morbo4649: I was having the same screen artifacts issue and contacted support. Here is the response:
If you go to the game's directory and launch the configure.exe utility you can select to:
Enable w-buffer
Disable lights
That should decrease the amount of artifacts.
This issue is caused by the changes to the drivers made by Intel (other games are also affected, like: Empire Earth, Sacred), unfortunately it seems that the only workaround is downgrading drivers.
I have done what he said it runs perfectly now.
Excellent recommendation, morbo4649. I had the same artifact issues running this on a Win 8.1 laptop with both an Nvidia GTX750 and an Intel HD for normal desktop mode/energy saving features. I selected to disable lighting, enable the W-Buffer, ran it in windowed mode at 1600x1400 and it works flawlessly now. Thanks for the tips! Maybe that will work for Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption as well, as I'd had the same issue with that game.
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PS: Also noticed that I could disable windowed mode and play it in 1280x1024 full screen without issues. Still get artifacts in the menu in that mode, but game play is fine. So Win 8.1 laptop users with nVidia cards, give either of those a whirl. Full screen 1600x1400 crashes on me for whatever reason. But either method there makes the game plenty playable.