It works on modern systems, however all lights sources and shadows won't render, which kind of disrupts game mechanics drastically, making it basically unplayable (the stealth sections at least).

I won't go into specifics, but it has to do with the fact early Nvidia drivers treated depth in a different range than it is common today, and the game is mostly a direct XBox port to PC. Ubisoft probably decided it's not worth correcting the game engine and doing a re-release.

Fun fact, dxvk has recently added support for this feature (alternate dref scale and Nvidia Shadow Buffers), so both the original Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow work just fine with it: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/pull/4660 . The added support will be included in the next release.

It was called Nvidia Shadow Buffers, and was also an XBox feature. Nvidia hardware later dropped support for it mostly because with d3d9 you had other ways to achieve the same effect (and also deferred shading became more common).

I just watched a video of an obscenely priced pc gaming part crapping itself and all throughout all i could think was, "man, those are some shitty, shitty games".

The current climate in both which concerns the games themselves and pc gaming hardware is so utterly depressing that options that once upon a time, for me, were laughable at best, stuff like subscription and cloud based gaming, more and more are starting to look like viable (situational/stopgap) options

Are we nearing the enshittification apex? This is disgusting. Thanks for that, quite enlightening.

Already have a laptop with 3060 6gb VRAM (laptop-GPU) and a desktop with 8gb RTX 3070. I think I'm good on somewhat modern GPU's that also support 32-bit PhysX.

But for most - yeah, if you plan to play older era 32-bit PhysX games on NV GPU's: 900 series; and from 1000 up to 4000 series looks to be the way to go here.

There is a way if you have a spare PCIe slot in a desktop PC:
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/physx-feature-unlocked-for-rtx-5090-with-rtx-3050-helper-to-enable-full-performance

So in short: Add any older Nvidia GPU to the PC alongside your 5000 or later Nvidia GPU and specify in the drivers to offload PhysX calculations onto that older card instead.

Now I wonder if it still is impossible to do this trick if you have something else than Nvidia as your main GPU. Back when Nvidias 200 series was the latest I was considering adding a GT 210 to my PC for PhysX but then Nvidia went and blocked mixing Nvida and AMD/ATI.

We've gone to AMD CPU/GPU, and never looked back at Intel or Nvidia. Get woke and/or arrogant, go broke. LOL

PhysX (like hairworks or 3DVision) wasn't even cool or worth using when it was new.

"Fakes Frames, real Flames", they say... a unofficial new slogan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg7wCzcSFGA

Oh, eh yes, there are a lot of masochists... in this world, so the customer base is still huge.

"To much" Ubisoft... or should we say "DRMsoft" for my taste... and the games are surely not much more than average in "gameplay-quality".

Yeah, too much Ubisoft for sure.

I guess i'm feeling a bit doom and gloom right now with the hardware part of pc gaming but also with the games part of PC gaming.

I dunno, most games that came out in the past couple of years and coming out now, they are not even close to the games that 10, 20 years ago i thought i'd be playing today.

And with hardware fumbling in which concerns pricing, reliability and dropping support for tech that so many past games rely on... it's difficult to spot a silver lining atm.

The 5000 series matter is at least "limited" in nature due to the fact that there has been almost no cards produced anyway. I guess the entire USA got around 1000 of the flagship versions, of which around 15 are already in the hands of some reviewers.

So... if there is "just" 100 defective cards in the entire US... it is a huge amount of 10%...

I think, during the timeline between the last 4090 and the first 5090 produced... there has been 1000 times more electric cars in production... 1000 for every card. So i dunno whats going on here, yet my guess seems pretty accurate, surely disturbing. I dunno why this company is even worth trillions if it can produce lesser cards than the smallest country is able to produce breads a day.

A lot of open questions no one can answer... but at least not much can go boom at this point.

Regarding games: I just was checking out the first PSO Episode 1&2 on Gamecube, retro gaming. I have to say... this game got more charisma than all the other games Sega ever produced. It was a "Heureka" moment in history and i am glad i was able to experience it because now its gone... we do not see anything comparable anymore, just very cheap "life service stuff" with close to no heart nor soul. Same issue for way to many other games, such as Suikoden.

Not much different when it comes to Ubisoft games... the heart and spirit seems to be gone: I now stopped buying them because it is just disgusting realizing this harsh reality... to me. At least i can save up a huge amount of coins now.

Another good thing: No need for a even better GPU...

It does not matter if Nvidias GPUs goes boom or cost 5000 each... i have currently no need for and Ubisoft can use 10 DRMs at once if that is even possible somehow... i do not (anymore) care at all.

I'm suprised nobody has talked about missing ROP's on the cards. Apparently some cards have fewer than the tech specs which means a performance penalty. It seems the 5000 series cards have been nothing but issues

Already mentioned here:

"Fakes Frames, real Flames", they say... a unofficial new slogan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg7wCzcSFGA

Some newer video, just right now:

The best thing Nvidia can do is just to hide any numbers... be it temperature, amount of ROP or whatelse... so no one can say "whats wrong"... if this sounds like a joke, nope... it is actually intended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvBtfqU6svo


Well, the good thing: ROPs are not used for AI and AI is "everything" that seems to matter, at least according to Nvidia.

Well, there are indeed a few "specíal titles" that are great in their own category... such as Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Baldurs Gate 3 and more recently "Black Myth Wukong" which is unfortunately not on GOG so far... and of course "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2" which should be released on GOG pretty soon. Personally i even find Everspace 2 awesome, yet it was not hitting the "mainstream market" in any serious numbers. Some games such as "No Mans Sky" i can not say much about yet, as i wait for more updates to arrive (it seems under high development).

Most recently it is the... at least according to reviews "best Monster Hunter ever made" known as Monster Hunter Wilds... which... one more time is unlikely to get any GOG release. Capcom is just spoiled way to much, having over 20 million sales... on top of that "loving DRM"... so it is one of the most impossible GOG releases ever. I predict they even make 30 million sales this time with the newest title... which would even mean that "AAA" games are still a good investment in many cases... not just life service only.

However... Capcom is financially "more wise" than the almost entire crowd because they will charge the full game price, over 200 DLC price, and if PSN is used users even need a paid subscription for playing online... so, added together it is a crazy expensive game comparable to what Nvidia is charging for their GPUs. As we all know... at some point the "big fall" may happen and as higher someone gets as bigger a possible fall.

Nonetheless... from a purely quality perspective... those are surely great games... including Monster Hunter Wilds.

The series is actually pretty old... however... it was mostly a "handheld-life service game" for the Japanese market... in the past. This has changed with the big success of "Monster Hunter World", actually the "5. generation" of this series.

1. Gen: Monster Hunter up to Monster Hunter Freedom: PS2 & PSP: 2004-2005 (not recommended)
2. Gen: Monster Hunter 2 up to Monster Hunter Freedom Unite: 2006-2009 (PS2 and PSP i do recommend)
3. Gen: Monster Hunter 3 up to Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate: 2010-2013 (PSP and WiiU i do recommend)
4. Gen: Monster Hunter 4 up to Monster Hunter GU: 2015-2018 (3DS and Switch i do recommend)
5. Gen: Monster Hunter World Iceborn up to MH Rise Sunbreak: 2019-2022 (both i do recommend)

And now we are at the 6. Gen and it seems now the biggest hype ever has started for its new entry. I think the "big breakthrough" in the West was the 5. Gen... so it happened in the past 6 years with PC-Steam and Switch, partially PS4/PS5, as its platforms.

Anyway... i guess around 10+ games are truly great of the new stuff... yet a huge amount of "new games" just plain are sucking... including almost any of the new Ubisoft games. If GOG is still trying to get some "missing ones"... well those are the ones they will have to hunt... but clearly not Ubisoft at this point.

Problem is nVidia didn't create PhysX, AEGIA did. nVidia just slapped its name over AEGIA's. nVidia knows how to do things but inventing PhysX and SLI weren't 2 of them.
I tried the Warmonger AEGIA PhysX demo with my 9800GTX and it was underwhelming. After all the hype it was not impressive.

When AMD's TressFX came out on their HD cards for Tomb Raider, that was impressive.

Sure, good games have come out in the past 5 years and good games are still coming out today, like KCD2.

Don't mind me, i don't mean to bring anyone down with my gloominess.

It's just that i'm looking at it from a very specific perspective, that of someone looking to build a new gaming pc today.

I have a healthy amount of coin set aside for it, i had a new build scheduled for April and one month away from it not only, for the first time ever, i don't feel one bit excited about it but i'm also considering if whether or not i can justify the coin and the hassle.

Because, even forgetting all about current day hardware pitfalls, the reality is this, the ratio of good PC games vs garbage + mid-mid's when it comes to top tier "spectacle" games, the ones that you consider when building a new pc be it in terms of current day gaming be it in terms of future proofing, more and more leans towards the latter which at some point makes it reasonable to ask if it's still worth it.

"At some point" seems to be right now for me.

I'll probably go ahead with a new build anyway but i am looking, in earnest, for viable alternatives which by itself highlights just how much my outlook on PC gaming has changed.

My current pc still grants me a wide latitude and for playing the 2 or 3 PC titles coming out each year out of my hardware's reach that, a) are quality games and b) are games that i want to play - because we have no use for games we acknowledge as masterpieces unless they are also games we want to play - i'm having a really hard time justifying dropping 3-4-5 k on a new machine.

As for MH, thanks for outlining the series progression but it's not for me. Most of it seems console only anyway - a no go, i'm strictly a PC gamer - and Rise comes with Enigma i think so, nope.

Maybe i'll check out World someday but it's far from being a priority target.

Anyway, you're obviously into the series so here's hoping you'll enjoy the new title ;)