I thought not all players might have a new graphics card and the game engine will only work in the A5 mode. So I tried out what will happen to my level if I set d3d_transform=off;

My player model gets transparent!

Any ideas?
(I've tried to replace the model with a non-tga skinned one, I've sscripted things like "d3d_transform=off;if(d3d_transform==off){player.transparent=off;}, etc.)