Well frankly I am thinking it'd be a software problem. Some settings could be a little strange.
I tested this in 2008 for both Mac and PC and they work fine. It also displays fine in Maya 8.0.
On my mac it has no video card really. Just the onboard. So I'm positive your video card is better than that.

I know nvidia cards have issues in Vista with maya 8.5 and under so if you apply to that rule that could be causing you problems.

But I think you may want to check out the autodesk support site and see if anyone can help you out with this one.

Sorry I'm no better help. I gotta go out now but I'll google it up when I get back and see if I can find anything.

Cheers
-Alex