Windows 8 Direct 3D Issues / Woes

[Xander51]

I finally started playing this game again after having it on my "must play" list for a while , and I'm having issues in Windows 8. I've found reports elsewhere that the Direct3D renderer is slow in Windows 8, and sure enough I have that issue. The save game functionality is also weird. It saves a shot of the last 2D element I looked at rather than my gameplay screen for the little save thumbnail. Also, all the load times are really slow probably due to the framerate issues.

Now, I've seen elsewhere that the solution is to use the Software renderer, and sure enough this improves the framerate and load times a great deal. However, the lighting isn't quite as good, and many of the effects like the fog and the little swirl when I use the teleport pyramid don't display correctly. It's workable, but not ideal.

On my quest to have a "perfectly playing" version of the game, I've tried the old config tool, but it won't launch. I tried installing the old demo, setting it to Glide, copying the config files over to my full game install, and using a Glide wrapper to play the game. This works fairly well, except the transparencies don't function quite right and the game would only work correctly in 4:3. Also, it crashed every time I exited. I also noticed doing all this that the demo has nice full screen wipe transitions betweeen areas and cutscenes, which seem to have been removed from the full version of the game.

I know this is a lot of text to say "this doesn't work totally right in Windows 8," but hopefully this information is useful to someone out there. What are the chances of Larian fixing the Direct3D issues? The software renderer is workable till then, just wish I could play this game with all the effects working.

My machine has a Core i7 975 at 4 Ghz, 6 gigs of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce 660ti, and Windows 8. I'm still loving the game in spite of all this, but it's so close to perfect as far as performance that it has really frustrated me.

[Raze_Larian]

When set to Direct3D, did you try running the game as administrator, and in Win98/ME compatibility mode?

I'm not sure there are many suggestions you haven't tried yet, but you could check the GOG forum topics Divine Divinity running very slow and clunky[www.gog.com] and Game is Running Very Slow[www.gog.com].

[Xander51]

Oh yes, believe me, I spent about 2 days trying just about everything I could think of or find online. :) I really appreciate the suggestions though. Even the old demo runs at about 35 FPS with slowdown during the game in Direct3D mode, so I'm guessing it's either something to do with Windows 8 and/or Nvidia's current driver set. Again, I appreciate it!

[krashd]

i run the game in software and it is identical to direct 3d, but 10x faster.

[Xander51]

It's not actually identical, there are several effects missing and worse lighting. But you're right, it is faster!

[hexaae]

Try to set through Microsoft ACT tool the fix for "Simple windows"... I've read it fixes some slowdown issues with old d3d games on Win8....

[Xander51]

Hmm I've never heard of this tool/fix before. Thanks for pointing it out, I'll look into it!

[paracelsusx]

Did you ever find a solution?

[Xander51]

Sadly, no.

[Squid]

This is probably your only real soloution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dpGvBZD0q4A

:)

[Raze_Larian]

You could try using the disk version configuration tool to set the game to use Direct Draw, and see if that works better than Software mode without the performance problems of Direct3D (it's worth a shot, anyway). This GOG forum post[www.gog.com] contains a {LINK REMOVED}download link, or you can use the version from the demo, if you still have it installed.

[Xander51]

Squid - I saw that, looks really cool!
Raze - That GoG forum post is a treasure trove of stuff, thanks for the link! Even with the game running imperfectly, it's still playable on Windows 8, just not ideal.

[Raze_Larian]

Glad you got it fixed. On my system I don't notice a difference between Software and DirectX (never compared spell effects, etc).

For your earlier edit: I don't mind friend requests... but I also don't really use any of the social functions of Steam, so I just ignore them (manually; it seems kind of rude to specifically go into the friend thing and click 'ignore'). I looked earlier for a way to send a private message to someone to politely decline, but as far as I can tell you'd have accept a friend request to tell someone that you don't want to accept their friend request.

[Spooder Kitty]

I'm constantly having the same problem here on windows 8, except I can't get the game playing at all. It's sad, I can't count the amount of times I've played and compelted this game over the years I've had it. I got it on here because I packed my old one away 'somewhere' and it jsut wont work. Another reason to hate on windows 8. Thank you Xander for starting this discussion, I've tried some of these but not all to get it working.

[The_Blog]

I tried everything. Also Windows 8 here. Even with the GOG Version. It's impossible. And I read through every single thread in the whole damn Inet.

[Xander51]

Yeah, I think it's pretty much impossible to have it work 100 percent in Windows 8, and the team is busy making other games right now.