"I get these white flashes on the screen every 5-10 seconds"
At first I thought someone was targetting me ... this is worse yet

Most probably has something to do with the enhanced textures and nvidia card drivers can't cope with it as it should. I bet you that Arneh tested on ATI cards.
Because ... I get those brief white flashes too: Nvidia 6800GT + 78.03 drivers.
F4:AF has had a problem for a long time with Nvidia drivers and FSAA.
Nvidia didn't solve it, LeadPursuit did (by circumventing the problem as far as I recall).
If you are waiting for nvidia to solve this ... you're in for a long wait.