Possible to Emulate Older GPU's?

[bakekrukow]

HI: I'm not even sure if I'm posting this question in the right section, but I didn't know where else to put it. Basically I want to know if there is any way I can emulate the functionality of an older graphics card. The reason I want to do this is because I had an urge to play my old Splinter Cell game (the original from 2003) and was upset to find that many of the lights and shadows are no longer present. This is because modern GPU's no longer support the shadow/lighting technique used in Splinter Cell, called "shadow buffers." Is there a program that can somehow emulate cards from way back when (I believe the GeForce 4 series was what this game's specs required)? I stumbled upon a program "3D analyzer" thats supposed to do something like this, but I'm a total noob when it comes to stuff like this and have no idea how to use it. Am I on the right track, or am I way off? Is what I want to do even possible? If someone can put me in the right direction I'd appreciate it. If it helps, my current GPU is the Radeon HD 5770.

 

[wa1]

Interesting, but i don't know it neither about that possibility.
But why playing old games when the new one is always much better?

 

[bakekrukow]

Interesting, but i don't know it neither about that possibility.
But why playing old games when the new one is always much better?

The original Splinter Cell is much better than Conviction IMO

 

[wa1]

Really? I forgot what it looks like (I played that game too).
Anyway, maybe there's someone know about this? Anyone?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

your best bet is to find an old card on ebay and load up windows xp.

 

[gamerk316]

Umm...the first SC works fine for me on my 4890...shadows and all. Or am I missing something here?

 

[bakekrukow]

Umm...the first SC works fine for me on my 4890...shadows and all. Or am I missing something here?

Haha dude do the Abattoir level, the searchlights over the minefield won't have any light beams. Same in the Chinese level in the sewer, the guards who have the flashlights on their helmets, you won't be able to see those lights either. Any kind of light in the game that is projected to look like a beam of light won't show up or cast a shadow. If you want I can take some screenshots.

 

[JDFan]

Haha dude do the Abattoir level, the searchlights over the minefield won't have any light beams. Same in the Chinese level in the sewer, the guards who have the flashlights on their helmets, you won't be able to see those lights either. Any kind of light in the game that is projected to look like a beam of light won't show up or cast a shadow. If you want I can take some screenshots.

Might be a problem with your configuration file for the game --- The 5770 is sometimes autodetected wrong by older games (happens in Oblivion to me) -- In Oblivion for example the auto detect thinks my Sapphire 5770 is an older NVIDIA FX57xx series card (and those had problems with shader implementations) - and it defaults to ultra low settings and disables many of the shaders (the old Nvidia cards had implementation problems with the shaders) -- So the same may be happening in Splinter Cell -- To fix it I have to manually reset the options and re-enable the shaders.