Have you got a screenshot you can post? It sounds similar to some of the video issues I was having on an oldish laptop with an ATI mobility card. Squares for text and I'm fairly certain the photos didn't work either.
Make sure you have the most recent video drivers, but that wasn't enough for my laptop. I had to go to the "omega" (third party) drivers, which were much more recent than the latest from ATI. That solved it for me.
Let us know how it goes, otherwise you may need to stick with the Basic version.