1) Use Glide wrapper, works on a bunch of early games, but not for D3D only titles.
2) Use an appropriate Intel IGP for these games. They have 16-bit dithering, but quality options like anti-aliasing are meh.
3) Use an additional PCIe GPU (anything older than GeForce 8800GTX/Radeon 2900XT).

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-12-17, 20:11:

1) Use Glide wrapper, works on a bunch of early games, but not for D3D only titles.
2) Use an appropriate Intel IGP for these games. They have 16-bit dithering, but quality options like anti-aliasing are meh.
3) Use an additional PCIe GPU (anything older than GeForce 8800GTX/Radeon 2900XT).

is dgVoodoo2 the wrapper to go for?

i thought gtx 6800/7800 did not work so well with win9x games?

dgVoodoo2 is not Windows XP compatible.

i thought gtx 6800/7800 did not work so well with win9x games?

Yes, but in some way or another the issues will crop up on anything down to GeForce 3. Like text misalignment: Text corruption in certain games on a GeForce FX 5900XT
So choosing PCI version of GeForce FX is not a silver bullet. Might as well pick something that can run old stuff with 4x/8x anti-aliasing.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-12-01, 13:11:

Since a lot of DirectX 5-6 games are rendered only in 16-bit color, any DX10+ capable card from AMD or Nvidia is a poor choice to play them natively. AMD/Nvidia dropped support for 16-bit dithering and color banding is really bad.

However if you have both a win98 retro gaming PC and a winXP retro gaming PC, probably makes more sense to install those dx5-6 games on the win98 pc, and not downgrade the winXP PC to an older slower graphics card just to gain compatibility for them?

You're not limited by just one PCIe video card.

I have been playing around with some GPUs on a 3.0Ghz Xeon E5450 system. This is a processor from Q4 2007.

I tested Crysis at 1600 x 1200 with the following GPUs:

8800 GTS 512Mb (Dec 2007)
GTX 285 1Gb (Dec 2008)
GtX 580 1.5Gb (Nov 2010)

With each upgrade I saw a substantial increase in framerate. I honestly wasn't expecting this as my understanding is that Crysis is a very CPU limited title. But even the GTX 580 was up to 90% utilised in this game with this CPU. Getting 70+ FPS on high settings.

GTX 285 renders Crysis below 30 fps in some heavy scenes.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-12-24, 20:15:

GTX 285 renders Crysis below 30 fps in some heavy scenes.

Crysis, in truth, is a game I probably won't play on a machine of this era anyway. It works perfectly on my Ryzen 5800X3D with RTX 3080 at 1440p, or even 4k. But it is interesting to see how hardware of the time coped. I only ever played the demo back in the day. Never bought it until a couple of years ago on GOG.com

for period hardware it's better to play the game at medium settings tbh

SPBHM wrote on 2024-12-25, 20:01:

for period hardware it's better to play the game at medium settings tbh

Yes, for sure. Though I think I did play the demo on fairly high settings back in the day. Probably was OK with the stutters back then. My system back then was pretty much top end though. Qx9650 at 3.8Ghz and 8800 GTS 512 in SLI and dual 10k rpm Velociraptor drives in RAID 0. I still have that PC, but it's in storage right now in a battered case. Need to rebuild, and see how it does in Crysis. I used that PC for 12yrs before I retired it. Though it did have a GPU upgrade in that time to a GTX 970. That PC was packed away before I got into retro gaming hobby.

I think for most games I am happy to play it on period correct hardware. But Crysis, being the game it is, I think it is a shame to see it at anything other than it's best.

Crysis on all medium looked like crap even in 2007.

I think medium looked fine, good even, for the time, low looked awful
there are some pics here, https://www.gamespot.com/articles/crysis-hard … e/1100-6182806/
I think medium preserves enough of the aesthetics, while obviously not as good as high and very high, but low ruins it...

medium performed decent (nowhere near stable 60, but mostly over 30) at lower res like 1024x768 on something like a 8600GTS

also, if you wanted to run the game with full graphics you needed to use Win Vista and DX10... (I know people could force most of it with console commands, but still)
I wouldn't really focus on Crysis with Win XP stuff.

https://github.com/ccomrade/c1-launcher

SPBHM wrote on 2024-12-26, 15:25:

I wouldn't really focus on Crysis with Win XP stuff.

Why not? XP users outnumbered users of Vista at the time of Crysis' release. It wasn't until Windows 7 that people really started moving away from XP. So I think most games from that period would support XP and Direct X 9?

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2024-12-26, 17:33:

Why not? XP users outnumbered users of Vista at the time of Crysis' release. It wasn't until Windows 7 that people really started moving away from XP. So I think most games from that period would support XP and Direct X 9?

From what I remember, Crysis has a DX10 mode which provides slightly better graphical settings.

It was the same with BioShock which came out that same year.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-12-26, 17:40:

From what I remember, Crysis has a DX10 mode which provides slightly better graphical settings.

It was the same with BioShock which came out that same year.

Yes, you are correct. My point though was that many, if not most, people experienced these games under XP originally.

Depends if you want to play games how you originally did, or if you want to play them at their best. For me Crysis is a good game to test a high end XP build. If that game works OK, then any other XP game should.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-12-26, 13:29:

Crysis on all medium looked like crap even in 2007.

Hard agree. I beat Crysis in 2007 on a Q6600 + X1900 XT 512MB at 1024x768, all-medium settings. It looked pretty bad and I was still only getting <30 FPS in the jungle areas. It looks much better on high settings IMO.

I remember playing Crysis on high settings on a 7800 GS and later a Radeon HD 3850 AGP, with playable enough framerates. Granted I had to turn down the resolution to around 800x600 or 1024x768, but that was on a CRT, so it was a fair compromise.

Admittedly, back then I was happy as a clam rocking more than 25 fps.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2024-12-26, 17:33:

SPBHM wrote on 2024-12-26, 15:25:

I wouldn't really focus on Crysis with Win XP stuff.

Why not? XP users outnumbered users of Vista at the time of Crysis' release. It wasn't until Windows 7 that people really started moving away from XP. So I think most games from that period would support XP and Direct X 9?

I mean I used XP back then, but you were in fact missing something by not using Vista with the game, and if you had a high end PC I think it made sense to use Vista,
I even still was using XP as my main gaming OS for Skyrim and Witcher 2 in 2011, BUT those were actually pure DX9c games, Crysis had a DX10 mode with enhanced graphics.

I remember trying (all on xp) it on my Athlon 64 X2 with an HD 3850 256MB and using the high preset it got around 30FPS on the gpu benchmark at 1024x768, but I ended up selling the card and played using an 8600GT ddr2, I think I used 800x600 medium and still, on the later snow level it was bad, around 20, at the time I still thought it looked better than anything else even like that, the 15" LCD helped.
anything over 30FPS on Crysis was a win.

SPBHM wrote on 2024-12-26, 22:14:

I mean I used XP back then, but you were in fact missing something by not using Vista with the game, and if you had a high end P […]
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I mean I used XP back then, but you were in fact missing something by not using Vista with the game, and if you had a high end PC I think it made sense to use Vista,
I even still was using XP as my main gaming OS for Skyrim and Witcher 2 in 2011, BUT those were actually pure DX9c games, Crysis had a DX10 mode with enhanced graphics.

I remember trying (all on xp) it on my Athlon 64 X2 with an HD 3850 256MB and using the high preset it got around 30FPS on the gpu benchmark at 1024x768, but I ended up selling the card and played using an 8600GT ddr2, I think I used 800x600 medium and still, on the later snow level it was bad, around 20, at the time I still thought it looked better than anything else even like that, the 15" LCD helped.
anything over 30FPS on Crysis was a win.

Yes. I agree. I definitely plan to play it in DirectX 10 mode. I guess I just consider this game as the peak for XP in terms of visuals. If a PC running XP can run this game at 30FPS on high, then it can play any other XP game at higher FPS. It doesn't mean I would choose to actually play it on that platform, as there are better options now.