As far as I know, this has been an age-old problem with nVidia graphics chipsets having problems with the standard drivers. I recently upgraded from a GeForce MX/MX400 (not the 4000, the 400), to an Xmdia Geforce FX 5500. The card is nice and fast, and runs X2: The Threat (www.egosoft.com) very smoothly and sharply, but when I tried to run Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, it did two things. The first thing that happened was when it got to the main menu, everything but the buttons and the slideshow background appeared, the music started, and the mouse was responsive. I kept clicking around and pressing escape, because it doesn't ever wait like that. After about maybe 20-30 seconds, it quit to desktop saying "The driver nv4_disp is not functioning properly and has been shut down. Please restart your computer, and a log of this error will be generated to be sent to Microsoft". The screen was 16 color with 640x480. So, I reboot and send the error report. I start the game up again, and the same thing happens in the main menu, except that it crashes with a BSOD saying "nv4_disp.dll encountered an infinite loop". I then restarted and installed the latest drivers from nVidia (the driver I was running was from Xmdia's CD, which looked like an older driver from about 2003-2004). Now, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3's behavior is like this: The main menu still pauses for a time, but then it appears with the slideshow images and buttons, but the button images appear corrupted, and the game is responsive for about 3-5 seconds, then it waits, and becomes responsive (it keeps doing that). I was able to get the two minidumps of the problem (they both have the same error code, but not the same filesize), and a screenshot of the main menu with buttons. If anyone could help me, I would extremely appreciate it!

In a situation like this, I would consult nvidia re this. As well, you might try older drivers for the 5500.