Hey there I had the same problem , I am using Macedonian characters (Cyrillic) and i Allwasy got ?????? on the Web Browser,
I've entered this two functions RIGHT AFTER the connection in the PHP code:
ex: $query = "SELECT...
$result = mysql_query($query);
mysql_query("SET CHARACTER SET utf8");
mysql_query("SET NAMES utf8");and now finally everything is OK.