hi-

i was stoked to get the d&d collection when it went on sale but when i went to play them, they looked crappy and all pixelated.

im thinking of jumping on a couple interplay games this weekend but don't want to if they are going to look the same. is there something that can be done to get them looking pretty so i can play them on my machine properly?

infinity engine D'n'D games and Fallouts have high resolution patches. Google a bit, you'll find them.

I know this is not particularly helpful, but are you sure you're on the right site? If state-of-the-art hi-res graphics are necessary for you to enjoy a game, why look for old games at all?

Go to the relevant forums of the games here, you will get links to gfx patches.

Dont expect miracles, but the difference is significant.

Pixelated? Yes.
Crappy? No!

Sorry I didn't post this earlier, didn't have time to do that. Anyway,
Widescreen mod for infinity engine games - this single mod works for all of them. If you notice disorted UI, try searching for UI patch, I'm sure there's one for Planescape Torment.

This is how Planescape looks in full HD, it would require pretty big screen to enjoy it thou. I strongly suggest using a resolution chosen according to size of your screen: Too high resolution on smaller screens will lead to tiny characters. (and, of course, size of the screen is also what causes seeming 'pixellation' - the games are in the same resolution as when you played them, however old monitors are kinda smaller than modern ones, so it wasn't so noticeable.)

Fallout 1 high resolution patch

Fallout 2 high resolution patch.

screenshot

Well... They do. Do you think GOG somehow magically changed the games to have lower resolution than they did originally? Of course not. You're simply viewing your memories through the pink glasses of nostalgia. Back then, they looked great because that's the level of graphics games had gotten to at that point. So you're remembering "state-of-the-art graphics", and therefore expecting to see "state-of-the-art graphics" when you start the game today.

One thing which may actually affect the visual impression is that back then, you most likely played the game on a CRT monitor, while today you probably have an LCD or LED monitor. Old games tend to look better on CRT monitors. Also, the monitor you have today is likely somewhat larger than the one you used back then, which naturally means that the individual pixels are physically larger.

I'm reminded of when I originally built my current PC. I built everything from scratch. The only thing I re-used from my old machine was the DVD drive. At the same time I switched from my old 19" 4:3 CRT monitor to a 22" 16:10 LCD monitor. One of the first things I tried on my new machine was to install Prey. I thought "Man, now I can crank up everything to the max. It's going to look fantastic". But it didn't look fantastic. It looked like crap. In the higher resolution, with the clearer picture on the LCD monitor, I could suddenly see all the sharp edges of the individual polygons in the models, which were blurred together on my old CRT monitor.

i don't think it's nostalgia. it might be a magnification issue, but not only are there a bunch of little squares making up the models, but some of them are out of place and make the models look kind of scrambled.

i don't know much about crt to led, that could be an issue.... but my old crt was ~23" and my new flat panel is 28 so i can't imagine 5" making that much a difference.

can anyone answer me if this is in fact a universal problem with older games on windows 7 or if it's mostly just the d&d collection infinity engine games?? i'm still on the fence for getting sacrifice and giants kabuto this weekend.

Well, 3D games are an entirely different thing than 2D, especially early 3D. They always look like crap, unless they have really, really good design - and even then they look like well designed crap.

Size is not an issue here. CRTs just handle downscaling much better (without loosing image quality) than LCDs.

It does though. Not the size difference as such, but the display type. CRT displays were not based on a grid of squares, but on a triangular mesh, and low resolutions were not "pixelised" in nearly the same way as they are on LCD displays. Additionally, LCD's work best with images of the same size as their native resolution (CRT's didn't really have native resolutions, due to said mesh) or of a size which easily multiplies to the native resolution (say a 512x384 image on a 1024x768 screen), if they do not even up nicely (say, a 640x480 image on the same screen), you often get some lines and columns that are multiplied an extra time and create distortions in the image.

hmm ok.... so should i skip getting giants and sacrifice? they're kind of on the bubble where i could see them maybe working out on new hardware. i certainly appreciate the info on specs and tech, but i'm looking for a glowing reccomendation or a dire warning to stay away because of how they look now.

Well... Screenshots should give you a pretty clear picture, or you might try searching for screenshots in higher resolution via google. I've got a pretty high threshold for what graphics I can stand, so my personal recommendation might not be really useful to you.