IIRC dgVoodoo2 solves any issues the game has now, might be worth looking at that for splinter cell 1.

Not sure if this startup option is needed now but

Properties > General > Launch Options:
-shadowmode=projector

is the one you should use.

I wanted to play it old-fashioned way on Windows 9x without dgVoodoo2 and that is why I am asking. So how is it?

Sephiroth, The Great wrote on 2024-05-19, 12:17:

I wanted to play it old-fashioned way on Windows 9x without dgVoodoo2 and that is why I am asking. So how is it?

Grab a Geforce 3 or 4 and go nuts, newer Geforce *cards tend to have some issues with too new drivers but early Geforce FX drivers should also work fine too. Personally I have a Geforce 3 I use for this game as that's what it was programmed for as its a Xbox port, it runs beautifully on a Geforce 3 Ti500 but any GF3 or GF4 would run it fine too.

*Late model Geforce FX and Geforce 6 cards may work ok but you might need to play musical drivers to find ones that let you use projected shadows, older drivers will be better for this than newer ones.

But in reality its a lot of pissing around for not much benefit over playing it via dgVoodoo2 which fixes many if not all issues the game has on a modern GPU.

Splinter Cell was programmed for proto-GeForce 4 Ti chip (NV2A) which had 2 vertex units instead of one. And well, it runs quite poorly on GeForce 3, when you crank up resolution above 800x600.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-20, 05:47:

Splinter Cell was programmed for proto-GeForce 4 Ti chip (NV20A) which had 2 vertex units instead of one.

So yeah that would be the GPU the Xbox uses, its an interesting little oddity, clock wise its closer to a GF3 Ti200 but feature wise its closer to a GF4 Ti4200 but it lacks the 1.3 Pixel Shaders. They all being from the Kelvin family is why recommend the GF3 and GF4 for this game and Pandora Tomorrow, PT is a notoriously difficult game to get running accurately on anything newer without something like DGVoodoo2.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-05-20, 05:58:

Pandora Tomorrow, PT is a notoriously difficult game to get running accurately on anything newer without something like DGVoodoo2.

I used to think that too, but Pandora Tomorrow actually works fine on GeForce 6 and 7 series cards. You do need to use a specific driver version though, I think it was 169.21. Drivers newer than that won't render the shadows and lights correctly. The same is true for some older drivers like 77.72. Phil has a video which shows Pandora Tomorrow rendering everything correctly on a 7800 GTX.

As for the original Splinter Cell, that one works fine up to the GeForce FX cards, with some very minor glitches like shiny textures on a few walls/floors, as Phil shows here. That said, with all in-game settings maxed out, performance is not great even on something like a GeForce FX 5900XT, especially if you're going for higher resolutions like 1280x1024. The frame rate varies a lot based on what's displayed on screen, jumping between 60 and 20 FPS in some cases. Not a great experience IMO.

Regarding Shadow Buffers vs. Shadow Projectors, while I have never played the game using the latter, a lot of people were using Radeon cards when this game first came out on PC (early 2003). Because Radeon cards can only use Shadow Projectors, it stands to reason that the developers would at least ensure basic functionality in that mode i.e. making it possible to finish the game. It won't look as good as Shadow Buffers, but I doubt it affects the gameplay in a significant manner.

Which is not so surprising, when considering 640x480 30 fps target on Xbox. GeForce FX 5900 is faster, but not that much faster to compensate for drastically increased pixel density with stable 60 fps on top of that.

While playing through Splinter Cell I took some footage of those famous shadows on real hardware.
They've gone over the top with this feature in introduction mission, later in game you see it less.
There were no levels where I found it critical or important for gameplay.
Arguably some of the locations look just as good but with slightly different light sources bloom.

Card 1: Nvidia Quadro 4 980 XGL 128MB, ForceWare 45.23, DVI output. Buffer shadows.
Card 2: ATi Radeon 8500 128MB, Catalyst 4.10, DVI output. Projector shadows.
Both are period correct DX8 cards running at 1024x768x32. Radeon is obviously slower but that's not the point in question.

Screenshots are made with HyperSnap-DX without post-processing.
OS is Windows 98SE. Game patch is ver.1.3.
Config file is the same except for ForceShadowMode.

1[D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]
2Translucency=True
3VolumetricLighting=True
4ShinySurfaces=True
5HighDetailActors=True
6UsePrecaching=True
7UseMipmapping=True
8UseTrilinear=True
9UseMultitexture=True
10UsePageFlipping=True
11UseFullscreen=True
12UseGammaCorrection=True
13DetailTextures=True
14UseTripleBuffering=True
15UsePrecache=True
16Use32BitTextures=True
17HardwareSkinning=False
18ReduceMouseLag=False
19UseTripleBuffering=True
20ForceShadowMode=1
21EmulateGF2Mode=0
22FullScreenVideo=True

It should be noted that Splinter Cell is linear, heavily scripted, does not offer multiple styles of infiltrating the locations, and the enemies are very stupid so there is no tactic advantage to be gained from creatively using the environment for stealth.
Those comparisons are to help fellow user decide whether building a dedicated system for this game is worth it.

Bruno128 wrote on 2025-02-02, 12:55:

There were no levels where I found it critical or important for gameplay.
Arguably some of the locations look just as good but with slightly different light sources bloom.

The shadow buffer effects are more pronounced in certain areas

A good example would be the tutorial level, where the shadows cast by the tree branches outside of the windows look super detailed with shadow buffers. You can see some of my screenshots here though I compared GeForce FX vs. GeForce 6 cards. The latter has an incorrect shadow buffer implementation, leading to issues.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-02-02, 13:13:

ou can see some of my screenshots

Hoi yes I saw your screenshots and specifically pointed out that the most use of this feature is limited to first level (probably for reviewers) which doesn't have enemies.
Final stage is a shooting gallery. Just my two cents.

Bruno128 wrote on 2025-02-02, 13:37:

Hoi yes I saw your screenshots and specifically pointed out that the most use of this feature is limited to first level (probably for reviewers) which doesn't have enemies.

The effect is certainly most prominent during the tutorial level, but I've seen shadow buffers being used for such super detailed shadows throughout the game.

From memory, the CIA headquarters and the embassy levels use it quite a bit. Phil shows one or both of those in his video that I linked to above.