Advantages to Steam version?

[WispenCookie]

I own the jewel case version Chaos Theory, but it does not work on Windows 7. The only way to get the game to work is with a crack to make it work with Windows 7. Since this game is on sale on Steam, I wondered about just getting it here.

Since this game supports Windows 7 with the steam version, are there any changes to it? such as support for higher resolutions or 5.1 surround sound?

[Örtalisten]

I had the retail version of it. I installed it for some week ago after years, but uninstalled it directly the second after (i remembered why i uninstalled it years ago). You had to install and tussle with that Starforce crap (Starforce = Cancer), at least for Vista and Windows 7 users. So i played on a cracked version. Reason why i stopped playing the cracked version was that even though i had the latest patch, i couldn't progress on the Seoul level, because an elevator refused to interact. So i ditched that version too. The Steam version comes with the latest patch, and it works fine for me. It supports 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) and mostly every common resolution below that, which wasn't supported in the earilier patches of SC:CT. It supports Shadermodel 3.0 which makes it looks freaking great for being a game that came out 2005, and as far as i can tell, SM 3.0 wasn't supported either in earlier patches. And for surround sound - I'm not sure. If you're talking about EAX/Dolby Digital options, those are in the menu, though i couldn't get any of them to work, since EAX needs an Creative soundcard or something like that, and you had to download some Alchemy program to get it to work with non Creative soundcards and W7 users. So i skipped that, and i wasn't sure how to get Dolby Digital to work. Probably by having a surround system, which i don't have. EAX gives the games sound(s) more depth, adds reverb on places, and makes it sound great. I know this because i was able to use EAX on my last computer.

But even if you have a cracked version of the game with the 1.5 patch (the latest patch), you have the same options as in the steam version, so i don't know why you think the steam version would have any advantages... :)
(Maybe i dragged out on this post a bit to long, sorry, haha).

[WispenCookie]

Nah, the information was really great. I do have a Sound Blaster Z card, so surround might work for it.

[djinferno806]

Shader Model 3.0 was definitely an option back when the game first came out. Not alot of people used it because the only cards that supported it was the GF 6800 series and they had just came out too. However it is the superior model as it runs with better FPS and looks great compared to SM 2.0. Just has some annoying buffering in the begining of the level while it caches the shaders.