smithpd on 23/3/2008 at 17:55

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People are getting mixed results with recent Nvidia drivers. This had been mentioned in a smattering of threads, but a search does not disclose much without hunting around internally to each thread. I thought it might help to have a single thread to collect information about recent Nvidia drivers. What works, what doesn't, and under what circumstances?

Let's leave affinity, codecs, and safe texture manager out of the discussion unless these issues are driver-dependent, which I have not heard about.

Thief TDP and Gold

As I understand it, you need 163.71 or 163.75 to play TDP or Gold under XP without a crash when the game graphics start. Does anyone have experience with playing T1 using more recent drivers? Is the situation any different with Vista than with XP? Does the latest DDFIX solve the crash problem? Do recent Nvidia cards like the 8800 GT run T1? If so, what drivers do you use?

Thief 2

As I understand it, any driver version prior 169 gives the same rendering of T2 unless you go way back to very old cards and driver versions. One problem is that recent Nvidia cards like the 8800 GT are not supported by drivers prior to 169. For cards that run 163.75 drivers, issues of crappy colors, etc, are solved by DDFIX, which is discussed extensively in another thread. Recent drivers have given mixed results. So, what versions of recent drivers work, and under what circumstances do they work? Do recent Nvidia cards like 8800 GT run T2? If so, what drivers do you use? Does Vista make a difference?

Video card, driver compatibility, and Thief

Does anyone have a list that says what is the lowest driver version that can be used with various recent Nvidia cards, so people wanting to buy a recent Nvidia card will know if Thief can run on it? Maybe we can compile such a list.

Conclusions

TBD, to be updated after discussions.

smithpd on 23/3/2008 at 21:09

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Thanks, Biker. I have a few questions about your responses, in blue.



Another question that would be worth answering is, in addition to what drivers work, what drivers don't work. That would help in making the list.

smithpd on 24/3/2008 at 05:50

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Thanks for the detailed list, EvaUnit02.

You say you need DDFIX to "even run" Thief. Does it run well with DDFIX? How does it look? Is the rendering basically perfect, both in game and in menus, or are there some problems with it?

As for as having to use Darkloader to "boot" it, by boot do you mean to to start or launch the game? If you only load the game with darkloader but do not play it, and then later you hit the "play" button in darkloader, does it run? After doing this, if you just run Thief2.exe outside darkloader, does it crash? If so, that is truly bizarre. So far as I know, all darkloader does is start the EXE at whatever mission is scheduled to be run in a CFG file. There should be no difference.

Apparently the 8800 GT runs no faster than 60 FPS on your system, and even this requires both the DDFIX version and Darkloader to launch Thief. Is that correct? I would guess that your LCD monitor only supports 60 Hz "refresh" (frame buffer update) and your vsync is turned on. If you have a DVI cable, the monitor could run at 60 Hz only. Look at the monitor resolution settings under display properties / advanced and see if 60 Hz is the only choice. And then you will need vsync on to control Garrett's running speed in T2. You can experiment with turning vsync off. It should run at a faster frame rate, but then Garrett will run too fast.

So, 60 Hz is not so bad for display in Thief. I use 75 Hz because I have a CRT and set vsync to application controlled. It works fine, but I haven't bothered to check refresh rate. I guess you need something like fraps to do that, right?

smithpd on 24/3/2008 at 07:50

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Thanks for the clarification, EvaUnit02. :)

I can't edit the thread title. I think only a moderator can do that. But I am hesitant to ask for the moment. I think the topic may be confusing enough as it stands. If that T2 and SS2 are essentially the same, then it certainly would not hurt to get the input of SS2 players. If they are different, then I think it does not help to have SS2 in the same thread. What do you all think?

I have never heard of a difference between starting a program and launching a program. Either way you invoke the EXE. Kindly explain or provide a link.

smithpd on 24/3/2008 at 08:20

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Yes, start, run, or launch is the same. Sorry, I missed your question mark.

I think of boot as essentially different. The bootstrap process, taken from "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap)) is a a procedure for getting an operating system going, starting from something simple and building into something complex. It is not usually used for running a stand-alone program. I know there are similarities.

So I guess the next question is, what is darkloader adding to the path or the command line to make it different? The same process ends up running regardless.