Having some problems with in-game renderingFollow

Ok, so I got the game installed, spent hours updating and making a character, yay.
So, I get online and something is very wrong. Every 3D model is a uniform shade of grey with no textures or lighting effects. 2D stuff works fine, I can see menus, shadows, names, and the sky. In fact, the only reason I know the 3D models even exist is because I can see an outline of trees, buildings, etc...against the sky.
I can function normally in the game, but I'm just effectively blind.
I have all the latest drivers for my video card, I'm running windows 2000, have a Geforce 3 Ti 200, 900 MhZ processor, 512 MB RAM, stuff like that. I have gone through the config on many different setting variations, including default, with and without MIP, different resolutions etc. Q&A is of little help and they haven't responded to my e-mail yet. I just finished a scan of the files to detect errors and none were found, and I'm about ready to drive my head through my moniter.
Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Well ****.
Oh well, good thing I'll be getting a Radeon 9800 XT in a few days.