use FMS on my HP laptop, with Nvidia graphics, after spending many weeks and trying many driver files. The results are as you describe them - the flashing and the basic texture look if textures are turned off; that period of time was quite frustrating.
Apparently the problem is a combination of Vista/64bit - my XP machines run FMS very well - and the Nvidia chip and/or drivers.
Search in this forum for Nvidia, flashing image, etc. and you will see lots of information about this issue.
There was al least one poster a while back, indicating that the problem could be addressed by changing the size of a specific part of certain texture files, but I never tried that; also many comments about that idea.
Sorry for the lack of a solution, but video graphics boards other than Nvidia, appear to be able to render the graphic successfully in Vista 64bit.