Video card

I’m helping a friend who has bought a used computer with a DVD player in it. The problem is when he tries a DVD it tells him that there is a problem with the video subsystem. Resolution and color are as low as possible already. Running a PII 400 with an ATI 3DRage IIC with 4mb on it. Am I wrong in thinking that this card should be able to handle playing a DVD? I think there’s only 32 mb of RAM — could that be the real problem disguised by the error message?