Dark Avatar Animation Wonkiness

I recently downloaded Gal Civ 2 and Dark Avatar (I've owned them for a long time, but haven't played in years) and installed them on my 'new' computer (Athlon 64 x2 5000+ with 3gb RAM and a GeForce GFX 260 running Win XP sp3) only to find it unplayable.

I loaded the options first thing so I could change the resolution to the 1680x1050 that is native for my monitor, and while I was there I changed it to windowed mode, primarily because of the problems I'm having with Elemental.

I start up a new game, and remembering how I felt about the standard races from the last time I played the game, I built a custom race.  Everything was going fine until I went to choose colors and ship style.  The little ship animation in the lower right of the selection screen wouldn't sit still, and was moving far too quickly for me to really see the ships on display.  I switched styles, hoping to reset the window, but all I got was slightly different ship animations flying through the little window at hyper speed.

No worries, I think.  I'll just pick one at random and play the game.  Little animations like this are no big deal, and I'm more interested in seeing what the various patches have changes over the past few years since I basically abandoned this game for my MMO addiction.

I get into the game and I'm looking at my starting world's build queue and planetary map, and I notice that the little animated rotating world is moving very quickly and blinking on and off rapidly.  Strobe animation moving at light speed is eerily similar to the ships animation, so I figure it uses the same code but it's not going to be a problem, since it's just a little animation, and who really cares?

I get out to the main game screen with all the little stars and planets and asteroids and ships and such, and I start moving my ships and moving around the screen, and then the main screen map goes wonky.  The area where the stars and planets and ships are displayed and I can give orders to my ships is now mostly black, with flashes of nebula and starfield flying past and blinking on and off rapidly.  I can;t see anything, can't do anything, and can't find any buttons to fix it.

It clears up on its own, and I figure 'ok, it was just a fluke, I'll keep going' and I keep going.

It happens again.

It clears up again.

It happens again.  I don;t press any buttons, trying to determine if I did something accidentally to resolve it before.

It clears up again.

I close the game and come to these support forums to see if anyone else has had similar issues.

I don't see anything, so I compose this post.

Thanks for taking the time to read this windy and self-important piece of bird-cage flooring.  I appreciate any help that can be offered toward a resolution of these issues.