Older games and depreciated features in newer graphics cards

[PingSpike]

Not everyone has probably run into this, but many of us play older games in addition to newer ones. If you're one of those people, you may have noticed that older games often have graphical problems. A particular example that has been discussed before is the thief/ss2 games, which based on what I've read use some older hardware techniques for dithering. It seems that hardware support for these has been removed from newer graphic cards, specifically ATI 2000 series+ and nvidia 8000 series+ (functionality is lost using latest drivers on previous generation cards for nvidia as well, ATI seems to work as long as you have an older graphics card)

Its understandable that with limited die space that ATI/nvidia wouldn't want to devote resources to features that are only used in 10 year old games. That said, it is very annoying and one of the PCs greatest strengths has always been having the ability to go back and play older games.

Some one on another forum suggested that they just implement these features in software, a virtual video card...or just virtual hardware for depreciated features. I'll admit I have no idea how easy or hard this is to do. But it seems possible. Performance would take a hit of course, but processors are much faster then they were 10 years ago! And we have a second one that isn't even recognized as a resource by these older games. I'd imagine they would only have to write this code once and it could be used forever going forward.

Thoughts?

 

[grimlykindo]

I also play a lot of older games but I use my older comp with a 9800PRo so the problems aren't as big - I feel your pain though - its sad to see backwards compatibility go out the window

 

[adlep]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Not everyone has probably run into this, but many of us play older games in addition to newer ones. If you're one of those people, you may have noticed that older games often have graphical problems. A particular example that has been discussed before is the thief/ss2 games, which based on what I've read use some older hardware techniques for dithering. It seems that hardware support for these has been removed from newer graphic cards, specifically ATI 2000 series+ and nvidia 8000 series+ (functionality is lost using latest drivers on previous generation cards for nvidia as well, ATI seems to work as long as you have an older graphics card)

Its understandable that with limited die space that ATI/nvidia wouldn't want to devote resources to features that are only used in 10 year old games. That said, it is very annoying and one of the PCs greatest strengths has always been having the ability to go back and play older games.

Some one on another forum suggested that they just implement these features in software, a virtual video card...or just virtual hardware for depreciated features. I'll admit I have no idea how easy or hard this is to do. But it seems possible. Performance would take a hit of course, but processors are much faster then they were 10 years ago! And we have a second one that isn't even recognized as a resource by these older games. I'd imagine they would only have to write this code once and it could be used forever going forward.

Thoughts?

Heads up, some older games have an option to use software render option. It won't look good, but it should make it playable.
Kind of like the first Quake before GLQuake.

 

[CP5670]

I play old games frequently too, but the titles I play a lot fortunately don't have any serious issues on modern cards.

As far as SS2 and Thief 2 go, there was a long thread about old games a while ago that discussed these games specifically. It may have some solutions. You could also try using VMWare, which is supposed to support some types of 3D acceleration. I messed around with the free version of it a while ago but couldn't get any sound working, although I didn't look into it thoroughly.

 

[PingSpike]

Well, yes, most of those games do have software rendering...but it looks pretty terrible! I mean, maybe I'm being an uncompromising ass here...but for a game that recommends a 200mhz pentium and a 4mb video card...I'd like to be able to at least play it in 16-bit color!

There actually is some kind of fix for Thief/SS2 with the ddfix patch. However, this isn't the only game that uses these features. DFII: Jedi Knight is an old favorite of mine, same dithering problems. And there are plenty of others. Rather then trying to hack every game it would be nice if the features that is uses could be restored in some capacity. (Unfortunately, jedi knight seems even worse with my hd4850 then the only 8800gt or x1800xt are...it just HOMs all over when loaded!)

 

[tuteja1986]

Major Older Game problem i am having is non related to GPU but CPU mutlicore ain't good for older game for some reason like deus ex 1 and 2.

Just go on buy an old $50 pc ... add some ram , make it silent with better cooling and that should solve the problem.

 

[PingSpike]

Aren't multi-core problems generally solved by setting them to use one processor with a command line switch or something?

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Aren't multi-core problems generally solved by setting them to use one processor with a command line switch or something?

only in some game.
Example : advent rising a game i have been so wanting to play. Use one core it runs slower than a turtle. Use more than one core , it runs at hyper sonic speed.

 

[PingSpike]

I just looked that up...thats not even a really old game! Late 2005 release, weren't dual-cores already out then? It actually sounds like the game is bugged to me, but I'm not really familiar with the title.

 

[CP5670]

For Deus Ex, try using the THG TaskAssign program to set the affinity. That was the only way I got it to work, and even then I typically had to restart the game two or three times before it ran properly.

Strangely though, the dual core problems with this game have gone away ever since I changed my video card.

 

[BFG10K]

I've never needed to set affinity in Deus Ex. In fact I just finished it recently and apart from some minor flickering textures the game ran perfectly.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Not everyone has probably run into this, but many of us play older games in addition to newer ones. If you're one of those people, you may have noticed that older games often have graphical problems.

Yep, I'm been there unfortunately. The most recent case was Planescape: Torment.

Every single time some character started a spell casting animation, my framerates would immediately tank and it'd eventually result in a blue screen with an nvlddmkm.sys error if I didn't quickly ALT-TAB out and let the spell complete in the background. There were also some other small nagging issues like partially corrupted textures (the transparent areas were being rendered as black). I had to switch to software rendering so I wouldn't have to see a BSOD every few minutes.

I also recall having those texture issues with FF8 for PC, and that was with an even older card (6800).

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I've never needed to set affinity in Deus Ex. In fact I just finished it recently and apart from some minor flickering textures the game ran perfectly.

Which OS were you playing Deus Ex on ?

 

[taltamir]

http://www.dosbox.com/

I like the way OpenGL works... with OpenGL the games cannot directly access the GPU commands, instead they use the API a command, the API then decides to do it in GPU or in CPU. That means that commands can never be depreciated in openGL. if new hardware does not support them, then the CPU will just have to work a little extra on that.

DirectX does not work that way though. good luck convincing Microsoft to change its ways.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
Just go on buy an old $50 pc ... add some ram , make it silent with better cooling and that should solve the problem.

Great plan! One problem: Not everyone has the room for another PC.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Which OS were you playing Deus Ex on ?

XP SP3.

Originally posted by: taltamir

I like the way OpenGL works... with OpenGL the games cannot directly access the GPU commands, instead they use the API a command, the API then decides to do it in GPU or in CPU.

That's exactly what DirectX does - the game calls the API which then calls the driver to programs the GPU. The whole point of an API is to provide hardware abstraction so programs never deal with it directly.

If you want to run Direct3D under software then render with the reference rasterizer.

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I've never needed to set affinity in Deus Ex. In fact I just finished it recently and apart from some minor flickering textures the game ran perfectly.

Which games the timing bugs occur in evidently depends on other hardware or drivers, not just the CPU. Deus Ex was consistently having trouble on my old X1900 while other people reported that it was fine, and on the flip side I never had issues in some games that I've seen complaints about. When I changed the video card, Deus Ex suddenly stopped having problems too.

By the way, if you used the targeting augmentation, does the text in its window show up for you? The text displays for an instant and then disappears for me, on both Nvidia and AMD cards from the last few years. That is the only other problem I've encountered in the game. The last card I remember it working properly on was a 6800GT.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Which games the timing bugs occur in evidently depends on other hardware or drivers, not just the CPU.

Yep, and motherboard BIOS too. I'm pleasantly surprised I don't have to touch affinity for any of my games and that includes titles others are reporting problems in like the original Call of Duty.

By the way, if you used the targeting augmentation, does the text in its window show up for you?

I only used level 1 but it seemed to work fine when I tried it.