Will new graphics card revive old games?

wilf3102 · 19 May 2007 at 14:14

Hi there,
I am not a relatively regular gamer, but I want to become one. I intend to build a system that will allow me to play the latest and future games. I have a variety of old games which i used to play, such as GTA: Vice City, Toca Race Driver 2, Manhunt etc.

It will sound a silly question to most, but will these aging games play, and look better, with modern graphics hardware?

I presume the games will work just as well, hopefully better, but i was curious as to whether the latest graphics cards are compatible with Games based on early 2000 specifications, based on old games programming.

I would love to finally have the hardware to set all the game Graphic Detail levels to Maximum, and to experience gameplay like never before.

Could this be a reality, or just wishful thinking?

Thanks,
Chris

Will_3rd · 19 May 2007 at 14:16

Most modern GPUs will eat those games, will run at maximum with ease and stupidly high frame rates.

tomanders91 · 19 May 2007 at 14:25

yeah pretty much what will 3rd said, but really you wouldnt notice much of a different in a game like Vice City, with a 6800gt and a 8800gts etc.

.:MBK:. · 19 May 2007 at 16:40

theyll run at max but if you already played them at max then you wont notice any difference except rediculously high frame rates and no drop outs from the gfx card

however if you havent played them at max/forcing stupid levels of AA and AF, then you will notice a difference

HangTime · 19 May 2007 at 20:49

I do this a lot, buying older games so that I can get them on the cheap, fully patched and running flawlessly with max settings. Examples of games I've completed in the past few years (at least 2-3 years after release date) include Freelancer, Chaser, C&C Renegade, Freespace 2, Mafia, Red Faction1/2, NOLF2, MOHAA, Halflife, JK2/3, Deus Ex.

However, revisiting older games you have enjoyed before, just on higher settings can be something of a let down. At the end of the day, the gameplay isn't suddenly going to improve just because the graphics are a bit better. Also in many older titles the limiting factor to how good the game looks will be the textures/models - even in high res/AA/AF they can still look distinctly 'average' if the original artwork doesn't scale up well. For example levels often look incredibly bland compared to modern games.

As a general rule, I've found anything from the past 5 years (this includes the games you listed) will look OK.

As far as compatibility issues go, the only problems I have really are:

-Resolutions. Maybe older games will not support high resolutions or widescreen resolutions, although some can be tweaked to do so.
-Some late 90s titles only support 3d acceleration via 3dfx glide, so sometimes a glide wrapper is required.
-Some poorly coded games run the game in sync with your framerate, so they run majorly too fast on modern hardware - vsync comes in handy here.