Graphics Card Quirk

[Captain Vlad]

Have a Geforce 7600 that came with the comp. Performed just fine so far, save for one problem...some older games (not all, just some), when I attempt to play them, the graphics are rendered all psychedelic and rainbow-ish. They often appear normal starting out, then turn wonky.

By older, I can mean two years old or ten years old, btw. Steel Panthers: MBT, for instance, gets weird in fullscreen (not windowed) but some other older games work fine.

This sound like a driver problem?

[d@rk51d3]

Ususally a sign of a vid card overheating, bad drivers, or faulty pwer supply.


......Now you just gotta work out which one it is.:hmm:

[Captain Vlad]

Haven't had issues playing SH IV, NFS: Carbon, or other newish games, so I'm guessing it's not overheating or power supply...so that leaves the drivers as the logical 'first target'.

Thanks.:)

[antikristuseke]

Could be just a driver issue in that case, the 7600 cards arent prone to overheating as far as i remember. Some older games have a conflict with Dx9 so you might want to check fansites for those games for fan made updates beringing the game databases into compliance with it or you could run a dual boot win 98/xp and have dx8 on the 98 partition to get arround that issue, ran into that problem with Might and Magic 7 recently myself but luckily there was a fan patch to take care of the issue. Allso another way to bypass the problem is to force the games into software rendering which wont give you the highest graphics options but but it should make them run. Good luck with troubleshooting, will try to help ifi can.

[The WosMan]

Likely it is a compatibility issue caused by directX or the video card driver. I imagine that as our games age they will be harder and harder to play on a modern PC. I currently play my old DOS games from time to time using DOSBOX. It was the only thing that I could get to run my STTNG: A Final Unity (great game). I suggest keeping around an old computer for when you feel nostalgic. Throw a copy of Win 98 if you have it on that old box and play away at your oldies. If you look around places and pc shops you can find old hardware and throw together an old gaming rig.

[JSLTIGER]

Likely it is a compatibility issue caused by directX or the video card driver. I imagine that as our games age they will be harder and harder to play on a modern PC. I currently play my old DOS games from time to time using DOSBOX. It was the only thing that I could get to run my STTNG: A Final Unity (great game). I suggest keeping around an old computer for when you feel nostalgic. Throw a copy of Win 98 if you have it on that old box and play away at your oldies. If you look around places and pc shops you can find old hardware and throw together an old gaming rig.

That was a kick-ass game...I resurrected my copy a few months ago. Lots of fun, but its a shame that we haven't seen the Garidians anywhere else in the series.

[Captain Vlad]

Installed the most recent driver and a couple of the games I'm trying to run work just fine now. Still having trouble getting X-COM to run, but given it's popularity, I'm pretty sure I can find some kind of patch.

Thanks for all the help, fellas...though I still have a question for anti: How do I force a game into software rendering mode?

Incidentally, I've always wanted to play 'The Final Unity', but never got the oppurtunity. I was a big fan of both 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites. How does it stack up compared to those?

[SUBMAN1]

I vote for DX issue. DX5 for instance has compatibility problems with DX9.

-S