Playing classic games with brand-new hardware...

[DarkZeratul]

Is it true that there are incompatibilities and/or issues between DirectX 10 hardware and oldie games (Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3) or not-so-classic games, like the KOTOR series?

 

[Leyawiin]

I don't play anything older than 2001/2002 on my GTX 260, but Diablo II, Divine Divinity and Sacred run just fine.

 

[Insomniator]

Depends on the game I'm sure, but D2, HL1, and Q3 all run fine on my vista 64/4850 machine. Now, if your talking like reallllly classic then you might have some issues. I know there was some popular old Star Wars game that that had trouble running on Windows XP....

 

[zerocool84]

I was playing Original UT and Half life through Steam about a week ago on my DX10 hardware in Vista64. Like Insomniator said, if you want to play really old games, then there's a problem. Those games aren't that old but other might.

 

[PingSpike]

Games that only support 16-bit color seem to be the only ones I've had trouble with. The dithering is fucked up with DX10 video cards.

 

[CP5670]

The specific games you mentioned work fine. The issue isn't so much DX10 hardware as modern video card drivers in general. Most old games will work, but there are a handful with issues. Battlezone 2 for example has a serious memory leak glitch on recent Nvidia cards, which I haven't found any way to get around.

 

[DarkZeratul]

Plz excuse my bad english (not my ntv tongue)... And many thanks 2 Insomniator and Leyawiin for their feedback. But, I'm really tired of console crap (my ol' PS2) and I am thinking to follow the path of a friend, who had a big time playing games like MOHAA, UT2, the entire POP series (except the last POP), RTCWolf, all AoE series (incl. Mith.), AvP2, Chronicles of Riddick... Now he has a big time playin' DX10 games and when I say him that I am going to buy a new computer with Vista 64 AND a new DX10 card (probably ATI HD4870), and buy from him all his precious games, he says I have two options: A) Buying nVidia hardware and pray for the sake of seeing AT LEAST half of those games running in all its glory, or B) Buying any DX10 board and play ONLY DX9 and DX10 games, hoping for minor glitches on DX9 games... Is it true?

 

[DarkZeratul]

zerocool84, PingSpike and CP5670, I really appreciate your response; but this friend of mine swear he has read, 12 months or so ago in TH Forums, some people complaining of issues with KOTOR and other DX8 games and their brand new HD3850/3870 hardware... Does this people have a point or all this is just a hoax?

 

[CP5670]

Well, I'm not sure about KOTOR as I don't have that game, but the three FPSs certainly work fine.

The problems are not related to the DirectX version as such. It's some specific games that have issues due to driver bugs. Your friend is exaggerating the issue though, and the vast majority of old games are fine, or at least have workarounds to make them work. I play old stuff all the time on my GTX 280.

 

[DarkZeratul]

I am really very grateful for all your help, boys... Now, I am thinking that it isn´t a good idea to buy a brand-new graphics card. My friend, the PC Gamer, are going to upgrade graphics hardware in May, leaving his Palit 8800 GT as a spare. This Gcard cost him US $255 with taxes and duties; think I would pay US $100 in May for that, and have a reasonable risk of playing a fair amount of Lucas Arts PC games, without any serious issue... What do you think, CP5670?

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: DarkZeratul
zerocool84, PingSpike and CP5670, I really appreciate your response; but this friend of mine swear he has read, 12 months or so ago in TH Forums, some people complaining of issues with KOTOR and other DX8 games and their brand new HD3850/3870 hardware... Does this people have a point or all this is just a hoax?

I can assure you that KOTOR works. I played it on Vista64 on DX10 hardware as well. Most games if you have any problems, can be changed in the compalibility section by right clicking on the game and going to properties and maybe trying another operating system compatibility. I haven't had any problems with any games in DX10/Vista64. My oldest game is Starcraft which came out in 1999 and works fine. I have the Star Wars Best of PC pack with 5 Star Wars game and they all work fine.

 

[Fox5]

. Now he has a big time playin' DX10 games and when I say him that I am going to buy a new computer with Vista 64 AND a new DX10 card (probably ATI HD4870), and buy from him all his precious games, he says I have two options: A) Buying nVidia hardware and pray for the sake of seeing AT LEAST half of those games running in all its glory, or B) Buying any DX10 board and play ONLY DX9 and DX10 games, hoping for minor glitches on DX9 games... Is it true?

The latest ATI cards actually work better with the old games (in my experience) than the nvidia dx10 cards. From the 8 series onwards, nvidia made a clean break with their cards and they didn't focus much on legacy stuff.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

So far I've had an issue getting the Bloodmoon (maybe it was Tribunal) expansion for Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to install in Vista. The main game seems to install just fine, and I can actually play it, but the expansion just won't install for some reason, so I can't use my old save files to play the game and that stinks because I sunk about 15 hours in before I stopped playing.

 

[dug777]

I know Colin Mcrae 2005 has a problem with Starforce and Vista :|

 

[Grinja]

Originally posted by: dug777
I know Colin Mcrae 2005 has a problem with Starforce and Vista :|

I think that older starforce copy protection (like in Prince of Persia 3) does not work in Vista (I think due to driver signing or something) unless you download the latest verion from their web site before rebooting.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Grinja

Originally posted by: dug777
I know Colin Mcrae 2005 has a problem with Starforce and Vista :|

I think that older starforce copy protection (like in Prince of Persia 3) does not work in Vista (I think due to driver signing or something) unless you download the latest verion from their web site before rebooting.

Yeah, fighting that right now

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: Fox5

The latest ATI cards actually work better with the old games (in my experience) than the nvidia dx10 cards. From the 8 series onwards, nvidia made a clean break with their cards and they didn't focus much on legacy stuff.

I agree completely, though nVidia are pretty good now. They did however used to be utter shit for legacy games on DX10 hardware. ATi are still overall a bit better in this regard.

Currently nVidia have issues with Red Faction, Medal of Honor Allied Assault (and expansions) and Vampire Bloodlines, along with severe slowdowns in the Fear Expansion packs in certain areas.

Last time I checked, ATi had issues with X-Wing and TIE Fighter, and some mouse lag in Doom 3 & Quake 4 when running 8xMSAA.

 

[FalseChristian]

I haven't had any problems running any old games such as Doom and GLQuake with my 2 8800GTs using the latest 181.20 WHQL drivers. I've always found that nVidia GPUs are much better at playing old(er) games than ATI.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: FalseChristian
I haven't had any problems running any old games such as Doom and GLQuake with my 2 8800GTs using the latest 181.20 WHQL drivers. I've always found that nVidia GPUs are much better at playing old(er) games than ATI.

OpenGL (or software rendered with Doom ) games are pretty spot on with nvidia.
It's the DirectX stuff they fail on. They don't do so well with pre-dx9 stuff. ATI cards have gotten pretty good at it in recent years for whatever reason. Though if you want maximum compatibility, pick up a geforce 7 series card and a Voodoo 3 to play your old games.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: FalseChristian
I haven't had any problems running any old games such as Doom and GLQuake with my 2 8800GTs using the latest 181.20 WHQL drivers. I've always found that nVidia GPUs are much better at playing old(er) games than ATI.

An interesting statement, I assume you've also got a recent gen ATI machine that you've compared back to back in recent times using recent driver sets using old(er) games with your nvidia cards?

There's rarely such rigour behind these claims, but I do know that BFG plays with both nvidia and ATI cards and a whole range of old(er) games and new(er) games for each generation

Personally, the only game I've compared in recent times on my machine (Q6600/4850) and my GF's (E8500/9600GT) is farcry, and it kept crashing on her machine (everything stock).

From that I conclude that ATI is better at (an) old(er) game than nvidia

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: DarkZeratul
I am really very grateful for all your help, boys... Now, I am thinking that it isn´t a good idea to buy a brand-new graphics card. My friend, the PC Gamer, are going to upgrade graphics hardware in May, leaving his Palit 8800 GT as a spare. This Gcard cost him US $255 with taxes and duties; think I would pay US $100 in May for that, and have a reasonable risk of playing a fair amount of Lucas Arts PC games, without any serious issue... What do you think, CP5670?

The only Lucas Arts game I played a lot of is Jedi Knight (Dark Forces II). It has graphical issues with all DX10 cards from both nvidia and ATI. It plays ok, but the colors on shadows look horrible. Its the same issue that dark engine games (System Shock II, Thief I and II) have.