Gears 5 on Win7x64 with k4000m?

Hi, I'm having problems trying to run Gears 5 on win7x64. I'm not thinking it's an os problem as it officially supports win7 but maybe a graphics card problem. The k4000m is obv pretty old but the techpowerup specs say it supports 12, https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-k4000m.c1422 unless the very confusing way they put it means no ie "directx 12 (11_0)"

I get the gm500 and gm503. One is that it does not detect my card, the other is that it doesn't meet min spec, but ofc it doesn't meet "minimum" marketing bs spec on most games I run lol That's just sales speak, and should be not an issue, I mean I'm not going to run it anywhere near 1080p but I'm fine with that.

Only things I can think of is that I missed the specific files the game installs that good old M$ put in there for a directx 12 game to run on Win7, like WoW. Another would be drivers, the latest driver is 425.xxx and I'm not sure M$/Nvidia(they're all like teams in the nfl/nba etc same "league" different names) has locked out older equipment for obv monetary reasons. Any ideas? Should I reinstall? Refund?

 

I would assume you need the latest Nvidia driver, since DX12 support on Windows 7 is provided by the runtime/libraries installed by the graphics driver, and not included in the OS as is the case with Windows 10. However, driver support for Kepler-based mobile GPUs ended earlier this year, well before Gears 5 released. So unless you can mod the latest drivers to install on your GPU, you're probably SOL. And even if you could, there's no guarantee the latest Quadro drivers even contain the files needed to support DX12 games on Windows 7, as it's possible those are only included in the Game-Ready GeForce drivers. I would refund if I were you.

 

Yeah that's why I mentioned 425.xxx I think it's the last kepler quadro drivers. I can use both geforce and quadro drivers on my card since I unlocked the vbios so maybe I could mod the drivers like people do to get a "non-approved" card running in their precisions. I was actually looking at a 970m, 965m,980m so maxwell should be alright, even a maxwell quadro if there were a reasonably priced one.

But of course for one game it's not worth it to me to rush out and pay top dollar for a gpu and certainly not to change to win10. I've got win10 2019 ltsc on my m4600 and it's like you have to fight your computer to do the same things that are much simpler on win7, it's less stable and even trying to turn off all autoupdates it still sneaks them in there somehow no thx. Not the best for older computers either. Win7 is old but does the job and is stable rock solid, never had virus software on here other than 3rd party free firewall and firefox plugins, no problems.

I need to cut back on gaming anyways and from what I've read it's still a pretty buggy game. There's an avalanche of games that are open to all dx and os anyways, I'm currently replaying Borderlands 2 after several years and it's a blast, looks great and I can obv max it out. I think it's refund time.

 

Yeah, Gears 5 is a really good game. I like it at lot. Loved Gears 4 and the original Gears of War, too. But, it's not good enough to give up Windows 7. It is pretty buggy, too. But, it seems like basically all DX12 titles are buggy in one way or another. I did not realize Gears 5 was available on Steam and runs on Windows 7. I got it from the Windoze Store, so that's pretty sucky. Would have much rather have it on steam and not have it tethered to Windows 10.

 

Yeah technically it's supposed to run on win7 bc I guess in the installer it specifically cheats in dx12, like the WOW thing. Thankfully most other publishers are smart enough to know that dx12 win10 only will cost them sales. They're not trying to push win10 though and Intel is onboard with the cartel too etc. I clicked on the help and it took me to some Win10 MS thread for help, I mean really if it's supposed to be win7 compatible at least have a help page for it Money$oft! I've now got a 980m but still on win7 so maybe try it again sometime. No problems with outer worlds and BL3(dx11 is recommended for way less bugginess lol), can't wait for RDR2.

 

It's nice that it supports NVIDIA surround. Some of the other recent titles do not. Gears 5 looks good at 3840*1080.

Spoiler: Screen Shots

 

Wow you're pretty serious gamer @Mr. Fox those screenshots look amazing, dang you! you're making me reconsider GOW5 and all it's hassle! I'm only setup for mid-high 1080p obv but since I'm not 2k or 4k tainted aka I've never played or watched those resolutions up close, it'd still look amazing to me. Finished Outer Worlds and it's really good game, respects your time and is mercifully "only" 30-40 hrs long.

BL3 is really not doing it for me, cringey jokes, social programming, forgettable story. I can improve it with fling trainer thankfully aka no constant barrage of enemies and negating the hoarding looting elements which never appealed to me, nor the grinding for better weapons, forcing you to use the atrocious vehicle controls which needed to be GTA standard for controller use etc. Game feels like a slog to just get it over with and I'm not doing the bazillion other things it has there as side fetch quests, loading time garbage etc RDR2 is the only other game on the horizon, although I am looking at disco elysium, seems to get good recommends.

 

The Quadro K4000M is basically a Geforce GTX 660MX with a slower clock speed and 4GB of RAM.
Unfortunately because of it's lower clock speeds, you should see performance numbers somewhere around the desktop GTX 750... That will then get compounded with the complete lack of gaming driver optimizations in Quadro drivers.
The game minimum specs do call for a Desktop GTX 760, and there is a pretty big performance gap between your Quadro and that card. (and they might be serious when recommending that card)

Something you might want to try:
Turn off Optimus in your BIOS so that the game/OS does not have the intel GPU to fall back on. (I f***ing hated Optimus on my Wife's old Windows 7 Machine)

 

The Kepler Quadro cards are quite overclockable. You have to install a modified vBIOS to allow it to go higher than a marginal amount. I think someone here had the K4000M running well over stock, faster than the K5000M even, at close to 900 MHz. (I was overclocking the K5000M by around 25% myself, before I installed the M5000M.)

 

Well I don't have a k4000m anymore sold and gone but I had it running at 990mhz(+390) and +729 memory. My fsg base non-oc score was 2820 which corresponds to a 765m and my oc fsg was 4690 so around 870m. I did have optimus turned off then. Had svl7 unlocked bios on there worked well no issues over a couple of months. I think it was the driver, they stopped supporting new quadro kepler drivers at 425.xxx level. GOW5 was geforce drivers in the 430.xxx range at first.

I've since upgraded to a 980m so I don't think I'd have problems now but it's a big dl and a lot of room to find on my hdd/ssd, idk we'll see. I have to have optimus now couldn't install the driver for the 980m without it on. If I could not have it I would it's a pain and causes a bunch of small annoyances.

I think I judged BL3 too early, once you get to the swamp planet it really gets much better, I was just not a fan of the techno hallways in the early parts of the game. They were so bland. Disco Elysium was just too slow and too much text for me, when I read it's much heavier than that stuff in there, no need to do that in a game lol Used a lot of gpu as well for what it is, bad optimization.