Hardware suggestions

My goal is to get Arcanum to work smooth and good.


I am working on my A+ Certification (still very early in it) and decided to rebuild 2 of my computers, by switching some parts, reformatting ect. One I have decided to Run Windows 98SE in order to play older games better, and make the most out of the system. The other computer (I will be using WinXP). The Windows 98 computer (AMD Athlon 1.11 GHz with 384 MB of DDR SDRAM. Now the question is which of the following Graphics cards should I use?
-ATI Radeon 9200 SE (128 MB of RAM),

or

-GeForce4 MX440 (64 MB or RAM)


After that the question arises “what version of DirectX should I use with each card?”

 

Well, ATI Radeon 9200 SE is definitely the better card and even though you haven't specified how old the games you want to play are, I'd say it would be better to use that one.

On the other hand, I have a GeForce 4 MX 440 in my old PC and it can endure games like KOTOR in high quality without a single problem. The only thing is that I have a Pentium 4 1,6 GHz with 512 Mb of DDR SDRAM.

Also, I have a DirectX higher than 8, it's been a while since I installed it and I don't want to go and check which version I have. I've always thought that newer versions can only work better than the old ones, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

The older games I am interested in are ones such as Arcanum, Fallout 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate (all the infinity engine games), games like that. From what I understand (and I could be wrong) the newer versions of DirectX are made with a focus towards 3D graphics, using better coding, programming, ect. Games like Arcanum were written before a lot of today's 3D technology and standards, and cannot take advantage of the improvements. From what I understand, a lot of the functions that the older games were built to use with DirectX do not work the same and are much slower and less efficient with older graphics and can actually have a negative impact. At least that is the way I understand it. I could be wrong.

I figure the best way to run Arcanum and the like would be to put together a system using both the operating system and DirectX (and perhaps older display drivers from that time) the game was dezigned on/for and use, for optimal speed, smoothness ect.

I can not run the game on my system at all even with the latest drivers and DX and everything, its unplayable lagy, no matter what settings I try. My system was WindowsXP, ATI Radeon 9550 (256 MB of RAM), and 768 MB of DDR SDRAM. Not the best system by far (and substandard for today) however its a whole heck of a lot more then what Arcanum requires! And I bet it may very well be better or as good as what the developers used.

 

Well, in that case you might as well use the GeForce 4 card and install at least DirectX 7, since I think that is the requirement for Arcanum.

Many people seem to have problems with Arcanum. I suppose that you tried reinstalling the game, installing patch, etc.

You can try to rebuild that older machine you were talking about, maybe you won't be experiencing problems on that one.

 

I am still rebuilding the Windows 98 computer, I hope to be done soon though. I just finished re-doing my HP Pavilion 750n (P4 1.6 GHZ processor, with 512 MB DDR SDRAM, and the ATI Radeon 9550 graphics card) with Windows XP Home edition, and the game is still a little laggy scrolling around. I have not tested it extensively yet though.
I need to test it in Tarrant and in a big battle with lots of corpses laying around (the game always seems to bog down on those parts).


I hope the Windows 98 with DirectX 7 works better.

 

When you finish everything, write your results.

 

Still working on the computers; hope to be done soon...

 

back to 98SE

I have a PIII 1 GHz, 512MB ram and a Geforce 3 that I took back to 98SE-if you get yours (98 machine) done, I would be curious to know if you have the binkw32.dll mss32.dll problem when you try to use the full screen option that the 1074 patch provides (and if you solved it)-have tried all suggestions here with no luck-Aal

 

Actually I just got the computer working late Saturday Night, (I have been really busy and not able to work on it in a long time). Next chance I get I will install Arcanum on it and see if my work pays off or not. I will post the results when i get a chance.

 

After several attempts to solve the missing .dll problem (full description in the WIP2.2 thread), I discovered that instead of allowing the game to default install to the D drive, I put it on the C drive and all was well-if you have a problem, this may help-Aal