So I know this is an old topic, but since I'm experiencing a similar problem I thought it better to revive this thread rather than clutter the board with what might an identical problem. I'm experiencing some kind of artifact glitching to the point that the game is unplayable. Here are some screen shot examples...
The first is from the options menu, which is incredibly difficult to get past without glitching.
From the tutorial, after hitting ESC. It was too difficult to capture, but during gameplay before hitting ESC, there was also a garbled white text flashing every second or so on top the the screen.
Unlike the original poster, I have no reason to think my graphics card is dying or suffering from heat problems. I've never had that problem in the some eight years I've owned it, and I've never once overclocked it. It has run hordes of games recently and in the past just fine. I can run ten different games right now with no sort of errors or graphical glitches.
Thus far, to correct the problem I'm experiencing, I've tried reverting to Direct X 7 through the configuration screen on start up and turning off pixel shaders, but no luck. Pixel shading option didn't help, and the Direct X 7 option produced an RGL error. I've read the "Distorted/Corrupt/"Wrong" graphics or text" (
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,13075.0.html) on the Solutions board, but it didn't help in my case. My display driver is updated to the latest I could find (I couldn't find an official download off Nvidia's site since this card is so old), and I tried to access the card settings through the display options, but it didn't have anything I could use; it was just a readout of the specs and an "Additional Properties..." button that led to antialiasing settings and color/screen position options.
I'm at a loss, and I hope someone can help. I played Mount&Blade way back when it was in Beta and thought it had some great potential. At that time it wasn't much a "game" per say. The world was empty and there was nothing to do. It looked more like an engine without it's body. That was years ago, and having rediscovered it, I really wanted to get the full experience. Here's hoping.
System Specs
OS: Windows XP
Processor: Intel Pentium4 2.26Ghz
RAM: 254 MB (Probably not enough)
Video Card: 128MB Nvidia Geforce4 Ti 4600
Video Card Driver: Version 6.13.0010.3082
Sound Card: Santa Cruz Turtle Beach
Sound Card Driver: Version 5.12.001.4161
Game
Problems persist with both version 1.003 and 1.113 of the demo.