I'm a big fan of old pc games but I know it can be a pain when running them on modern systems. Mainly caused by DDraw on new cards.
Ghostdog has found a good solution and I've tried it myself on a few problematic games and found it to work well. So all credit goes to him;
I'm using a res of 1440 x 900 but install/set the game to show at 1280 x 800. So it runs in a slightly smaller window then my desktop res, I think it works well.
Ghostdog has found a good solution and I've tried it myself on a few problematic games and found it to work well. So all credit goes to him;
I finally found a good way to avoid the problems newer cards have with DDraw (artifacts, choppy framerates, stuttering). The solution is to use the D3DWindower program. This utility can help you run older games in a window, using ddraw emulation, thus eliminating any ddraw issues. You can find it here. It's a partly translated version form Korean, but it's easy to figure out. In order to use it, push the "+" button, choose the game exe and then click on the settings button. Enter the resolution in which you have the game installed (height and width are misplaced) , or simply leave them at zero and the window will open at your installed resolution. In the "DDL" box select the .ddl that was inside the archive, then go to the "Window Mode" tab and tick the "DDraw emulate" box. Finally press the "run program" button to run the game windowed.
This worked fine for PST, I've heard it also works good for the Fallout games and I'm sure it will also work for Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. The above ddraw settings are for Planescape Torment, other games may need somewhat different settings. If you want the window to fill the whole screen, just install the game at your fullscreen resolution (if you can) and then run it with D3Dwindower. Another thing i forgot to mention is to check the "Cursor Clip" box in the "Direct input" tab. This keeps focus on the window , so the mouse won't appear outside. Especially useful for scrolling.
Some antivirus may mark the exe as a trojan but I think that's because it somehow hacks d3d/ddraw to make any application run in a window. Anyway, I haven't encountered any problems, but use it at your own risk.
See this pic for a detailed description of the preferences that have worked for me :
I'm using a res of 1440 x 900 but install/set the game to show at 1280 x 800. So it runs in a slightly smaller window then my desktop res, I think it works well.
