Hey, I originally posted this in technical support section, but there is next to no activity in that part of the forum and noone responded, so I'm trying my hand at the general forum.

So, I downloaded the demo and I really like the game and want to buy it, but before I do that I have to make sure of something.  My laptop sucks (directx7 video card), no I can't afford better right now, and it does not actually show the ships.  No cool polygons and what not, all I get to see is a little icon of the ship.  Everything else seems to run fine, and I actually love the game even though I can only see a little colored sprite picture of the ship instead of a rendered polygon w/e. 

The problem is, when I zoom in too close, that little picture disappears.  Instead of getting the picture of the ship, or structure, I get a picture of my empire's symbol, which means I can't tell the difference between a capitol ship, frigate, or science lab when I am zoomed in all the way.  This won't do. 

So, the question is, Is there an setting in the options for the game, or is there a .ini file or similar data file, that will make it so that the pictures will stay? 

To put it another way: When you are zoomed out at a medium distance, ships are displayed as an Icon/sprite with a picture that represents the ship.  When you are zoomed in very close, that icon disappears and is replaced with an icon that displays the symbol of your empire. DOES the full game have a display option that will allow the game to display the icon picture of the ship at all times, even when you are zoomed in, never to be replaced by the symbol of your empire? If it does not have that option in the game, is there a way to edit .ini files to accomplish this (and still maintain multiplayer viability)?

Again, I would be able to check myself but I have the demo version and the demo version has different files and fewer options than the full retail version.  If there is a way to do this then I will be buying the game, but if it does not then I just can't buy the game since its so hard to play when you can't tell what ship is what, etc.

So thank you guys in advance, I hope someone has enough technical knowledge to look around their files to see if this is possible.

- Veqryn