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Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow

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First post, by PhilsComputerLab

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Haven't done much lately and really want to check out this game!

Similar to the original Splinter Cell this game is very picky regarding the graphics card. On modern hardware shadows and lights are not displayed correctly. It appears that the issues are extreme enough for GOG.com and Steam not to publish this game.

I have only started investigating this game so I will add findings as I go along and please feel free to contribute 😀

There seem to be two retail versions of this game, one spanning 4 CDs and one on a single DVD.

I got the DVD version recently, new, sealed and cheap on eBay:

Ay6TAu4l.jpg

On the CD are some useful pointers for compatibility. Nvidia driver 53.03, ATI 4.2, DirectX 9 runtime, a patch to update to version 1.31 and a readme file with some info (attached).

The readme file mentions these hardware configurations:

1.1. System Requirements […]
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1.1. System Requirements

Minimum:
Processor: Intel or AMD, 1 GHz
Operating
System: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP
Memory: 128 MB RAM
Disk Space: 2.5 GB
Graphics Card: DX8.1 compatible card,
GeForce 3 or higher ( GeForce 4 MX are GeForce4 Go are not supported)
ATI Radeon 8500 or higher
Sound Card: DirectX 8.1 compatible
DirectX Version: 8.1b
Network: High-Speed Modem with 64 Kbits data transfer upload rate.

Recommended Configuration:
Processor: Intel or AMD 1.8 GHz
Operating System: WindowsXP
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Disk Space: 2.5 GB
Graphics Card: DX8.1 compatible card,
GeForce FX 128MB
ATI Radeon 9800
Sound Card: DirectX 8.1 compatible with EAX Advanced HD
DirectX Version: 8.1b
Network: High-Speed Modem with 128 Kbits of data transfer upoad rate.

Graphics Cards Supported:
Radeon 9800 - Tested (Pro)
Radeon 9700 - Tested (Pro)
Radeon 9600 - Tested (Pro)
Radeon 9500 - Tested (Pro)
Radeon 9200 - Tested (Pro)
Radeon 9100 - Not Tested
Radeon 9000 - Tested
Radeon 8500 - Tested
GeForce FX 5900 - Tested
GeForce FX 5800 - Tested

GeForce FX 5600 - Tested
GeForce FX 5200 - Tested
GeForce 4 Ti 4600/4400/4200 - Tested (4200)
GeForce 3 Ti500/Ti200 - Tested
GeForce 3 - Tested

Interesting that ATI cards are supported.

More information regarding compatibility:

**** Graphics Compatibility **** […]
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**** Graphics Compatibility ****

- If the game is very slow, or the display corrupted, check that anti-aliasing is not forced at the level of the drivers. If this is the case, deactivate it.
- Graphical problems may be experienced with GeForce FX. Update your drivers with the latest available version on the nVidia site (http://www.nvidia.com). Using ALT-TAB to toggle to the desktop and back to the game should correct these problems.
- If your monitor switches to Energy Saving, update the drivers for your screen.
- Problems may be experienced with ATI Catalyste Version 4.2 drivers. Use version 4.1, or an earlier version than 4.2.
- With GeForce 3, the use of 56.09 drivers, or higher, provides improved performance in high resolution with enhanced graphic detail. However, the game runs properly with versions 53.03 and higher.

I have installed the game on my current i7 machine with Windows 8.1 and GTX660 and it installed and plays fine. The shadows and lights are all off of course but I have't compared it to a period correct machine yet.

Regarding graphics card I believe that the FX5950 is the "best" card for this game. Looking at driver versions I found a few drivers with references to Pandora Tomorrow:

The game ships with 53.03 and the first, newer, driver I found is 56.72 from April 2004 with this entry:

Issues resolved: GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, Windows XP: In the game Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, white flashes occur on a character with antialiasing enabled.

I found another entry in driver 61.77 from July 2004:

Issues resolved: GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, Windows XP: Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow: Rain splashes do not appear.

The machine I'm planning on using for this game will be:

Asrock Pentium 4 865 chipset board
Pentium 4 2.8C HT disabled
2x512 MB RAM
Audigy 2 ZS
Windows XP SP2

Some questions:

Does this game also use shadow buffers like Splinter Cell?
Does it use an alternative render path for ATI?
How come ATI cards are supported but newer Nvidia (and ATI cards) are known not to display lights and shadows correctly.

Attachments

  • Filename
    Readme.txt
    File size
    23.76 KiB
    Downloads
    339 downloads
    File comment
    Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Readme.txt
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

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Reply 2 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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Game looks fine, lots of shadows and lights to play with. FX 5950 Ultra is fine for high details at 1024 x 768. With V-sync mostly at 30 fps, sometimes at 60 fps.

1600 x 1200 is a bit too challenging. It seems to be just like Splinter Cell, no card that is fast enough for 1600 x 1200 and display shadows and lights.

Been looking at some YT let's play videos but many don't tell you what hardware they are using. XBox is the original so that's a good point for starting.

Got to setup the comparison built, likely a Phenom II X2 machine with a 8800GT. Then take save games and do the captures. But the first level should show enough differences. I found lots of talk about a TV station so will check out that, maybe find a save game online.

Also very annoying that so many breakthroughs and let's play videos are played with night videos (grey-scale).

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Reply 3 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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Some updates. Got my 2 test machines all setup and ready to go!

wXVv5N2l.jpg

Machine on the left is:

P4 2.8 GHz HT disabled
2x512GB DDR
GeForce FX5950 Ultra
Audigy 2 ZS

The machine on the right is:

AMD Phenom II X2 555
4GB DDR2
GeForce 8800GT
X-Fi Xtreme Audio

Both are running XP SP2, the P4 has the DVD version and the Phenom II the CD version of the game. Both patched to the latest version.

Screens for easy side-by-side comparison. The large screen is the period correct machine.

TSlrXeVl.jpg

E52FY4Ul.jpg

41JePSPl.jpg

Sound and graphics options:

RIFfLSrl.jpg

yDU5gHhl.jpg

Ubisoft system check:

rxvuSu9l.jpg

XX5C6Jxl.jpg

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Reply 4 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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Was on the lookout for interesting scenes in the first level and although I haven't finished that level I have already got around 30 save points with noticeable differences in terms of lights and shadows.

I don't see the need to play higher levels as the evidence is significant.

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Reply 5 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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Was hoping this thread generates more interest so I'll just update my progress.

I've played the game on both machines, side by side, up to the beginning of the train mission (you start on top of a train).

Up to this point I have created around 50 save points that show a difference and I just captured all save points on the FX 5950 Ultra machine. Next up is the 8800GT machine and then I will start editing it + voice over explaining some of the details 😀

But it's clear that this game has a lot more, and much more obvious, differences compared to the original Splinter Cell.

The game is quite good. I find the missions so far quite enjoyable. Having played the original game does help I guess. The graphics are quite good and the shadows and lights create an interesting atmosphere.

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Reply 8 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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YouTube user Alex Viralata has tested this game on a ATI X1400 card and it seems to display everything correctly!

http://youtu.be/wwIUaKM4-R8

How does the X1400 fit into things compared to the 9700? Can anyone try out this game with newer ATI cards and see what happens?

What is the fastest ATI card from that era / period? Maybe 60 fps Pandora Tomorrow is possible?

I only got ATI cards up to Radeon 9800 and I'm not sure how they compare to the FX 5950 Ultra.

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Reply 9 of 188, by F2bnp

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The 9800XT should be faster than the 5950 Ultra and the 9800 Pro should be a close match.

I could try the game on my main PC, but unfortunately I don't have any older ATi GPUs, other than a 9600 Pro, in which case you should try it out Phil. When Pandora Tomorrow hit the market, I believe the 9800XT was the fastest card around. Nvidia hadn't released their 6xxx series (that happened in May AFAIK) and ATi released theirs a little later. The only new cards from their line were the X700 and X800 cards, the other ones were rebranded cards (x600=9600).

Reply 10 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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The readme file mentions this:

Problems may be experienced with ATI Catalyste Version 4.2 drivers. Use version 4.1, or an earlier version than 4.2.

But ships with 4.2 on the DVD.

Looking at the drivers from around 2004 and I was unable to find anything on the AMD site.

Guru 3D has some information but the download links are broken.

4.2 has this entry:

Setting the display option to 640x480 or 800x600 in the game Splinter Cell no longer results in the game menu flickering

4.4 has this entry:

The shadow of the characters in the game Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow are now being displayed properly

4.6 has this entry:

Starting a game of Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON 9000 PRO installed and the display set to 1024x768 and the graphics quality set to high no longer results in flickering textures

4.7 has this entry:

Flashing textures in the water are no longer noticed when running Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ X800 XT installed

4.8 has this entry:

Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow:Display corruption is no longer noticed when launching a multiplayer game under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ 9200 installed

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Reply 11 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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So I quickly tested two ATI cards with that MSI overlay software. 1600 x 1200 at high details.

FX5950 Ultra
Start of level 1: 28 fps
Start of level 2: 18 fps

Medion Radeon 9800XXL
Start of level 1: 31 fps
Start of level 2: 19fps

Radeon 9550
Start of level 1: 11 fps
Start of level 2: 6 fps

The game seems to display correctly on the ATI card. The only difference I noticed in the short test is that some shadows are softer on the Nvidia card and sharper on the ATI card:

Nvidia:

QS1uTrp.png

ATI:

VWb57kE.png

Looking at the results a card roughly three to four times as powerful as the Radeon 9800XXL would be required for 60 fps at 1600 x 1200. I don't have such a card to try out.

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Reply 12 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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So I tried an AGP 6600GT with driver 66.93 and that also works fine!

So I don't think this game uses shadow buffers but something else that seems to break on newer machines.

In terms of performance it's right on the level of the FX5950 Ultra, so that's a bummer.

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Reply 13 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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Ok I was curious and tried a 7800GTX on the test machine that had the 8800GT and using driver 77.77 all shadows and lights seem to work fine!

Much better performance as well.

70 fps and 75 fps at 1600 x 1200 high details.

Will try a newer driver to see if that breaks the game.

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Reply 15 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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I tried various drivers from 77.77 to 169.21 without issues. Then driver 178.13 and the lights and shadows didn't work anymore. Tried a few drivers up to 307.83 and the same issue.

Couldn't get the 8800GT to work correctly, even with old drivers.

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Reply 16 of 188, by mirh

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Mhh.. there are other driver versions between 169.21 and 178.13

It would be nice to know what's the exact release that breaks everything.
Even for ATI cards, possibly

Then even who has not those old cards could try to.. mess around 😵

EDIT: geforce 8 series was the first one with unified shaders.....this may or may not mean something

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Reply 17 of 188, by PhilsComputerLab

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mirh wrote:

It would be nice to know what's the exact release that breaks everything.
Even for ATI cards, possibly

I was really hoping for a bit more interest / others helping out with testing. I only got a few cards and limited time 😒

Can you help out?

Personally most of these drivers are way too new. From 2007 - 2008 when things were already going Vista.

I like driver 77.77 which is from 2005. In general I like using drivers not too far away from when the game is released.

AMD cards I really only have a handful as well.

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Reply 18 of 188, by ddaazzaa

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I've spent a bit of time the past couple of days experimenting with drivers for both ATI and Nvidia on Windows XP Pro SP2.
With a GeForce 6800GT (AGP) the lighting showed correctly up to driver 175.80 (Beta). The last WHQL driver that works is 175.16.
Nvidia released the 177 drivers after that and the lighting is broken. The 177 release happens to coincide with the release of the 9800GTX.

I tested an 8400GS (G86 model) with the old drivers and couldn't get that to work with correct lighting. The 8xxx series introduced unified shaders so I think this is where the game breaks on a hardware level.
ATI introduced unified shaders in the HD2xxx series so I think that's where the ATI cards stop working properly.

I tested an ATI X600 (PCI-E) with the latest available XP drivers (10.2) and the lighting still works fine. So ATI cards may not have an XP driver that breaks the game.

So I think the following might be true:
*GeForce 8xxx and newer will not work.
*Radeon HD2xxx and newer will not work.
*Cards older than those above will work but have to run on Windows XP and Nvidia cards cannot use drivers 177 and newer.

If anyone has a 7900GTX, X1800, X1900, X1950 can they test to confirm whether the lighting works properly with these cards?
The best way to play this game might be with a 7800GTX/7900GTX or X1900XTX/X1950XTX. Both would get similar frame rates (flagships of the same generation) but the Nvidia solution would have better image quality with softer shadows. Since they are PCI-E cards modern processors could be used.

It would be interesting to know if there is any video card/driver combination that will work on Vista/7. At this stage I'm thinking that XP is probably going to be the only OS able to display the game correctly.