BAD GRAPHICS - Help Needed

[Mustang]

I just downloaded 2.0 b7 together with DirectX 9 on my laptop which is a PIII700Mhz. It runs a dated Trident Cyberblade Ai1 (8Mb) and for some reason (prob the dated video card), the ground, landscape and runways appear in shades of black. The planes appear ok. I've tried all the suggestions given in ThermalQuest's thread apart from upgrading the video card and the best image I can get looks something like the screenshots from the DOS version on this site, with "textures" turned off.

Besides upgrading the video card, can anyone offer a remedy to this?