Help - Battle Map in VI doesn't load correctly

Help! I've been experiencing a massive problem after reinstalling VI: Not everytime, but almost everytime I have to fight a battle in mediterranean climate, the battle map doesn't seem to load correctly. First it takes a lot longer than normal; then, when the battle map is up, troops deployed are visible even through terrain obstacles like hills. Everything seems to be flat. And there are unbearable lags, everything is slower than a glacier. I can exit the battle (using Esc) all right, but this loses me the battle. The campaign map doesn't seem to give me any trouble after this. I think I could even fight the battle, but it's an almost impossible drag this way.
I have the official VI patch installed, this doesn't help. Any ideas? Oh, and defragged lately and ran a virus scan, so that's not the problem.

There are techy guys on this forum who can usually help, but if you can say what graphics card etc. you have installed that will be useful. There are known issues with a number of graphics cards (eg. Radeon). Check that your graphics settings under Main Menu>Options are ok for the card you have...I still have problems with large battles involving multiple factions, and have to autoresolve...

Right, should have done this. I have a rather old-fashioned Radeon 9500. This has always worked before, though; I've had this card for three or four years, and only recently do I get this kind of problem.

Hmmm, you can generally download new drivers from their website www.ati.com, it could also be a directX problem, but all that stuff is beyond me. ask a mod to move this to the Apothecary (i think) and some clever person will help you there...!

Try downgrading your ATI drivers to the catalyst v6.5 release. These are the drivers I use for STW/MTW with an Radeon 9000 pro (and you thought your card was old fashioned?) and never have any graphics related problems.

From what you've said though, with regard to the mediteranean climate, it seems to me that it may be corrupt game media and not the graphics card at all. Try resintalling MTW and VI, first cleaning the Disks. After installing MTW see if you have the same problem, then install VI and see if the problem returns, if it does then it could be your VI disc that's causing the problem.

I've always had good luck with the Omega drivers and my ATI graphics cards. When I had menu display issues with M-TW+VI v2.01 (and mods based on it), I rolled back to the Radeon Omega Drivers 2.6.53 (based on Catalyst 5.7) and haven't had problems since. They're new enough to work correctly with x800 and x850 series Radeons, and are fine with 9500/9600/9700/9800 chips too. You can find them in the archive section here: http://www.omegadrivers.net/archive.php