SC4 Deluxe working worse with a NEW VIDEO CARD?

[seven_simz 0]

Okay, so I was trying to take a screenie for another post of mine... and I haven't played SC4 since I got a new video card. A better video card, that is.

The game's now having all kinds of very noticable clipping with the graphics and strange problems that just seem to... ruin the awesomness of the game.

Skip everything in blue if you don't care about the technical stuffy.

My old card... which is still on my motherboard but has all drivers removed for.... is a

Intel 82865G Chip

With an absolutely amazing 90 SOMETHING MB OF VIDEO PROCESSING POWER

Yes, folks, that is including all the 16 or so mb of power it can suck up from my RAM (1.5 GB or so)

It also has... I believe... no pixel shading... AT ALL!  Need I say more? It was a good card... it served me well for years. Until I downloaded Spore (which I thought would work) and my card wouldn't do it. And that was it. Spore's too important for the BULL that is that 'card'.

So now I got this... (yes it's not the greatest but it's good enough and I love it)...

ATI Radeon HD 2400 Card

With a respectable 256 MB of video processing power, all the pixel shading you'll ever need until all computers that are in existence are outdated (which happens about once a EFFING YEAR) it seems to be just fine.

Okay, technical stuff over. Here's the problem. I've been playing and testing all my normal games, and I've noticed a little something... they all play BETTER. I just love how I can play with them running as perfectly as they ever did, only now I can turn on things that literally killed my old card, and my new card just says "whatever." Like making mirrors actually reflect in Sims 2. =P (Yeah, I've played practically every game with "Sim" in it that ever existed.)

So, if anyone's still reading, can someone explain to me why my SC4, of all the games, cus I expected it to run just fine, would be WORSE? I mean, I changed the graphic settings, made them default, made them everything, but it's all screwed up.

Don't be afraid to ask for more specific technical information. I'll tell you the entire history of ATI if I have to. I just want to figure this out.

Thanks for reading this far.

[tungston 19]

Over two years ago ATI upgraded the drivers, and since then I have had to use the game software rendering option. Except for with Vista, DirectX 10, and an ATI X1950 Pro, which works fine with the hardware rendering option.

The cards I have had to use software rendering with Windows XP are, X800 XT, X850 XT, and X1900 XT. I think the change came some time late in 2005.

[screamingman12 30]

It's pretty simple:

Newer card=faster draw rate

Faster draw rate=faster processing of information (faster than the game can create it)

So what happens is that the newer cards can process info faster than the game can send it to them, and the game crashes because of the incompatibility.

[seven_simz 0]

Okay, so if I use the graphics option (in the game) that says "Software" it will run as good as it used to? Or am I wrong? I have XP (I love XP and don't expect to switch to Vista anytime soon), so you know. So when you tell it to render via software, does it use your RAM as the video processing power? Because I have 1.48 GB of RAM, so my PC shouldn't have the slightest problem working that way. But ... I don't know if it works that way. Is there something special I need to have to run it via software? Will running it by software make the game work slower or something or am I fine? Please someone tell me. If I end up not being able to play SC4 anymore... well... that would SUCK.

BTW, I'll try the whole software option right now, but I just like to always know what's going on, even if it does work.

UPDATE: Okay, the software rendering does seem to work. Thanks tungston! Although the game still seems to run sorta slowly... oh well. Thx screamingman12 for helping also.

[tungston 19]

I can't answer your questions with any certainty, other than software rendering is done by the computers processor, and not by the video card. I don't know if the game runs slower, because in my case the graphics with hardware rendering lagged so severely the game was unplayable.