I'm having the same problems. Specifically, there are a few oddities I'd like to point out..
First, it's apparently it's not the ATI catalyst drivers, considering some people are running nVidia cards and having the same problem.
Second, items that seem to be missing are stationary interactable items. Perhaps we are missing a graphic layer?
Third, no shadows work at any shadow level.
Fourth, if you mess with the character occlusion, the lowest option makes all characters invisible, the second gives you a sort of stick figure, and the third makes them ghost-like and translucent.
Now, to save you the internet search on what occlusion does: it removes things you cannot see before shading. This saves on cpu and gpu cycles by cutting down on the amount of shading your computer needs to process. However, in RoMD, it seems that character occlusion seems to be working in reverse, and at lower levels attempting to show the viewer objects that are behind the character. I don't know what it would do when working properly, but it seems that the occlusion process may be the problem.
Can anyone with a WORKING RoMD shed some light on the issue? Here are some screenshots from the very first map, using one character to illustrate the problem...
This shows (or lack thereof) the character standing next to whatever object should be there with the occlusion on the first setting, furthest left.
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/a...lusionLvl1.jpg
This shows the character with occlusion on the default setting, in the middle. If you look carefully you can just make out the stick figure "Skeleton".
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/a...lusionLvl2.jpg
And this shows the character with occlusion on the third setting, on the right.
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/a...lusionLvl3.jpg
I'm going to mess with my hardware graphic settings and post my findings later. As it is, I'm using Windows XP (full updates) using a Sapphire ATI Radeon 4770, catalyst version 9.6.