Espér looks like mystical things goes with shadows crazy , maybe my advance can help
Try to create simple model something like this
Code:
 ent_create (SPHERE_MDL,vector(150,150,1000),test);

If this model throwing shadow then problem with you skin model.

A7 Commercial cool
Celeron 1700, GeForce 5500 FX 256mb, 1 Gb Ram