Nice find. What is the frame rate like on the GF4? Now we need to check if FX has the same issue or not.

I've just tried this myself with the wrapper and it's not quite what you're saying.

The heat haze effect appears to be tied to resolution! 😮

It works at all resolutions but as you increase the render resolution, the haze effect is drastically diminished. It gets more and more subtle and extends less and less from the fire.

It's so subtle i'm not sure it will come through that well on the computer.

To notice that it is still there at high res, climb onto the pole and then angle the camera down so you can see the lower window. There, you can see the panels of the window shimmer in the haze. Also try looking at the railings as you approach the fire in the first place.

That said, maybe you are right and the wrapper "fixes it"

However, i would say it is sadly an effect that is simply optimised only to look correct at 640*480 resolution - much like how in a lot of old games, their UI gets minutely small and hard to read as you increase the resolution. I think a large part of this might be from what Phil has alluded to before, that the game is primarily an Xbox game and the PC ports of the first 2 at least are kind of not the best. I wonder if chaos theory is any better?
But yer, that would explain the 480p rendering target.

I think this could be sorted with the wrapper though somehow.
Either by somehow finding the effect and changing how it is applied based on your chosen resolution. So if it is told to affect say 1*1 pixel at 640*480 then if you are running at 1280*960 (not possible but just an example) then the wrapper maps those 1*1 pixels to 2*2 pixels - in effect integer resizing the effect.

I am probably talking out my arse here but that's how i imagine you could do it although i am speaking from a perspective of someone that knows nothing of graphics programming!

Dgvoodoo has a good mode where you can tell the game it is running at 640*480 for example but then force it to actually render at any res, say 1280*960. This is used to fix tiny UI problems and is quite cool. Though i had issues with it breaking fonts in hitman codename 47. But still i'm not sure if that would apply here as the effect itself is part of the opengl rendering where as i imagine that the reason it works in dgvoodoo is that the UI is not part of the glide rendering but is software rendered on top and so even though the ui thinks it's 640*480, anything glide rendered knows it's 1280*960. Hmmm.
If that is not the case and in fact the co-ordinates for the wrapped resolutions are somehow mapped and scaled effectively then maybe i am wrong and it would help.

Still, those are some ideas about how similar resolution dependent problems have been overcome before!

But yer, first, try changing the res to 640*480 to confirm. Cos i'm pretty sure the effect is still there at high res, just so subtle it's almost non-existant.

I didnt run any numbers yet on SCPT but i can tell you that it is struggles even at lowest settings(resolution. shadows,effects). A bit hard to enjoy or to test. The same for SC1.

Will try. Will be back will some results. later on. I played with the wrapper at 4k on my modern system and 1080p on my 7950gx2 and i didnt see anything.
Thanks

notindeed wrote:

I've just tried this myself with the wrapper and it's not quite what you're saying. […]
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I've just tried this myself with the wrapper and it's not quite what you're saying.

The heat haze effect appears to be tied to resolution! 😮

It works at all resolutions but as you increase the render resolution, the haze effect is drastically diminished. It gets more and more subtle and extends less and less from the fire.

It's so subtle i'm not sure it will come through that well on the computer.

To notice that it is still there at high res, climb onto the pole and then angle the camera down so you can see the lower window. There, you can see the panels of the window shimmer in the haze. Also try looking at the railings as you approach the fire in the first place.

That said, maybe you are right and the wrapper "fixes it"

However, i would say it is sadly an effect that is simply optimised only to look correct at 640*480 resolution - much like how in a lot of old games, their UI gets minutely small and hard to read as you increase the resolution.

I think this could be sorted with the wrapper though somehow.
Either by somehow finding the effect and changing how it is applied based on your chosen resolution. So if it is told to affect say 1*1 pixel at 640*480 then if you are running at 1280*960 (not possible but just an example) then the wrapper maps those 1*1 pixels to 2*2 pixels - in effect integer resizing the effect.

I am probably talking out my arse here but that's how i imagine you could do it although i am speaking from a perspective of someone that knows nothing of graphics programming!

Dgvoodoo has a good mode where you can tell the game it is running at 640*480 for example but then force it to actually render at any res, say 1280*960. This is used to fix tiny UI problems and is quite cool. Though i had issues with it breaking fonts in hitman codename 47. But still i'm not sure if that would apply here as the effect itself is part of the opengl rendering where as i imagine that the reason it works in dgvoodoo is that the UI is not part of the glide rendering but is software rendered on top and so even though the ui thinks it's 640*480, anything glide rendered knows it's 1280*960. Hmmm.
If that is not the case and in fact the co-ordinates for the wrapped resolutions are somehow mapped and scaled effectively then maybe i am wrong and it would help.

Still, those are some ideas about how similar resolution dependent problems have been overcome before!

But yer, first, try changing the res to 640*480 to confirm. Cos i'm pretty sure the effect is still there at high res, just so subtle it's almost non-existant.

Is that right? Wow.

Well that might explain it. I used Bandicam and captured the game at 1600 x 1200 😀

So it might be better to play it at 1024 x 768?

Yes SC1 struggles even on a GF4 at 1024 x 768. Reducing the detail levels by 1 makes a big difference though.

Here it is(640x480). So we have bug that depends on resolution. How cool is that. 😀 You can imagine how obeservable this effect is at 4k. 😁

Hi! I'm trying to use the shadow fix, but I have a problem. When I place the fix in the folder and try to launch the game I get this error:

Empty class for object None

History: UObject::StaticAllocateObject <- (NULL None) <- UObject::StaticConstructObject <- UGameEngine::Init <- InitEngine

If I delete the 3d8d.dll file, the game runs perfectly (with the shadow problem)

My PC: i7 4770K, Windows 8.1, Nvidia GTX 970

Solved

Jagger1984 wrote:

Solved

Would you please be kind enough to share the solution with everyone?

I bought my self some new parts for my workstation. I just felt the need to use my 7950gx2(s) and play some SCPT+ wrapper on fresh installed Win7.
You know what the funny part is? it plays perfect. There are no extra shadows/lights/colors. There is something in these cards the game is using. 😀 (voodoo magic maybe)
Same game, same OS, same driver, same wrapper but different GPU(8800 or higher) and you'll see artiifacts.

Very nice.

I checked and the 7 series has also Windows 8 and 8.1 drivers. At least that opens up a few more options, good news.

Kind of random, but I thought this game was much more demanding. I was just playing it last night on my 1400S with a 5900 FX and it runs really quite well at 1280x1024.

Is there a benchmark for this game?

blank001 wrote:

Kind of random, but I thought this game was much more demanding. I was just playing it last night on my 1400S with a 5900 FX and it runs really quite well at 1280x1024.

Is there a benchmark for this game?

Define "quite well". I found it struggled quite a bit on FX / 6600 GT.

For benchmarking just install MSI afterburner and configure the OSD to display FPS.

Just do what Phil said. If you want to see how good your card is play the Jungle/ Submarine level. That is the most taxing level in the game.

daniel_u wrote:

Just do what Phil said. If you want to see how good your card is play the Jungle/ Submarine level. That is the most taxing level in the game.

I will do what Phil said 😉 I have to get to that level. But you guys seem more experienced than I at this game, so you're probably right about the FX.

daniel_u wrote:

I bought my self some new parts for my workstation. I just felt the need to use my 7950gx2(s) and play some SCPT+ wrapper on fresh installed Win7.
You know what the funny part is? it plays perfect. There are no extra shadows/lights/colors. There is something in these cards the game is using. 😀 (voodoo magic maybe)
Same game, same OS, same driver, same wrapper but different GPU(8800 or higher) and you'll see artiifacts.

Really? WinXP > Win7 Gameplay 1:1? What drivers? I using the forceware v169.21 in my "new" EVGA Geforce 7950GT K.O + WinXP SP3.

Salu2 - Darkness Knight.

As Komat pointed out, Nvidia changed something into the drivers after 169.xx series(you can go to his site a follow some links there) . Playing SC with older drivers + wrapper will break things. When playing SC with the wrapper you need any driver after 169.xx series.

Funny thing with Komat's wrapper is, that with older cards there' are no issues in game. No extra lights, shadows, colors.
New GPUS will display artifacts. Even the PS3 version has issues. So my guess is that older cards are doing extra stuff.

daniel_u wrote:

As Komat pointed out, Nvidia changed something into the drivers after 169.xx series(you can go to his site a follow some links there) . Playing SC with older drivers + wrapper will break things. When playing SC with the wrapper you need any driver after 169.xx series.

Funny thing with Komat's wrapper is, that with older cards there' are no issues in game. No extra lights, shadows, colors.
New GPUS will display artifacts. Even the PS3 version has issues. So my guess is that older cards are doing extra stuff.

Ok, then in theory, will (us) use a new driver what officially support Win7x86? (e.g Forceware v309.08 + Wrapper + Geforce 7950GT?) I want test on my PC, actually have 3 O.S installed (WinXP SP3 x86 - Win7x86 & Win8.1.3 x64), but the drama here is the WinXP support, for record a gameplay use Mirillis Action! and this is not supported and the quality sound (3DSound / EAX) in realtek HD driver is very bad... in Win7 can use mirillis & X-Fi MB3.

Btw, are you interested in make test's? For example, I can play the game complete using Windows7 x86 + Forceware v309.08 + Wrapper + Geforce 7950GT, and you will show me the issues using the wrapper + GPU modern (via screenshots), what do you think?

Screenshots (Win7x86 + Forceware v309.08 (Lastest driver WHQL official for serie 7) + Wrapper + EVGA Geforce 7950GT 512MB K.O).

Issues:

Well, it's is not perfect D= , maybe try with other driver...

Salu2 - Darkness Knight.

Sorry i dont understand what are you trying to tell me.
I already made a list of bugs :Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow , 5th post or so.

That's a LOT of screenshots!

Did you play this game so quickly?