Seeking Advice: Legacy PC (T1/T2) OS + Hardware

Karlfox on 7/9/2009 at 01:46

So after *years* of delay, I'm finally looking to put together a "legacy" PC for T1 and T2. After re-reading several of the "classic" discussions on the subject ((http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91837) 1,(http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93228) 2) and bringing myself up to speed with the capabilities (and requirements!) of Timeslip's ddfix and weak-ling's widescreen mod, I'm still uncertain enough that I need some TTLG advice :)

In the past, optimal T1/T2 builds usually centered around 3dfx hardware and a fast CPU. Leastwise, it was hard to go far wrong with the combination, as the Dark Engine was conceived of and written in the heyday of Voodoo1/2 gaming and the Voodoo3/4/5 chips did a good job of maintaining backwards compatibility. Fog never broke, the stars never faded, and 3dfx's "22-bit" post-filter meant that Thief's 16-bit textures looked exceptional. A solid CPU could pick up the slack where newer FMs pushed the Dark Engine's boundaries, and Windows 98 never complained about the hardware it was given. Throw in an Aureal-based soundcard, and you were set to enjoy Thief in all its shadowy glory!

Now, it seems as though things have changed a bit... Not only does the introduction of Timeslip's ddfix allow for present-day taffers to enjoy Thief 1 and 2 on their modern machines, it enables them to enjoy Thief quite intact (perhaps even with (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128546) fog?) and additionally makes possible several very real improvements in the Dark Engine itself (most notably a 32-bit texture loader and the NTEX high resolution textures). Coupled with weak-ling's widescreen mod, it begs the question: where does the "optimal" Thief configuration now lie? If compatibility is no longer an issue and we can actually improve things like textures and FOV, are we not better served by modern CPUs, powerful GPUs, Windows XP, and oodles of memory?

More to the point, has the role of the "legacy PC" been eclipsed? What (if anything) suffers?

By way of example, I have in my possession an old sound card based on Aureal's AU8830 processor that I'd love to make use of, but I question whether the Microsoft drivers provided with XP do much to enable A3D 1.0 or 2.0. If I'm obliged to run Windows 98SE for A3D support, I lose the ability to run ddfix (requiring Windows 2000 or above; so I'm again confined to older graphics hardware) and also access to thief_gotcha's NTEX high-res textures. I think weak-ling's widescreen mod should work OK with 98SE, but how many graphics-cards-of-yore will drive a 1680x1050 resolution display at acceptable framerates? Do I create and run a custom half-scale resolution like 840x525 on a Voodoo3, or simply deal with the rendering issues that begin to crop up on more modern graphics cards (like a GeForce4/5/6)?

I think the way to go now lies with a Windows XP box, but I guess I'd appreciate some sort of confirmation-- Windows 9x is starting to look awfully long in tooth for all but the truest of legacy PCs. XP will never be bulletproof, but thanks to the efforts of some extraordinary individuals within this community, it seems to have become a very viable option! :)

As an aside, I guess I've answered most of my questions, but I'd still love to hear:
- whether folks here have experimented with the Vortex2 under XP,
- whether you're happily running W98SE with a widescreen resolution (and with what hardware set-up),
- whether there's a compelling reason to straddle the 98SE / XP hardware line and run both in a dual-boot configuration,
- (whether it isn't possible to ddfix manually under W98SE..)

Thanks all!

bikerdude on 7/9/2009 at 09:30

now that fog works on Ati HD 4000 cards with DDfix there is no need to burden yourself with build an old DX9 based pc.

DJ Riff on 8/9/2009 at 09:44

Quote:

whether folks here have experimented with the Vortex2 under XP

Vortex2 works great in Win2000 with A3D support in Thief1-2. There are some issues that must be solved only once after installing the driver.

It also works in WinXP SP2 with Windows' built-in drivers. I didn't try to enable A3D as I installed it only to play Fallout 3, and erased it after the game was finished.

baeuchlein on 8/9/2009 at 13:06

Quote Posted by Karlfox

So after *years* of delay, I'm finally looking to put together a "legacy" PC for T1 and T2.

A "legacy" PC today might be something different from what was called a "legacy" PC in the two discussions you mentioned, since these were from 2005.

I have several PCs, some still in active use, others more or less rotting in the attic, and almost anything I had in between 2000 and 2005 does run the Thief games good enough. Some problems occur with fog, some missions may be a bit heavy for some older computers, and getting hardware accelerated sound to work (with EAX and more than just stereo speaker sound) can be a real pain in the ass, if it works at all. However, I don't use the widescreen patch (I use ancient monitors, even prefer 640x480 to other resolutions) and I don't need ddfix. And there's no dual-core processor present here even today.

So, it may not be a real problem to get Thief to work with an older PC, but if you want all kinds of bells and whistles, things are different. I don't know whether it is easier to build a "legacy" PC or a modern PC which will give you the Thief experience you desire.

If you have parts for your Thief PC already, test them with the PC you're using today. Make a backup (e.g., create an image from the boot partition) and start experimenting. For example, you could check whether that Aureal sound card you have gives you positional sounds (with four or more speakers) if you could test it in a computer running Windows XP. After that, just restore your previous Windows (without any Aureal driver remnants remaining) again.

Quote Posted by Karlfox

In the past, optimal T1/T2 builds usually centered around 3dfx hardware and a fast CPU. Leastwise, it was hard to go far wrong with the combination, as the Dark Engine was conceived of and written in the heyday of Voodoo1/2 gaming and the Voodoo3/4/5 chips did a good job of maintaining backwards compatibility. Fog never broke, the stars never faded, and 3dfx's "22-bit" post-filter meant that Thief's 16-bit textures looked exceptional. A solid CPU could pick up the slack where newer FMs pushed the Dark Engine's boundaries, and Windows 98 never complained about the hardware it was given.

Other video cards of that time may work well with Thief, too. My ancient ATI Xpert 2000 pro (a crippled version of a Rage 128 Pro card), which was constructed at about the same time as the Voodoo2, gives you a good Thief experience as well. You even get fog (unfortunately with the "wall of fog" effect) without doing anything special. Same with NVidia TNT2 based cards, but they had better fog (no walls there). I never used these cards with Windows XP, however.

Voodooo1 and Voodoo2 cards can overheat if the PC used is fast enough. It is said that a Pentium-II at 400 MHz can already fry those cards. I know for sure that a Voodoo2 which I put in a PC using an 850 MHz Duron CPU ran pretty hot after a while.

Our three Radeons (7500, 9250 and 9550) had to be persuaded to display fog and still had the "wall of fog" look, but apart from that, they worked with Windows 98 SE as well as Windows XP (except for the 7500, which I never tested). The 7500 and 9250 had dithering problems (looked like "snow" on a TV screen), but this can be corrected with the compatibility options of most ATI drivers. If not, ddfix does the trick.

So, if you want fog, it can be a bit tricky with these older Radeons, but it should be possible. For newer cards, Bikerdude usually has some information on what's up with them.

As for the sky and stars, I never bothered what kind of sky was "right" anyhow.

Sound (with more than stereo sound without hardware acceleration) is a different challenge, however.

A Sound Blaster 4.1 Digital card (using a CT5880 chip; they may be called an ES1371 card, a SB PCI 128 or even a SB PCI 64) produced no decent sound when trying anything with hardware accelerated sounds and EAX, let alone more than two speakers. Only a few days ago I found out that the latest driver for this card finally allows you tho have fully functional EAX hardware accelerated positional sounds - if you use XP. The latest Win9x driver still turns down the rear speakers' volume so much that it's almost inaudible.

Two onboard sound chips (Realtek ALC650 and VIA 3059/CMI9761) sometimes play positional sound effects well, sometimes muffled and/or with wrong volumes, sometimes even from the wrong speaker. The drivers seem to be unstable. And using a new EAX.DLL did not change anything.

Apparently, getting decent sound apart from "stereo only" is always a problem. Test your Aureal card if possible, and if it works, keep it like a treasure. After all, a thief might steal it...:cheeky:

Quote Posted by Karlfox

begs the question: where does the "optimal" Thief configuration now lie?

I think it depends on what features of Thief you want. If you need all the bells and whistles, you may be forced to pick every single part of the computer by hand.

Up to now, I did not need more that 128-256 MB of RAM and my old Athlon XP at 1,7 GHz speed and the Radeon 9550 to play missions (and even Thief 3), although I'm content with a comparatively spartanic experience. Whether you prefer Windows XP or Win9x is up to you. I have been able to manually install ddfix under Win98SE about one year ago, so even that is possible. If you have enough RAM, however, I don't think XP should be a severe problem. Only the Indeo video codecs for XP could be a bit hard to get a hand on, so maybe yo'll have a problem with playing the movies in Thief.

Having more than 512 MB of RAM installed will get you in trouble with Win9x, however, but it should be possible to circumvent these problems. No need to buy more than these 512 MB, though, if you plan to use the PC with Win9x only, since the trick is, basically, to tell Win9x that it should use only about 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM.

Windows 95 (if you consider it) will usually run into problems with processors faster than about 600-700 MHz. On the other hand, it may be preferred for very slow CPUs, below 233 MHz, I guess. The reason is that somehow, Thief runs faster with Win95 than with Win98SE. I discovered that when trying to run Thief on ancient Pentium-I based computers. Running Thief 2 with such a machine would not be a pleasure, though, so... forget about it.;)

Quote Posted by Karlfox

If I'm obliged to run Windows 98SE for A3D support, I lose the ability to run ddfix (requiring Windows 2000 or above; so I'm again confined to older graphics hardware)

At least a manual installation of an older ddfix version did work with Win98SE. Since I don't need ddfix, I have not tried it with a newer ddfix version.

Quote Posted by Karlfox

I think the way to go now lies with a Windows XP box, but I guess I'd appreciate some sort of confirmation-- Windows 9x is starting to look awfully long in tooth for all but the truest of legacy PCs.

The main issue with Win9x is that you don't get drivers for newer hardware anymore, let alone any updates. I still use some Win98SE setups for a few tasks, but it's usually not because of Thief.

My recommendation: Check whether you get drivers for all components you want to use and for the operating system of your choice. If you get all that for Win9x as well as Windows XP, you can check the CPU speed and the amount of RAM. Then make a decision if there still is one.

Quote Posted by Karlfox

I'd still love to hear:
- whether you're happily running W98SE with a widescreen resolution (and with what hardware set-up)

Not with widescreen. But four computers (two Pentium-II based ones, CPU speed 233 MHz and 350 MHz; two Athlon/Duron based ones, CPU speeds 765-850 and 900 MHz) are running with Windows 98 SE (XP does not make any sense on these, for various reasons), while one (Athlon XP at 1,2-1,7 GHz; 1 GB RAM, Radeon 9550) has some obscure problem with Win98SE and Thief 2, so I use Windows XP for this one.

Hardware needed for Thief 3 is a bit more demanding, but at least the 1,7 GHz Athlon should play it fine even on 800x600 resolution.

Quote Posted by Karlfox

- whether there's a compelling reason to straddle the 98SE / XP hardware line and run both in a dual-boot configuration

I have some programs I don't want to give up which need Win98SE. One or two others want XP. One computer therefore needs a dual-boot setup, the others don't. None of that has anything to do with Thief, however.

Quote Posted by Karlfox

- (whether it isn't possible to ddfix manually under W98SE..)

Older versions certainly work, and unless newer versions need more than just XP's .NET framework for installation, I think these may work, too.

Holy sh*t, this post is long! I should write books and get paid for that...:cheeky:

Brian The Dog on 10/9/2009 at 00:41

My "legacy" PC for Thief 1 & 2 is:

Sempron 3000 Socket 754
MSI motherboard with 64Mb S3 Chrome graphics and basic audio
512Mb 400MHz RAM
40Gb IDE hard drive with Windows 98

It gets a bit slow in some of the Fan Missions, but otherwise runs fine. The big problem I had was finding a motherboard currently for sale whose manufacturer made available Win98 drivers. If you go for Ebay or something similar, then it would be much easier.

Since DDFix came out I can play it on my "normal" PC (with a GeForce 7950GT) without any problems, so the legacy PC is currently not used. But it's nice to know it's there!

I was wondering recently if one could build a "legacy" PC for Thief with a normal motherboard and CPU, and just turn off SATA, PCI-E and the fancy CPU stuff, and install a basic 80Gb IDE hard drive and a PCI nVidia 5200 or ATI 9000 graphics card and a simple PCI sound card, all of which will have drivers for Win98. Or would the modern memory speeds cause problems?

Karlfox on 10/9/2009 at 02:38

Quote Posted by baeuchlein

So, it may not be a real problem to get Thief to work with an older PC, but if you want all kinds of bells and whistles, things are different. I don't know whether it is easier to build a "legacy" PC or a modern PC which will give you the Thief experience you desire.
[...]
I think it depends on what features of Thief you want. If you need all the bells and whistles, you may be forced to pick every single part of the computer by hand.

I think you hit the issue on the head there baeuchlein! :thumb: (and in the form of an *epic* reply too!) --My point being that I've now been without a regular PC for effectively 5 years and would be putting it together from scratch. As such, my only real requirements are that this build be a) widescreen compatible and b) A3D 1.0 / EAX capable. There's stated no requirement that it only be used for Thief 1 & 2, but it's certainly allowed to occupy that niche :)

Bikerdude-- I did indeed see Yandros' thread on HD4xx0 fog the other day, but fog's a very small issue for me and the HD4xx0 series is absolute overkill for a T1/T2 build.

DJ-- thanks for the tip! Windows 2000 will definitely be another candidate to consider :)

Brian-- I've done a bit of homework myself, and it appears that you start running into trouble with PCI-E motherboards, if for no other reason than the general lack of W98 drivers from the various motherboard/chipset manufacturers. Which isn't to say that such things can't be done, but you'll want to do some research (http://www.msfn.org/board/windows-95-98-98se-me-f8.html) (W9x boards at MSFN.org).