php and microsoft sql-server via mssql

hi there i've got serious problems with the native driver from php to mssql-server. i've got data containing german characters like ä,ö,ü that are displayed as strange characters! with the odbc-driver, that was no problem, but odbc does not support row-pointers, which makes it useless in my opinion. how can i get that working with mssql-commands? any help on my problem is appreciated! regards andi