Lag issues with windows 8 (Hud dissapearing, crashes, more bugs)

[boogedebagedeboo]

Well, I heard the game wasn't that good in the first place and decided to try it anyway, and making it even worse on windows 8. Well, no refunds! If anyone ever comes up with a fix for this PLEASE let me know, it feels like such a waste of money. Buyer beware!

[Amiya∽♜]

Same ♥♥♥♥ m8.

[Goth Swan]

try compatiblity mode at win98

[Khimari]

I found out that lagging is caused by HUD. If you manage to trick the game by fiddling with settings in-game to disable HUD, it all runs smooth.

[boogedebagedeboo]

Originally posted by Khimari:

I found out that lagging is caused by HUD. If you manage to trick the game by fiddling with settings in-game to disable HUD, it all runs smooth.

Believe it or not I have gotten this to work, and I appreciate your response, as any help is appreciated. It seems odd that the HUD would cause such an issue and hopefully we'll get some sort of patch to make it work. I dislike playing without a HUD in a game like this; Just doesn't feel right to me. Thanks again!

[Khimari]

I think this will never be fixed.

Old HUDs in DirectX 6 games are made by old Direct API's ways and the new API in Windows 8 does not support old Direct ways. Thanks to this fact, for example, old DirectX 5 games have serious issues to run on Win 8 properly in original state, if these are not patched. Original Windows NT Direct API (I believe it was this one) was used till Windows 7 all the way from NT, over 2000 through XP and so one. Win 8 uses new system.

I believe MS integrated some emulations a time ago, in the era of complains about mouse lag in many modern games.

Well, evolution is unstoppable and becoming obsolete is inevitable. Maybe, one day, someone will make a proper old system (XP or whatever) environment emulation (not MS) to run these old games 100% (like dosbox). Nowday's HW is strong enough to make it. I wish for that.

So that's it.

[boogedebagedeboo]

Originally posted by Khimari:

I think this will never be fixed.

Old HUDs in DirectX 6 games are made by old Direct API's ways and the new API in Windows 8 does not support old Direct ways. Thanks to this fact, for example, old DirectX 5 games have serious issues to run on Win 8 properly in original state, if these are not patched. Original Windows NT Direct API (I believe it was this one) was used till Windows 7 all the way from NT, over 2000 through XP and so one. Win 8 uses new system.

I believe MS integrated some emulations a time ago, in the era of complains about mouse lag in many modern games.

Well, evolution is unstoppable and becoming obsolete is inevitable. Maybe, one day, someone will make a proper old system (XP or whatever) environment emulation (not MS) to run these old games 100% (like dosbox). Nowday's HW is strong enough to make it. I wish for that.

So that's it.

Thank you for your continued input. I'm glad that you have given a more in-depth explanation of the problem, and also essentially ended the discussion. What dissatisfies me here is that such a game that is incompatible with the newest OS was released on steam anyway as a means for atari to gain more money, AND they did make a warning about compatibility, however it was easily overlooked. Thanks again for your input on the subject.

[Khimari]

I found out that the game runs very OK considering FPS if you use VMware and windows 7 32 bit. It runs all ok, but has other issues. The resolution can't be set to 16:9, can't be set to fullscreen (3DMark 2000 however - DX7 - can be set fullscreen), can't be set to 1280x1024 and more as it crashes and the game has audio lag around 1 second (3DMark 2000 has some transformation issues - water ripples too fast etc).

I did more investigation as well and what I found is that Windows 8 + 8.1 does not have any serious problems with DirectX 6 or 5 (Fallout 1+2 are however both somehow fixed for newer Windows and I don't have original CD version so I can't validate this statement correclty). My prev post is invalid.

The only issue is DirectX 7.

3D aplications which runs on DX7 (3DMark 2000 etc.) have an issue with FPS and the program can't reach more than 30FPS and has micro shuttering. Dunno how DX7 works and how it is different from every other platform, but for example "Soul Reaver 1" which is a DX6 game or Tomb Raider II+III which are both DX5 + DX6 games runs totally OK on my Win 8.1. Each of them can be tweaked to run 16:9 as well.

I wanted to try use the WineD3D OpenGL DX wrapper, but it is only for DX8 + 9. No go this way.

Same issue like Blood II has also AVP2, but this game is made at the same engine. And still runs a bit better than B2. I need to test more DX7 games.

I believe the DX7 emulation in windows 8+8.1 is the issue itself.

[schmatzler]

Starting with Windows 8 (and Windows 7, partially) Microsoft changed the way elements are rendered. Since computers are powerful enough nowadays, they decided to let the CPU handle most of the 2D rendering. That works most of the time, but breaks some games. It looks like this also depends on the graphics drivers you're using. Because I have an AMD card and the latest beta drivers and no problems with this game at all.

For games with the Lithtech engine (and Blood II is one of those), two fixes exist that may have to be set.

DXPrimaryEmulation - seems to uncap games on Windows 7 and 8. Some of them are forced into 30fps. This can also remove graphical glitches:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/post.php?topic=99477&post=1202630

NoDTToDITMouseBatch - this seems to fix jerky mouse movements on Windows 8. Microsoft made an article about this, look at the "Let me fix it myself" part:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2908279/en-us

It may or may not work. Depends on your machine. And you should of course try out the compatibility settings for Win XP or 98, first.

[Khimari]

Originally posted by schmatzler:

Starting with Windows 8 (and Windows 7, partially) Microsoft changed the way elements are rendered. Since computers are powerful enough nowadays, they decided to let the CPU handle most of the 2D rendering. That works most of the time, but breaks some games. It looks like this also depends on the graphics drivers you're using. Because I have an AMD card and the latest beta drivers and no problems with this game at all.

For games with the Lithtech engine (and Blood II is one of those), two fixes exist that may have to be set.

DXPrimaryEmulation - seems to uncap games on Windows 7 and 8. Some of them are forced into 30fps. This can also remove graphical glitches:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/post.php?topic=99477&post=1202630

NoDTToDITMouseBatch - this seems to fix jerky mouse movements on Windows 8. Microsoft made an article about this, look at the "Let me fix it myself" part:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2908279/en-us

It may or may not work. Depends on your machine. And you should of course try out the compatibility settings for Win XP or 98, first.

Sir, your fix didn't fix Blood II completely, there are still lags because of "light mapping", but it feels to run much smoother in many parts of the game, exactly in those where there is no light movement or blinking. I also noticed massive improvement in "Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver 1" as this "ddraw.dll" for win 8.1 made the game running SUPER-SMOOTH without shuttering. Thank you a lot, it seems like your tweak fixed many other old games for me :)

+10 points for Gryffindor!

Holy cow, even the 3DMark 2000 now runs at 999 FPS, another +10 points for Gryffindor!

Respect! This should be pinned as a main solution to FPS issue in old games!

How did you find out that this is it?

[Khimari]

Well, this fixed even games like Dungeon Keeper 2 or old bad Prince Of Persia 3D. Awesome fix!

[deVriestron]

that compatibility manager doesn't work for me; when launching the blood2 exe from it, it doesn't know where the config files are. did i do something wrong?

[Khimari]

I posted new article - LAG and FPS fix - go there... it will help you. Forget VM, compatibility and other, this new stuff is for real. It's something like schmatzler's fix, but works in windowed mode as fullscreen is really not an option for some games.