319 replies to this topic

[the bigg]

Golden Blue, on Nov 8 2008, 10:08 PM, said:

Has anyone tried to contact Nvidia's surpport? Maybe these problems are caused by Nvidia drivers, since no problem for Ati cards. If we are lucky, they'll solve it in the next release of drivers.
(Sorry for my poor English, I'm not a native speaker.)

Who's going to pay a nVidia engineer $150 per hour to look at the problem?

[the bigg]

Golden Blue, on Nov 11 2008, 08:18 PM, said:

Well, I think this is nVidia's problem, so they should pay the bill. For those who bought a nVidia card, and can't get their beloved games running, it's unacceptable.
Actually, I find a way to submit an issue to nVidia's customer service. You can ask them questions, and they will response.
Maybe it's a good idea to give it a try.

You can submit an issue here:
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia....ser/std_alp.php

I'm not going to bother, but you're welcome to try. I'm sure that the EULA to the drivers will contain phrasing to the effect of "no warranty of suitability is provided", meaning that a game not working is, well, your problem. While they MIGHT attempt to fix problems with games, they are not FORCED to, meaning they might choose not to bother if they feel the angry customer costs less than actually fixing the problem.

Besides, I guess that any competent customer support person will find this thread and point out the VBS workaround, stopping the chain before you reach a driver programmer.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Guest, on Nov 12 2008, 11:36 PM, said:

How do you make this bg.vbs file...

The obvious answer is to create a .txt file, open it with notepad and copy paste this code:

set bgdx = CreateObject("Wscript.shell")

bgdx.run("dxdiag.exe")
wscript.sleep 5000

bgdx.sendkeys ("{TAB}{RIGHT}{RIGHT}")
wscript.sleep 500

bgdx.sendkeys ("{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{ENTER}")
wscript.sleep 500

bgdx.sendkeys ("{ENTER}")
wscript.sleep 500

bgdx.Run "bgmain2.exe", 1, True
wscript.sleep 500

bgdx.sendkeys ("{ENTER}")
wscript.sleep 500

bgdx.sendkeys ("{ENTER}")
wscript.sleep 500

bgdx.sendkeys ("%{F4}")

And when that's done, to use "Save As" -command(All files(*.*)) and write "bg.vbs" without the quotes, and done.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 12 November 2008 - 01:51 PM.

[Isaya]

Since the run part

bgdx.Run "bgmain2.exe", 1, True

does not specify a path for bgmain2.exe, you'd better put the vbs file in the game directory, although this may not be mandatory. Windows may have a way to find it through the registry, but I don't know if it work with all Windows versions.

[Icendoan]

Jarno, you can still use quotes, and if you do, you don't have to mess around with the All Files(*.*) thing either, just "fileName.fileExt" and save it.

Icen

[Jarno Mikkola]

Icendoan, on Nov 13 2008, 08:36 PM, said:

Jarno, you can still use quotes, and if you do, you don't have to mess around with the All Files(*.*) thing either, just "fileName.fileExt" and save it.

Well, we don't all have the extensions showing/editable. And you got this wrong probably?!:

Jarno Mikkola, on Nov 12 2008, 11:50 PM, said:

write "bg.vbs" without the quotes

??? As you can't use the quotes in the file names. --Ahh, I was wrong again... as you can use the quotes inside notepad.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 13 November 2008 - 12:33 PM.

[Icendoan]

Ah, but when saving in NotePad, if you use quotes, it saves it to literally what you tell it to. It is not ever saved as the filename.

I can save a .tp2 file in notepad with only saying "whatever.tp2" and saving.

Icen

[Tolknaz]

Alright, i have a newish NVidia card too and i found a solution that works reasonably well for me in infinity engine games that don't have opengl and 32 bit hardware rendering support. I run the games using a virtual machine called Sun xVM VirtualBox, but i guess any other big names in this field work equally well ( the reason i chose this particular virtual machine, is that it is free). Using a virtual machine to play old games has been suggested in other infinity engine threads before actually, but i found the idea too outrageous to even try until yesterday. I guess though, that we might see rise in this trend as time goes on just like there has been rise in the trend to play dos games in dosbox (which too is a virtual machine, just one with somewhat limited scope and fully integrated guest operating system). For the first time since upgrading to 8800 gts i can play Planescape Torment again without annoying transparency issues! Yay!

Edited by Tolknaz, 23 December 2008 - 12:10 PM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Tolknaz, on Dec 23 2008, 10:07 PM, said:

Alright, i have a newish NVidia card too and i found a solution that works reasonably well for me in infinity engine games that don't have opengl and 32 bit hardware rendering support... Sun xVM VirtualBox... For the first time since upgrading to 8800 gts i can play Planescape Torment again without annoying transparency issues! Yay!

Are you sure that you won't be able to achieve that with the options named in the first post?

the bigg said:

PST: Like in BG1, disable all software rendering, then enable Software Transparency Rendering. Like in IWD2, it's playable at 1680x1050

The resolution is achieved with this mod...

Of course it a little harder to make the configuration on the game with Vista, as you need to disable the User Account Control, and then make the changes to the torment.ini by hand, know that 1 means Enabled while 0 means Disabled etc minor things...

[Tolknaz]

Jarno Mikkola, on Dec 24 2008, 12:15 AM, said:

Tolknaz, on Dec 23 2008, 10:07 PM, said:

Alright, i have a newish NVidia card too and i found a solution that works reasonably well for me in infinity engine games that don't have opengl and 32 bit hardware rendering support... Sun xVM VirtualBox... For the first time since upgrading to 8800 gts i can play Planescape Torment again without annoying transparency issues! Yay!

Are you sure that you won't be able to achieve that with the options named in the first post?

No offence meant and no attack intended, but what options? Thebigg speaks of enabling software transparency, but it has been said before and i say it again, that using software transparency fixes things aesthetically, but makes at least planescape: torment and baldur's gate games unplayably slow regardless of your hardware. You're welcome to try these options yourself if you don't believe me. This has nothing to do with widescreen mod by the way, thebiggs mod is top notch job. The truth is that if you are using Nvidia 8xxx and up series card at the moment, your exact 3 options are:
1. All kinds of transparency issues that in some cases can be cured somewhat when going into the game menu and then entering game again (fog of war consisting of black boxes can be worked around this way, other transparency issues remain).
2. Unacceptable game performance when turning on software transparency.
3. Flickering mouse cursor that leaves artifacts on it's way if you disable graphics hardware acceleretion using directxdiag or otherwise.
I merely added fourth, that for me means i can have PS:T graphics back in their full glory using a virtual machine and still get somewhat acceptable performance.

Edited by Tolknaz, 23 December 2008 - 04:08 PM.

[the bigg]

dazzle, on Jan 4 2009, 08:01 PM, said:

Hi all,

I managed to fix this problem for baldur's gate in vista by enabling software directdraw. Maybe it also works in XP and for other infinity engine games, I haven't tried. It'll only work for the 2d rendering engine (OpenGL mode won't work). After you've applied the fix, the game is very fast and without any artifacts. The fix is permanent. You don't need loader scripts or stuff like that.

Here's how to:
1. Download and install the microsoft application compatiblity toolkit:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en
2. Start the 'Compatibility Administrator' with administrator rights.
3. Click the 'New' Button
4. Right click the new database. Select 'Create new application fix...'
5. Name your program and vendor however you like. Browse to your bgmain2.exe file. Click next
6. Select 'None' for operating system modes. Don't select additional compatibility modes. Click next
7. Tick the 'ForceDirectDrawEmulation' compatibility fix.
8. Click next and finish.
9. Save your database.
10. Right click the database and select install. This will install the database.
11. Close the compatibility administrator and start baldur's gate. It should work correctly in 32bit mode without any ingame rendering fixes. You don't need to run the compatibility administrator again.

Cheers, added to the top post; vastly better than dicking around with vbs scripts and whatnot. It works for XP SP3 and Torment too.

[Qwinn]

Urf. I tried Dazzle's method to see if it would stop the glitches with certain spells like Call Lightning in PS:T. Unfortunately, after I installed it, I'm getting the same mouse cursor artifacts across the dialog boxes and options screens that I did when I turned down hardware acceleration a notch (and if it wasn't for that, then turning down the hardware acceleration would be the perfect solution).

BTW, I'm doing it on XP SP3 and an NVIDIA 7600GS card.

Did I miss a step anywhere?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 10 January 2009 - 04:59 PM.