getting EQ running on 17 year old Laptop

[HawkMasterson1999]

I restored an old Alienware "area 51 m9750" with Windows xp sp3 (32bit). It runs dual Geforce go 7950 GTX's in SLI configuration.I managed to find drivers for most of the hardware but the GPU drivers are giving me a bit of a problem. The latest version I've been able to find (that will install) is 6.14.0011.7948. On Nvidia's site, this file is called 179.48. It seems to be the latest available driver from Nvidia. When I start EQ, a popup tells me I should be using driver version 8185. I searched all over and couldn't find a 8185 that would install. The Nvidia installer just says no hardware was detected that can use these drivers.

If I continue EQ anyway, the game will load up but I get texture errors that stretch from the front of an NPC or PC model across the entire clip plane. The EC tunnel looks like a solid mass of colored spikes shooting off in all directions. Also some textures are just invisible. Here is a pic I found online that looks just like my character select screen.

http://wiki.project1999.com/images/thumb/Graphics_Slice_Problem.png/450px-Graphics_Slice_Problem.png

I'm hoping somebody better at internet sleuthing might share me a link to better drivers or maybe somebody knows another way to solve the problem. I really want to give this old laptop a reason to live. Thanks if you can help.

[mcoy]

Alienware laptops are super picky about driver versions. Ask me how I know, lol. If support.dell.com doesn't have anything for your service tag that works, then it can be difficult. I've saved the versions that worked for me with my stuff (no sli I'm afraid) but I do have an old installer for the geforce 7700 (version 7931) - that's the closest I have to yours.

Anyway, I did come across this site that has archived links for the developer downloads for the drivers from nvidia (everything else I could find was from some shady looking 3rd party). Hopefully, you can find a version that will work with your config:

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/nvidia-forceware-link-archive.71241/

Maybe this one? developer.download.nvidia.com/opengl/2008-12/NVIDIAGPUVista(181_00).exe

-Mcoy

[HawkMasterson1999]

Thanks for the reply. I'll check it out.

[HawkMasterson1999]

No dice.... I've tried just about every driver I could find. So far, the latest one that will actually install is still 7948. I really wanted to make this an XP machine as that's what the laptop originally ran but Im tempted to load up windows 7 and see if I can get different results. It's also worth noting, I've tried limiting EQ to using only one core. It had no effect.

My research indicates that this card was used back in the day to play everquest and it ran just fine. The friend who owned it played WoW on it. There is a workable driver out there somewhere.

[mcoy]

Have you tried manually installing the drivers via device manager and pointing the card to the inf file?

-Mcoy

[Chokan]

Did you figure this out? I have a brand new Alienware laptop with the same issue.

[Rabcor]

In my experience, this kind of stuff can happen with a faulty GPU, so that might be your problem, although if it really is a software problem, it's possible there's a driver setting that's causing it (maybe anisotropic filtering or antialiasing transparency).

If you're on a laptop, you can always just run the game off your igpu instead of your dgpu, i mean, it's not like you need a dgpu to run a game from 1999, even modern EQ can run off the weakest potato laptop you'll find these days.

[mcoy]

Did you figure this out? I have a brand new Alienware laptop with the same issue.

If it's brand new, you might have luck using dgvoodoo2:

http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/

(Basically, copy the files into your EQ directory, and use the config utility to tweak settings / remove the watermark.)

-Mcoy

[Chokan]

Thanks! I'll give it a shot later today.

[Chokan]

So I don't know what settings to use. I've gotten it to display the character model, but now it runs at like 2 frames per second.

[Gustoo]

The chances of an alienware laptop from 17 years ago having a working video card are rare. Lol. discrete graphics cards in laptops always crap out.

[Chokan]

My issue isn't from being old though, as opposed to hawk(op). My comp is brand new and has this issue.

[HawkMasterson1999]

No, I didn't get it worked out yet. Other life issues pushed this little project to the back burner but I'm still interested in finding a solution. I'll dig back into it sooner or later.

BTW, my old GPU runs just fine. It's actually a beast for games of it's era. My issue is the drivers (at least I think)

Plz keep me updated if you figure anything out Chokan. I'll do the same.

[Chokan]

Ok, I figured this out. Get the NVidia control panel program.

Open that up, go to "Manage 3D Settings"

Go to "Program Settings" tab

Click "Add" on the Select a program to customize

Select Everquest (eqgame.exe)

on #2, select "High-performance Nvidia processor"

Apply/save, not sure what's there since I already did it.

This fixed the models, no other changes needed.

[HawkMasterson1999]

Congrats on the solution. Unfortunately for me, my version of nvida control panel doesn't have the high performance nvidia processor option. It's a clue at least. If anyone has idea's, I'm all ears.

[Rabcor]

Actually i thought of another potential solution, you could try using DXVK.

See: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/mlfcsc/a_guide_to_dxvk_on_windows/

It's basically what they use on linux to play windows games, it translates directx to vulkan, it's actually how i'm running the game from linux as well; but as it happens you can use it on windows too, does the same thing, it might actually solve your problem.

For this to work though you need a gpu that supports vulkan (which means you need recent gpu drivers, it's possible drivers for a 17 year old laptop were updated with support for vulkan, nvidia does maintain a few legacy drivers for such cases, but it might not solve OP's issue because of age)

Edit:
Ok, I figured this out. Get the NVidia control panel program.

Open that up, go to "Manage 3D Settings"

Go to "Program Settings" tab

Click "Add" on the Select a program to customize

Select Everquest (eqgame.exe)

on #2, select "High-performance Nvidia processor"

Apply/save, not sure what's there since I already did it.

This fixed the models, no other changes needed.

Ah, yeah what oyu did was tell your drivers to run this game on your dGPU instead of your iGPU, so maybe the problem was that the game actually wasn't running on your dGPU.

It's a bit odd though because your iGPU should be more than enough for a game this old unless you're on a really old (maybe even pre-2007) laptop.

Edit2:

Here's my guess, the problem with Chokan was that the game was runing on the iGPU and the iGPU did not have enough memory dedicated to it which resulted in textures and models being missing.

The problem with Hawk is that he too is using the iGPU, and it doesn't have enough RAM dedicated to it either resulting in the same problem, but with a 17 year old laptop it could be that the iGPU is not powerful enough for the game in the first place.

One solution is to enter your laptops BIOS and configure the iGPU to have more memory dedicated to it (I think EQ only requires like 64mb though,, usually the minimum ram for an iGPU these days is 32mb, but for an older laptop it might be 8 or 16mb)

But the probably preferable solution is to find a way to make it run on your dGPU instead like Chokan did, at least assuming the dGPU works. I assume on a 17 year old laptop you'll be using Windows XP. I don't remember how they allowed you to configure a game to run on a specific gpu back then, it was new technology back then, i remember on some systems you are able to right click on the executable and tell it which gpu to run on, there is some good news though.

Everquest does have a setting that allows you to configure which gpu you use. Right after launching project 1999 if you click options and get htat options window that comes up outside the client, first thing you should get is a prompt to select which GPU the game will use.

Try using that to switch between the iGPU and dGPU.