Current ATI vs Nvidia cards for Infinity Engine games

[chuft]

Hey folks,

 

I used nvidia cards for years, until I got a couple of troublesome ones (on one the fan would slow down, not speed up, when the card's temp rose; on another, the 3D unit burned out, so I could play games using software 3D, like Age of Wonders 2 with its software emulation setting, but not games requiring hardware 3D). I decided to try an ATI card for a change and got a HD 5670.

 

Well, the card (or more likely, ATI drivers) has been nothing but trouble for playing old games like Infinity Engine games, Age of Wonders Shadow Magic etc. under Windows XP. Alt-tabbing out not only causes game crashes, it will often freeze the computer or cause a spontaneous reboot. I get error messages related to the ATI driver often enough to know what is causing the problem - ATI. These games all worked flawlessly under XP for years using my old Nvidia cards. I remember tabbing out all the time to check Dudleyville's walkthrough for example in BG1. Now, trying that results most of the time in a blue screen of death and a reboot (thought I left those behind with Win 98!). BG1 plays somewhat jerkily - not hugely so, but there are constant little pauses when the character walks, or when I scroll the view around. Doesn't seem right, given that the system is far more powerful than what the game was designed to run on originally.

 

I am seriously tempted to get an Nvidia card to stop this madness, but my fear is that all the newer generation cards have problems with these games.

 

I am not using the widescreen mod so it is not related to that.

 

I am curious for the experiences of others regarding the stability of Infinity Engine games under recent generation cards. Have you noticed the games actually play worse than before? Any difference between ATI and Nvidia in terms of how gracefully they handle these old games, and alt-tabbing etc?

 

I am using XP for games since it always worked great in the past, but I do have Win7 on another partition for dual booting. I was afraid to try it for old games since I figured it would just introduce a new set of problems and XP always worked great for these games....until I got this ATI card that is. Will a new Nvidia card solve these problems, or will it have its own "incompatible with older games" issues?

 

Appreciate any experiences.

[Jarno Mikkola]

...

Well, the answer to your problems is the BG1's in BG2 mods, in other words the BGT-weidu or EasyTutu. That and the fact that you have to set the BGConfig to use the correct settings according the card you run it.

 

The Windows 7's only problem you might run to is the default install directory's hard protection, which makes even the patch not install correctly. So the game needs to be installed elsewhere, and you need to disable the User Account Control and Program Compatibility Assistant if you actually want to run a modified game under the Windows 7. Here's more on that.

[chuft]

Sadly this is not the answer to my problems. I just tried to install Easy Tutu, and as the first step installed BG2 and tested it. The graphics were a mess. Cursor trails and messed up menus even in the config menus in the game. BG1 works far better than BG2 with this ATI card. I never had a problem with BG2 under XP with an nividia card. I think this ATI card will be my first and last. Time for a new nividia card. It can't possibly be worse than this ATI.

 

And yeah I read this post, it didn't help.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Sadly this is not the answer to my problems. I just tried to install Easy Tutu, and as the first step installed BG2 and tested it. The graphics were a mess. Cursor trails and messed up menus---

First things first, where did you install the game to, as in what's your game directory ?

And next, open up the baldur.ini file in the game directory with Notepad and copy paste the text to a post. That is, either one of the games... but the BG2 is better at this.

 

PS, when you modify a game, you first need to configure the base game correctly, in this case you should not even contemplate installing the EasyTutu until you get the BG2's configuration so that it doesn't have the mouse trail etc. And by the by, the above link you mentioned is for NVidia cards, not ATI ones. As in there is no such one made... as in a topic titled, 'Compiled list of current problems and solutions for ATI graphic cards in Infinity Engine games' ... if I remember something, someone suggested removing the most advanced options from the cards control panel will make a lot of those problems go away... yes, I have a HD4890 ATI card on my computer and have none what so ever problems with the BG2 games.

[chuft]

I think I have BG2 working now, my mistake was trying to use a resolution above 800 x 600 in the BG2 config. Apparently when they say unsupported modes, they aren't kidding.

 

---

 

I installed it where I install all my games in XP, in the Program Files folder. XP does not have the UAC protection that screws up installs on Vista and Win 7 in their protected areas. I have played this game without a problem on XP before, just not with an ATI card.

 

I have not installed Tutu yet, I was testing the graphics of BG2 first as the install guide recommended.

 

I linked that post about nividia cards because I have seen people linking to it in threads about having mouse trails, black blocks etc. while using ATI cards, and saying the stuff in it could apply to newer ATI cards as well. I have a HD 5670. When I tried to use the widescreen mod with Planescape Torment last year with this card I got mouse trails, etc. so I know these things happen with at least some ATI cards. (I am not using the widescreen mod with this game.) I seem to recall having to use some Microsoft software developer's kit to emulate D3D or something to get rid of the mouse trails in PST widescreen.

 

Back to BG2:

 

My graphics card settings in Catalyst Control Center are all set to "let the application control" the various things. I ended up with hardware acceleration turned on in the BG2 config and everything maxed there to highest performance.

 

So the game seems to be working, at least for the opening scene, first dialog and walking around a bit. Something is still not right, since I can't select 16 bit color, nor any of the "software BLT" type settings inside the game. The only thing I can turn on or off is transparent shadows. The rest don't respond when I click on them, they seem locked. Since I have read of some people solving problems by selecting 16 bit color and various software blt settings, it's rather disturbing that I can't even select them to experiment.

 

The opening scene has some spell effects, and things look normal. I suppose I shall go ahead and install EasyTutu now and hope for the best.

 

I am using the original disc editions of the game that came in boxes for SOA and TOB, as well as BG1. I am curious if the GOG-tweaked versions run better on newer video cards.

 

I have had nothing but trouble since getting this ATI card, with all kinds of older games. I am wondering if the current Nvidia cards cause the same kinds of problems, or if it was limited to a certain generation of cards.

 

Thanks for your time.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I think I have BG2 working now, my mistake was trying to use a resolution above 800 x 600 in the BG2 config. Apparently when they say unsupported modes, they aren't kidding.

Well, yeah... if the BG2 game is started in the any of unsupported resolutions except the smallest of them(1024x768), the game crashes when you equip a two handed sword.

The Widescreen mod removes that problem and a lot of the others. So it's required to use the mod, and not the games own configuration.

 

What comes to the changing to 16 bit, for that to work, you would need to shut down the program for it to get accomplished... so the game was made to prevent the choice in the game itself, and allow that only through the BGConfig.exe, which is where you should make the changes ... not in the game itself.

 

You might be surprised, but the last Service Pack update actually brings a lot of the features in the UAC to the XP. The worst of course is the partial mirroring of the said Program Files folder, at least on a few versions. So you'll be safer if you install the games to the Games folder... the one in C:\Games\[gamename]\ ... at least the older games that have not been 'Certified for Windows XP SP3.' ...

 

The GOG version is the same as the original 4+1 CD, except it has the patch installed on top and it comes in a DVD format'ed file construction.

Only the BG:EE will be different in most of this, it's about to be released actually in a few days. And it will be a lot different too. As it's has the Widescreen actual support and far better graphical&processing output system, well that's what is said about it.

[chuft]

By the way my ATI driver/card is still causing blue screens of death in XP upon tabbing out of BG2/Tutu sometimes.

 

Would still like to know if current nvidia cards are any better, since my ATI HD 5670 is extremely unstable with BG2/Tutu.

[chuft]

You might be surprised, but the last Service Pack update actually brings a lot of the features in the UAC to the XP. The worst of course is the partial mirroring of the said Program Files folder, at least on a few versions.

 

 

I would be surprised, since I've been using XP for many years and never seen any evidence of this.