242 on 22/8/2008 at 21:22

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I bet result will be the same as with HD2000 and 3000. I.e. T1/2 unplayable without ddfix.

Thor on 23/8/2008 at 08:23

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Rofl. Duh!

Anyway good luck on your new card test :cheeky:, hope it passes your judgement well.

242 on 23/8/2008 at 19:17

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You should use ddfix 1.1.1 for Thief2, it uses DX 9 so there is no issues with speed on Radeons, but newer ddfix (I use 1.2.7) for Thief1/G because with DX9 versions of ddfix there is a glitch with health bar, and T1/G runs quite playable with DX7 (or whatever) ddfixes.

At least it works quite well for my 3870. No fog in T2 though (because of DX9 ddfix), no fog is better than 3 frames per second ;)

But it's a bad thing if T2 crashed with ddfix. I hadn't experienced crashes, the only problem I had - it was very slow with DX7 ddfixes in many places. Anyway, try 1.1.1

242 on 23/8/2008 at 19:54

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You won't be able to use latest version for T2, you yourself cited Hiatus' post where he descibed why. Unless drivers for 4870 drastically differ from 3870, and they don't. We are left only with 1.0-1.1. option for T2. Of course it would be much better to have fog, but alas. At least it works fluid.

Hiatus on 23/8/2008 at 22:22

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biker

thank you for testing the card and the report. So it's now confirmed that the situation with HDxxxx is like I expected (and described why in quoted post). Btw Nvidia (with GF8xxx and up) has similar issues in older DX (3-7) games (horribly slow fps in older DX games, as described here: (http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=74969) for example - read all posts by filipetolhuizen in this thread for details).

"T2 - WORKS (v1.1.1), Broken (v1.3.11)"

in what way 1.3 is broken in T2? Game crashes (where?) or sth else?

And how severe is fps drop issue in various places in T2/T1/TG (esp. with particle effects visible on screen) - what is fps in these situations (is it really <10 fps)?

Please load T2 OM Framed and check fps at the very start of that mission (it's a demanding place - good for testing performance of various graphics chips and CPUs). Also test fps in some recent resource demanding FMs.

About your findings: please describe your findings/give link to this thread on Rage3D forums, in these 2 relevant threads:

(http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33927065)

and

(http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33929691)

do mention there that with HDxxx latest D3D6 versions of ddfix (1.2 and up) are broken, too (so we don't even have working 3rd party fix any more).

Don't forget usual ATI support form here: (http://support.ati.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=894&surveyID=486&type=web) (ATI Catalyst Crew Feedback) - describe the issue and link to here.



btw Timeslip recently (on 20th of August) updated his home page ( (http://timeslip.chorrol.com) ) with new entry - but no mention about thief/ddfix in it, unfortunately. Looks like he abandoned any development of ddfix (like planned v1.4 etc), at least for now (see my enquiry about it here: (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1749591#post1749591) - with no anwser from Timeslip - btw do you have email/PM contact with him - IMO we should contact Timeslip directly via these means and not wait till/if he visits this forum). But as I said, I don't think this issue (I mean low fps issue for D3D6 renderers on HD2xxx+) is fixable on ddfix level (except for switching to higher D3D version, like D3D9 which Timeslip already did in ddfix 1.0-1.1), because this is driver/hardware level problem, which also affects other DX games from that era (and Nvidia with their GF8xxx+ has similar problem as ATI with HD2xxx+, curiously - probably the result of die/driver code cuts for DX10 parts from both vendors).

The best (most compatible with current DX9/10 and future graphics chips/drivers and so the most future proof; it would fix low fps issue, too) solution would be of course ddfix version with D3D9 (like 1.0-1.1) and even D3D10 (Vista+ only) renderers, but without known bugs/issues from these 1.0-1.1 versions (which made Timeslip revert to D3D6 in 1.2+), and feature equivalent with 1.2-1.3 versions. But would obviously require quite a lot of work from Timeslip (1st, to try to fix said bugs and 2nd, to (re)implement features later added in 1.2-1.3) and it's uncertain he would be able to resolve issues with D3D9 renderer which he was not able to resolve last year, when developing 1.0-1.1.

So for good compatibility with older games I recommend to do what I did and get ATI X1950 Pro/XT/XTX which is the last chip from either ATI/NV with relatively good compatibility/support for older games (both on hardware and software/driver level).

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1 more related req to you: please get MS DXCapsViewer app (some new 9.xx version) either from recent MS DirectX SDK (you don't have to install it - just unpack it with Winrar/7-zip etc and look for DXCapsViewer.exe file) or standalone DXCapsViewer.exe v9.xx from the web (if you can't find it, PM me), and check whether HD4xxx reports it supports Dithering.

how to: run DXCapsViewer, in View menu select "All caps", go to Direct3D9 Devices -> your HD4xxx -> D3D Device Types -> HAL (not Reference!) -> Caps -> Raster Caps; on the right check whether D3DPRASTERCAPS_DITHER says Yes or No. (Do the same check for Geforce 8xxx+ you got). Even better, save reports from whole tree (with "All Caps" option checked) to a file (for both ATI/NV) and upload them, so we can compare them.