Dark Engine and Geforce 6 (Thief II issues)

[66685720e93d6vorob]

I'm doing some strange things here. I've decided to build an ultimate retro machine and since I'm a big fan of portable computers i've decided to do this via laptop. At first, I used Dell D800 with Geforce 4 and Thief II with all other Dark Engine games worked like charm, but then I decided to do a little upgrade to have more games working and switched to Toshiba Tecra S3 with Geforce 6 on board. And suddenly i saw this:

https://sun9-37.userapi.com/c858120/v858120652/16f676/SQpz7E7JCTo.jpg

It's not that bad as it is on Geforce 8 and newer (https://sun9-63.userapi.com/c204824/v204824652/5b62f/PtMKxXwiKg0.jpg) but still, the sky is dead on Geforce 6. Why? What happened on this video card?

p.s. I know about new dark and ddfix, but in this particular case, I'm interested running vanilla thief on real hardware with no side programs.

[66685720e95e4voodoo47]

without actually searching TTLG, yeah, I think the skies sucked on gf6 (and there was no fog). ati x1000 series is the newest thing that can run oldDark properly (with just the fog not being as good as on 3Dfx), you will have to drop down to gf5 if you want nvidia.

I think certain driver versions were making the sky issue better/worse, but good luck finding one if you are on a mobile chipset.

[66685720e97feGawain]

I've been messing around with old computers too lately. It is quite strange to have to to find out the "correct" drivers that actually work best. It seems to be common that the latest driver that "support" the hardware isn't actually the best.
I don't remember having to fight with drivers during that era (when the HW was new) or even updating drivers much.
I think 90% of time I went with the drivers that came with the package and that was it.

Nowadays with current hardware I'm used to updating and using the latest ones and they usually work the best with current software.

[66685720e9911voodoo47]

the find-the-driver-that-works-good-with-your-set-of-games was very (un)popular back then, especially in the nvidia camp. ati was more into the this-game-runs-just-bad-wait-a-year-until-we-fix-it play.

good times, good times.

[66685720e9a3fvorob]

So far on Geforce 6 everything is working well except skies. Even fog works okay. A mobile driver is not a big problem, I just need to edit inf file. But anyway I'll look into an old laptop with Radeon maybe.

"good times, good times"

Exactly my thought, good that we live in better time now.

[66685720e9baevoodoo47]

I was being sarcastic - I'm fully aware those times were kind of terrible, with everything kind of sucking, be it hardware, software, operating systems, and yeah, even the games. but we were young, and exploring amazing new worlds, and having to work hard to make things work made the deal all the sweeter. and a lot of us learned how to fix stuff because of this, and what once has been just a hobby, morphed into jobs that feed us. so not all that bad in the end, I suppose.

today, most things "just work", making them boring. BORING. you need to pick up something really odd to not get bored - like sticking xmas hats onto AIs in an old game.

[66685720e9d42vorob]

"today, most things "just work", making them boring. BORING. you need to pick up something really odd to not get bored - like sticking xmas hats onto AIs in an old game."

Well, finally we can just play games, the thing we came for in the first place. And for some nostalgic crap I'm digging these old laptops.

[66685720ea0daOlfred]

Ah yes, working with laptops is always a bliss.
The best advice I can give about that is getting a magnetic project mat to sort the screws. And taking pictures how it all fit together once you put it all back together again.
I once "successfully" repaired a laptop but had a metal piece left at the end. I took it apart again trying to fit it in somewhere and couldn't figure it out. So in the end I just threw it away.