http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce3.html

Top right of the page:

Shadow Buffers

Part of the nfiniteFX II and nfiniteFX Engines, shadow buffers enable self-shadowing for characters and objects, and soften the edges of shadows for realistic effects, adding depth to scenes and highlighting spatial relationships between objects.

lowenz wrote:

The real question is: "Buffer Mode - it was the "next gen" feature back in those days, really a "window on the future" - can work correctly on a GeForce 3/4 with a proper drivers set" ?

Nobody remembers it today, 🤣.

I remember it from the Xbox - which was how I originally played the game, and it's a shame that there's no way to get it working correctly on today's hardware.
The GF3/4 hardware can do it, but performance is poor so I wouldn't want to play through the game on one of them.
Hopefully someone will be able to fix it eventually.

On a GF4 performance is ok if you reduce both the detail options. The night vision max setting is just way too demanding anyway.

Also reducing the resolution can help.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

On a GF4 performance is ok if you reduce both the detail options. The night vision max setting is just way too demanding anyway.

Also reducing the resolution can help.

Do you have a working system with a GF4?

lowenz wrote:

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

On a GF4 performance is ok if you reduce both the detail options. The night vision max setting is just way too demanding anyway.

Also reducing the resolution can help.

Do you have a working system with a GF4?

Not currently, but I built a dedicated machine once and made a few videos about the process:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB9BTbtNyDw&l … ZHpq30_nk2HgZ9M

Would love to hear what you think. There are some benchmarks too. I made this ages ago, so it's not as polished / concise but gets the job done 😊

🤣, tested now by myself on a Radeon 9600 PRO, crash with Buffer Mode! 2010 drivers.
One day I'll buy a crappy 4800 somewhere on the net just for the sake of testing 😁

FX5200, WinXP SP3 base drivers.....BUFFER MODE working 😁

Proof :p

So it WAS working in those long gone days.....must show to Dege 😁

Yes the FX works most of the time. But not all the time. It's quite a shame as the FX is so much faster, especially the 5950 Ultra for example.

I think I have video footage of a few scenes that work on the GF4 but have minor glitches on the FX.

I don't think it's working correctly there, Sam isn't casting a shadow at all.
At least, he does when using Projector Shadows on my GTX 960.

It's the MS driver and it's contestual 😁
With NVidia ForceWare 175:

http://i67.tinypic.com/2eyjqcn.png

I realize this thread is old, but I wanted to provide an update on EAX Advanced HD availability in version 1.3 since that was asked about. Apparently, the digital storefront releases of Splinter Cell (from GOG etc). which are pre-patched to version 1.3 have EAX Advanced HD disabled and unselectable under sound options.

However, if you patch the retail CD release to version 1.3 then EAX Advanced HD will work fine, and the setting will be properly selectable under sound options. Tested with the US release of Splinter Cell Espionage Pack + official US patch 1.3 which also contains the bonus missions. This was with an Audigy sound card (SB0090) running under Windows ME.

It's a common "problem" (fuctionality loss) of old games re-released (not remastered) with today's OS as target. SiN Gold on Steam has NO EAX support when the original one + patch has EAX support.