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Miscellaneous Forums => Archive => Topic started by: iceydamo on 2003-05-29 18:08:38
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I think I have solved the speed problem in the motobike and chocobo rages on fast computers, I was reading through the forums and I was reading that nearly everybody including me had a speed problem where it was too fast in direct 3d, then I read this topic that someone sugested how to try to make the game in open gl by useing regedit and changing driver to number 2 so I did it and set the 1.2 config to still run in direct 3d loaded up my save game and done the motobike part and load and behold it was running at the right speed and the game it self looked a lot better:
I tryed it on my voodoo 4500 and my new ge-force 2 mx 400 card and it worked on both, my other specs are as follows sound blaster live 1024 player 1.7 gig amd athlon xp prossecer 192 meg of memory and a 20 gig hardrive, Plus I was useing the ff7music patch with the psf music files.
I hope this works for other people like it did for me. :)
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Wow that's pretty cool. I wonder why doing that (of all things) would fix the speed problem.
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Neat, I'll try it out later.... <maths exams tomorow... aghhhh keep FF away from me>
*Edit... maths exam was easy :lol:
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Hi,
I was easily able to fix this by changing the sound source. (I forget if it was from hardware to software of vice versa) Anyway, it worked.
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Can someone post a save file right near the motorcycle minigame? Or e-mail it to [email removed], so I can post it?
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post a saved game here, because i want to try it on 2 diff computers...
i was going to try the vsync thing before, but didnt have a save at gold..so..
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I have a savegame for disc3 at the gold saucer ropeway station right here (http://kucoru.cjb.net/ff7save.zip). And by the way, I don't think that iceydamo's method even works. I tried it out a couple nights ago and I still got impossible framerates. Strange thing...I even did it with the same drivers. I guess it was all in my head before :P
By the way, do "save target as" in your browser if you download a page full of rubbish.
[EDIT]
I did find a way to slow it down. However, I used NVHardpage, which is a nvidia-specific registry tweaker. I'm sure you ATi card users can find a utility similar to that. I turned the antialiasing up to 4x, and I put anisotropic filtering on point sampling. If you don't have it on point sampling, you will get the stupid lines all over your screen. I loaded up the motorcycle chase and the speed went down dramatically. However, it is nowhere near as slow as it is with software rendering. By the way, has anyone played the psx version of FF7? How fast was the chase, do you remember? If I had a copy of the game I would record a video of how fast it is supposed to be.
[EDIT2]
If you had trouble downloading the file before(save02.ff7 is what it originally was), it'll work now. I zipped it instead.
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I think I figured it out!
My apologies for not mentioning that I have a geforce2. And you're right, antialiasing alone would probably not even dent the fps on a faster card. Underclocking works wonders, however. Using the 44.03 detonator drivers with my video card, I underclocked the core speed to a whopping 75mhz. Afterwards, I tried out the game, and the speed was just fine. I was able to get a score of 14000 on the motorcycle game, which gives you a speed source :P . I'm sure that on a faster videocard, such as a 97/9800 as you said, Jari, you will get good results by underclocking it. You'll just have to find the right tweaker that will allow you to go down that low. At least with ATi cards. Why? With the 44.03 detonator drivers, you can underclock damn low or high. I was able to go to 40mhz, but the screen screwed up :isee:.
But there's just one little problem. With the slowed down mini-games, the rest of the game will be a little laggy. A room with all of the party members may be sluggish on the fps.
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I had to format my pc the otherday because I had mager problems with my computer, well anyway when Ire tryied the reg edit thing again after I had installed ff7 everytime I run the game it just appears in a window and the graphics are all off colour I don't know why it worked before but now if I do it, it slips up can someone help me.
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Did you forget your own directions? You have to NOT run it with driver set to 2. Opengl mode, aka driver mode 2, tends to not run movies, run forcibly in a window, and have text window trouble. Run FF7config again and use direct3d for video. And I'm sorry but your method does nothing. Try underclocking your video card. Since we have the same model of video card, it'll work the same.
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I done all that but I can't underclock my graphics because my software has nothing like that in the settings because i have no driver cd I had to download them straight from the website because I brought in a shop which was selling it cheap because it had no box or drivers cd so I can not underclock my graphics card and I will be trying again later to see where or why my computer did it then but not now, could it be that I had other graphics card files still on my machine e.g. my voodoo 4500 some of the drivers for that stayed on could that be why it worked when I tried it if you could help me i would be very grateful.
soz if I put everyone hopes up I should have tested it more before i posted it.
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That's even better, that you download them. I would GREATLY reccomend that you use the 44.03 detonator drivers. Once you install them, your advanced display properties will allow you to change the clock speeds to almost whatever you wish. I bet other driver versions will allow you to do this, but I've tried the 44.03, and they work great with ff7 and other games.
Go to guru3d.com (http://download.guru3d.com/) and you will be able to get them there easily. But the file may be a little big. I'm talking over 10 megs. Hopefully that's not a problem.
I would've placed them on my -stupid- server, but I don't know what windows version you have.
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44.03 has no problems with text boxes and menus? (assuming that they even are / have been an issue with GF2)
Yeah..no problems at all. 29.42 also has no problems, but those drivers are a little old. But there definately others out there that have no problems. I just feel safe with 44.03. It's my safety blanket. But since you have a geforce4, you may not get the same results as I with different driver sets. You should try out nvhardpage, to see if you can fix the windows. It may be the anisotropic filtering.
Oh, and nvhardpage seems to not want to work with the 43.45 drivers.
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I have the latest dirvers but I can not change my clock speed anyone know why or has anyone got the drivers cd that can make an iso and zip it for me
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You can't change the clock speed without enabling that control panel. This (http://www.overclockers.com.au/files/CoolBits.reg) registry file does that. You can also do it with RivaTuner.
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I remember that one driver version I had would automatically turn on coolbits when installed. Can't remember what version it was, and it doesn't matter. All that overclocking requires is a simple registry edit. I suppose I got majorly confused.
You can also do it with nvhardpage
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*STUPID QUESTION ALERT!!!* :P
Speaking of "regedit"-ing stuff, which key was it that supposedly switches between OpenGL and D3d?
I see two suspects: "Driver" and "Mode"; with "Mode" already being set on 2....and I think that the last time I messed with it, FF7 was left in a really bad state and I haven't played it since...which means I probably forgot to set the offending key value back to where it tries to use D3D, and now I've forgotten what that key was in the first place...
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It's "Driver" that needs to be set to 2 for it to be opengl. But it isn't worth changing, believe me. Iceydamo's method does't work any wonders. "Mode" determines what resolution it is, and whether it is windowed or not. The one and only way we can slow down the minigames is by underclocking. At least at this point.
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Ah, that explains it. Thanks.
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I just found a windows-based CPU slower, and ran at like... 25% of my clock speed.
Well... It is kinda underclocking... but.. not the video card... and not actually in the hardware....
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Contra: All it will do is slow down the speed somewhat in direct3d, and quite a lot in software rendering. It would be great if you could run one of the mini-games before and after underclocking your cpu in 320x240(full screen) in software and tell us the results. I'm excited to hear.
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I think it only worked for me (at first) because I still had drivers lingering from my old graphics card voodoo 4500 so having them there helped my computer to run it like that but like I said I had to format my harddrive and now it doesn't work if I set the driver to 2 all it does it make it into a window all the graphics are curupted and the fmv clips would not play so Im soz I put this topic up I shoud have waited untill I formated my pc or did more testing but why it worked before but not now bathals me.
ps thx to Aaron :) for that regersty file to open up my clock speed changer in my drivers it has helped wonder's
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I think it only worked for me (at first) because I still had drivers lingering from my old graphics card voodoo 4500 so having them there helped my computer to run it like that but like I said I had to format my harddrive and now it doesn't work if I set the driver to 2 all it does it make it into a window all the graphics are curupted and the fmv clips would not play so Im soz I put this topic up I shoud have waited untill I formated my pc or did more testing but why it worked before but not now bathals me.
ps thx to Aaron :) for that regersty file to open up my clock speed changer in my drivers it has helped wonder's
I highly doubt it could be related to the 3Dfx drivers.
Why? I have a P4 1.5Ghz, and a Voodoo3 PCI. Even 3Dfx drivers don't allow the game to throttle its speed, it's still running at like 5000 FPS for the Chocobo Race/Bike Minigame. Okay, maybe not 5 thousand, but still...you get the idea.... :P
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I actually tried that around 5 or so months ago with my 3dfx banshee and I got no results when I set paths for where the glide drivers were congregated. It really didn't make anything look good at all. Or fix anything for that matter. But I think it'd be worthwile for others to try it out.
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It actually did help, even in direct3d. I got it down to about the normal playing speed of the race. It was a little choppy, but playable... If you're going for high-scores it won't work... but mine was going so fast that my computer couldn't keep up with the game and any time me or the truck collided with anything it crashed. once slowed down, it played fine.
I'll put that debug patch on it and give you the different framerates, if I ever have the time... I'll try to make it.
Ciao.
~Contra, Angel of Mystic Steel~
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Goku7: Do Voodoo 3 drivers still use glide.dll, glide2x.dll and glide3x.dll files, like 1 and 2 used?
First off, you'll have to forgive the fact that right now I'm not at my normal comp, (this one doesn't have a 3Dfx card), so I have to base my answers off my memory of what the file names are. Once I can get back to my computer, I can double-check the results and give any corrections.
IIRC, glide2x.dll and glide3x.dll are definitely in there, heck, even 3rd party driversets aimed at the Voodoo5 6000 still have those files.
HOWEVER, "modern" (Voodoo3 and later) 3Dfx drivers do NOT use Glide to emulate D3D or OpenGL calls, like what was apparantly done for the V1/V2 OpenGL support.
For example, in the current driver set I'm using (called the "Amigamerlin 2.9"; win9x version of course :P ), the OpenGL ICD is a file called "3dfxogl.dll"; and from what I can tell, it shouldn't need the assistance of the Glide2x or Glide3x dlls to function; as the file's properties (under the "version tab") give it a description as being the 3Dfx OpenGL ICD, version 1.1.
Other files, like the ones involved with Direct3D, appear to use a file called 3dfxvs.dll (or some similar name), and then I think there's two other files called "3dfxvs16.dll" and 3dfxvs32.dll", but I have a feeling I've totally misnamed those three files, so I'll have to get back to you on that. It's largely because their names are so similar to each other, my memory is running their names together or something.
I'm curious of something... Did you notice an empty string value called "DriverPath" while you were messing with the registry?
IIRC, that key was empty on mine as well.
Voodoo is most likely the _only_ card that used these driver .dll-files that could be just copied into the game folder (or system folder), and that makes me think that this 'DriverPath' string value might be there for some kind of proprietary 3dfx support. Whether it's actually working support, or even existing support, I have no idea. (But one of the early demos _supposedly_ had Glide support)
If you mean in a general sense (for all games of that time period), that may be correct when it comes to the V2/Banshee/Rush, etc. I believe it was part of the whole "3dfx-miniGL" miniport fiasco, in which you needed to dump game-specific 3Dfx dll files into a specificed place in the game's install folder, that the miniport was for, in order to run OpenGL type games, because at the time 3Dfx felt that they didn't need to spend the money on licensing a proper OpenGL ICD for their drivers, and thus used these "mini-GL" drivers to wrap the OpenGL calls to the Glide API.
Would you mind trying the following: fill that string value with a path that points to your glide.dll, wherever that might be and then try different options for driver, like 2 (or even 3 or more, although normally these just turn on software rendering).
I have no idea whether the idea is to just input a path to the directory, like (C:\windows\system\) (or wherever the glide stuff normally lives), or path with filename included, like (C:\windows\system\glide.dll), so try both.
I don't really expect it to work, but who knows, maybe it will produce results of some kind.
Sure, I'll look into it when I get the next chance to use my comp, which should be later today.
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Update!!! :D
Jari, you ARE right about FF7 having some sort of propriatry support for FF7. The irony of it, though, is that the answer is actually given in the owner's manual for the PC version.
You know the phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words"? The pic on page 7 of the configuration program is what gives it away.
If you notice, on the picture, it shows "3Dfx Interactive DirectX Driver" for the "Display" entry. During FF7pc's release, the Voodoo2 was still a viable card, and this listing is unique to using that card; because from the V3 onward, it lists "Primary display driver" as the Display entry, which is what ALL video cards, 3dfx and non-3dfx, have for that entry.
Why is the V2 so unique? Simple, really. If you'll remember, the Voodoo2 was mainly a DAUGHTERBOARD based design, requiring it to be attached to another, standalone card, usually a 2D-only card. Because of this, telling FF7 to use "Primary Display Driver" wouldn't be possible (unless the V2 was attached to a card that already had 3D hardware), and you NEEDED the separate entry to get FF7 to use the "secondary" hardware that consisted of the Voodoo2 daughterboard-card thing.
Now, to relate this to the registry entry:
The "Driverpath" key must be the means thru which FF7 targets the Voodoo2 driver, in order to tell windows to switch output from the main 2D card onto the Daughterboard, which then sends its own output thru a passthru cable to where-ever it needs to go (I've never studied in particular the passthru cable aspect of a Voodoo2 set up; so whether it goes simply back to the 2D card it's attached to, or a type of monitor Y-Cable direct connection is pure speculation on my part.)
Now if you would excuse me Dr. Watson, I must be---
*snaps out of Sherlock Holmes routine*
:oops:
Whew!! That was a lot of writing. Still, that almost felt like some good old detective work, if I do say so myself. :P
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.....
riiggghhttttt
The only thing I remember, is that FF7PC worked with the Voodoo 2 ....but, it didn't use it's Glide mode to do it. It was using Direct3d.
For some reason the porters (programmers) did away with the Glide mode support, that the Demo was using. So, I fail to see any relation, between the key setting you found, and glide mode; with the way your discribing it. The V2 used Direct3d when there was no Glide support automaticly. The game/program didn't have to tell the V2 anything, in order to do this. So, why the Register key?
I think it's just something that they left in there, because it was too much trouble to take it out. It probably activated the Glide Driver, but there were probably too many bugs (clipping, black boxes, or something?) so they disabled it. Probably lack of time and resources. I'm sure they figured, 'Why bother getting this Glide thing to work....the Voodoo can use Direct3D, like everyone else.'
Now weither, the real Glide mode can be turned on? I don't know....I don't have my V2 card anymore, and I would be too lazy to test it if I did. I gave that V2 computer I had, to my parents and have no intention of indian trading it ....LOL I have no use for a Packard P200mmx PC, anyway.
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So it uses direct3d for me even though i have a voodoo3? what a waist. Isnt there a patch that will allow glide or opengl?
Wait, I just thought of something. The FF7XP patch Doesnt use Direct3d because when I use it with FF7 on my Voodoo3 and run in hardware rendering it runs in 32bit color. Voodoo3 cant run direct3d in 32bit, it has to be 16 for direct3d to work.
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Mofokubik:
Wow, you just figured that direct3d is your only hardware option. Where have you been? Or maybe it wasn't even running in 32bit in the first place.
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I guess im running in opengl right now. Because its in 32bit, and d3d on v3 wont go that high. I didnt edit the reg, all I did was patch ff7.
Let me try to be perfectly clear ruby... FF7 _is_ running in 32bit.
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question:
If a drawing is done with only 16bits of color.....how can anyone see it with 32bits of color? Wouldn't it remain 16bits of color, regardless?
Just because your desktop is "set" at 32bit, it doesn't mean the game is shown at 32bits....especially if it was made with only 16bit....
So if the above is true.....how in the world can you tell, if it's running in 32bit in the first place?
This is just something I was pondering way back when....; when all this, "play FF7 in 32bit mode", came about, a long, whiles back.
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Did you run the 32bit patch by Ficedula?
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....I think you know the answer to that :oops:
So I take it, it blended the backgrounds, better or something?
So, did the patch work with the V3? and if so.......how? When Jari just stated it couldn't do 32bits? Something seems amiss here, "if", it worked on the V3.
I don't know if it does or doesn't....I didn't even try it (not that I have a V3, anyway), smoother backgrounds just aren't that important to me. I'm just glad that FF7PC works at all, on my machine.
Maybe, the patch did something else?
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question:
If a drawing is done with only 16bits of color.....how can anyone see it with 32bits of color? Wouldn't it remain 16bits of color, regardless?
Gaourod shading looks smoother in 32-bitJust because your desktop is "set" at 32bit, it doesn't mean the game is shown at 32bits....especially if it was made with only 16bit....
The Voodoo 3 and below DO NOT RUN 32-Bit Full stop, period, end of discussion. They render internaly and 24-bit and dither downto output at 16-bit, IIRC, thus rusulting in the famed high quiality of Voodoos in 16-bit. The first Voodoo chip to do 32-bit was the VSA-100 used in Voodoo 4 and 5's.
If the desktop is in 32-bit, by default OpenGL app will try to render in 32-bit. This is unless the app requests otherwise, or the drivers tell it otherwise. D3D is entirely independant of this featureSo if the above is true.....how in the world can you tell, if it's running in 32bit in the first place?
This is just something I was pondering way back when....; when all this, "play FF7 in 32bit mode", came about, a long, whiles back.
You can tell by the menus. The menus in 16-bit have obvious banding. In 32-bit, this is absent.
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question:
If a drawing is done with only 16bits of color.....how can anyone see it with 32bits of color? Wouldn't it remain 16bits of color, regardless?
Just because your desktop is "set" at 32bit, it doesn't mean the game is shown at 32bits....especially if it was made with only 16bit....
So if the above is true.....how in the world can you tell, if it's running in 32bit in the first place?
This is just something I was pondering way back when....; when all this, "play FF7 in 32bit mode", came about, a long, whiles back.
I know its 32bit because the color depth of the menu is 16.7 million colors (32bit), not 65,536 colors(16bit) . There is a huge difference between 16 and 32.
Kane could be right about the 24 bit...all i know is that its not 16bit..
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I believe that Halflife in opengl renders in 16bit, and only that. There are registry keys where you can change the resolution and color depth, but I don't think that when you set it to "32" it even does anything.
Ok, wtf, Mofokubik. You just made me waste this post..
(he deleted a bit about half-life being in 32-bit for opengl)
But Kane is probably right about that one, yeah.
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This is a pic of me running TFC with my V3, I guess in 32bit..
Is this 16bit, or 32bit? (http://bin.mypage.sk/FILES/badlands0000.PNG)
HEHE sorry about messing your post up. There where no other posts while I was editing mine, so I must have clicked edit right before you posted...
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Ok, that makes alot of sense then. I just didnt understand why the 16 bit looked so good, but I understand now.
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Technically Voodoo 1/2 should work even without 2D card, but naturally using such a setup might prove difficult. :)
From what I heard about the mainstream models of the V2, it should be practically IMPOSSIBLE due to the complete absence of 2D-capable hardware on it. That is assuming I'm not mixing this up with earlier 3dfx cards, which I KNOW were definitely daughterboard designs.
I doubt that. Because it doesn't need to do that. Just start a 3D application and Voodoo will switch the inputs automatically (via any API, like Direct3D or Glide, _but_ the application has to select secondary device, of course, if primary is present). I suspect that it knows what card to target via DD_GUID or Options values. FF8 uses similar method, although I can't recall the exact registry value (but it does have a dedicated 'use secondary 3D device setting').
True, but did it work like that back when DirectX5.0 was out? For all _I_ know, DX5 may have used more primitive, arcane initialization methods which didn't involve the DD_GUID (which frankly, I never even knew existed....maybe I need to start poking around the registry more....:P).
I suppose the whole idea behind my explaination is that the "driverpath" key must correspond to the "Display" entry in the config program; and that if you select "Primary Display Driver", the key is empty.
Oh, and I retract my statement about the V2 being the only card that has a different "Display" entry in the config program; as I'm pretty sure that if you have two 3D cards in your machine, you can have a different "Display" entry (as you may or may not have already pointed out) when you select your second 3D device. Still, I believe that the driverpath key is only used when you have a second entry.
Therefore, I have a new, revised theory:
Primary Display Driver selected->"Driverpath" key empty; Game attempts to use the default D3D5 dlls, which by their own defaults would then attempt to interface with the primary card's 3D drivers, if any are there.
Secondary card selected->"Driverpath" key lists path to the 3D-accelerated drivers that card uses, Game then feeds that path to the D3D5 dlls and tells them to use that, similar to how we "mask" the path to the default sgt files in FF8 using our .ini files. Or: Game feeds that path to the DD_GUID registry key (possibly getting around your conundrum of "why not use DD_GUID?"), considering that for all we know, "Driverpath" could use a registry path, not a logical drive path.
Passthrough cable is just what the name implies, it is connected from 2D card to Voodoo, and regular monitor cable is connected to Voodoo (so, it's not a Y-cable, that would be technical impossibility anyway due to impedance, and other nice electrical thingies). So the signal passes through the Voodoo, hence the name for the cable. When 3D acceleration was turned on, Voodoo just flipped a relay, cutting off signal from 2D card, and started to send it's own signal. I can send you an image of such cable, if you want. :P
An image of the cable? Hey, why not? I may need it for future reference if I ever for some reason needed to install a V2 on something, LOL. :P But seriously, I've been wondering what that thing looked like. :D
Still, quite decent detective work, Mister Holmes. :P
Thank you for the compliment......*hopes that Jari wasn't being sarcastic for some reason there...*
Wait, I just thought of something. The FF7XP patch Doesnt use Direct3d because when I use it with FF7 on my Voodoo3 and run in hardware rendering it runs in 32bit color. Voodoo3 cant run direct3d in 32bit, it has to be 16 for direct3d to work
Mofokubik, as a fellow Voodoo3 user, I must sadly inform you that the V3 is definitely incapable of handling 32bit rendering. At all. Not for textures, Z-Buffering, Stencil Buffering, or any other 32-bit rendering operation.
At best, you can get what some people call a "22bpp Post-filtered output" from the card, but at the end of the day its still considered 16-bit rendering.
If the fact that you can initialize D3D and OpenGL games even though your desktop's colors are at 32bit was leading you to the conclusion that the v3 was rendering at 32bit, then you were being tricked by some safegards put into DirectDraw/D3D initialization. As soon as you start the program, as far as I know, DirectDraw does the resolution/color depth switching to what the application wants, and then hands control of the card over to D3D. Otherwise, you'd get an API that gives out some "failure to initialize" messages because it tried to do something that the card can't do.
With OpenGL, I believe it trys to initialize the app by defaulting to rendering at the same res/color settings that the windows desktop uses, and if it can't get that function to work, falls back to a Software Rendered, "SafeGL" mode, which is not a very good thing to use, as even the D3D software renderer is typically FASTER than how OpenGL trys to do things without hardware acceleration.
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Technically Voodoo 1/2 should work even without 2D card, but naturally using such a setup might prove difficult. :)
From what I heard about the mainstream models of the V2, it should be practically IMPOSSIBLE due to the complete absence of 2D-capable hardware on it. That is assuming I'm not mixing this up with earlier 3dfx cards, which I KNOW were definitely daughterboard designs.
Heh, you are not, they are purely 3D-devices.. It was more of a joke anyway.
But if it were possible to get Win9x started without a 2D card (I assume that it's impossible, have never tried), it would be easy: just look (before you remove the 2D card, silly) into your system.ini and replace the shell=explorer.exe (or something like that, can't remember anymore) with shell=c:\games\your_favorite_game.exe. And behold, when Windoze starts, it will start the game instead of Exploder-shell, and game will kick into 3D accelerated mode, and you will have video. Easy, yes?
That shell-trick actually works (but not with all games, some M$ games refuse to run if there's no explorer as shell, Midtown Madness being one such game), and can be used if you absolutely must play something that's just a bit too demanding for your hardware while running Windoze as usual. That way you can get bit more free memory, and stuff. Of course, there's the 'little' problem of exit strategy: when you quit the game. What happens? There's no Explorer running...
As for your theory: I think that you are thinking in too complicated manner.
I'm pretty certain that Windoze has enumerated hardware devices since it has had registry (which would be since 95, or was NT4 first?) and assigned GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) to them. Actually, pretty much every piece of your computer has a GUID assigned to them, some might even have several (if it's visible to system as multiple devices, like some soundcards might be).
I can send you an image of such cable, if you want. :P
An image of the cable? Hey, why not? I may need it for future reference if I ever for some reason needed to install a V2 on something, LOL. :P But seriously, I've been wondering what that thing looked like. :D
Ok. It's pretty simple gadget (http://koti.mbnet.fi/jarihux/0002.jpg), as you can see. Basically a really short VGA-cable with male connector at one end, and female connector at other end. One end goes to 2D card, other to Voodoo. It would be really hard to install it incorrectly. And in a pinch it could be used as 8" long VGA-extension cord.
BTW, that particular cable is really thin, meaning that it most likely sucks. But it's from really cheap Voodoo 1, which pretty much explains why it's so thin. Orchid Righteous had a cable that was easily twice as thick (and really easy to bend. Not.)
Still, quite decent detective work, Mister Holmes. :P
Thank you for the compliment......*hopes that Jari wasn't being sarcastic for some reason there...*
No, I wasn't being sarcastic. It was pretty decent, considering that you have never had Voodoo 1 or 2.
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I would think so too, Kane is kind of a Voodoo authority here, and pretty visible person at ngemu forums. Even though I don't always agree with everything he says, I don't doubt his knowledge for a second.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! You registered on the boards then?From what I heard about the mainstream models of the V2, it should be practically IMPOSSIBLE due to the complete absence of 2D-capable hardware on it. That is assuming I'm not mixing this up with earlier 3dfx cards, which I KNOW were definitely daughterboard designs.
Goku7 is right here. They are accelerator devices, not graphics cards. If you notice, rather than under display devices, a Voodoo/2 will appear under 'Sound, Video and Game controllers'. There are, of course, variants that do both. There is the Voodoo Rush, a 2d/3d Voodoo 1 card. Ill fated as the glide support (pretty much essential then, and the only real reason you'd use a Voodoo now) was quite poor. UltraHLE, Screamer 2 and Screamer Rally never properly supported this card (to the best of my knowledge), and I'm sure there are more apps like that. Then there was the Banshee, the Voodoo 2 all in one card. Far better than the Rush (which IMO was aptly named ;)) but still not without it's issues. Even with that card, you were far better off with a seperate 2d card and a Voodoo accelerator board. 3dfx dropped the seperate board idea subsequently and we are left with what we have now.True, but did it work like that back when DirectX5.0 was out? For all _I_ know, DX5 may have used more primitive, arcane initialization methods which didn't involve the DD_GUID (which frankly, I never even knew existed....maybe I need to start poking around the registry more....).
I'm pretty certain that it did work ;) I'm not sure of the mechanics of it however.Oh, and I retract my statement about the V2 being the only card that has a different "Display" entry in the config program; as I'm pretty sure that if you have two 3D cards in your machine, you can have a different "Display" entry
Yes, but not all apps support this. For instance, when I had my Voodoo 5 in my machine, some apps reported the second card, but others didn't see it, and thus refused to use the card.Mofokubik, as a fellow Voodoo3 user, I must sadly inform you that the V3 is definitely incapable of handling 32bit rendering. At all. Not for textures, Z-Buffering, Stencil Buffering, or any other 32-bit rendering operation.
True and yet untrue. It will do 2d rendering in 32-bit, but the 3d pathway won't allow it. Just had to revise that. OpenGL screensavers, if the desktop is in 32-bit mode, will slow to a crawl as they will use Microsoft's 'software' OpenGL rendering.But if it were possible to get Win9x started without a 2D card (I assume that it's impossible, have never tried), it would be easy: just look (before you remove the 2D card, silly) into your system.ini and replace the shell=explorer.exe (or something like that, can't remember anymore) with shell=c:\games\your_favorite_game.exe. And behold, when Windoze starts, it will start the game instead of Exploder-shell, and game will kick into 3D accelerated mode, and you will have video. Easy, yes?
Well..... what would happen is your app would start up. That's it. When you quit, I think that Windows would either log off or shut down.... or you'd simply be shafted.
Right anything else to add? Not as far as I can think, but I'll be sure to keep tabs on this thread ;)
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Jari, I tried out the shell-replacement trick and it seems that it doesn't want to work for me (win98). Whenever I run the game, it always has a path error. I've tried editing "SET PATH" in autoexec.bat to make sure that the paths are there, but it doesn't work out..at all. I've tried 3 games so far, each with naught of results.
But the question is.. Why would Eidos take out glide/opengl support? They clearly gave 3dfx credit in the game...besides direct3d support, what's the point?
Another thing:
Try using ff7 version 1.00, but have the game set to run in direct3d (in the registry, at least). You may be surprised by the results. At least in this version the transparent/translucent models work. The only drawback is limited ff7music support, so it's basically pointless. But it's interesting to see if it works.
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HOWEVER, "modern" (Voodoo3 and later) 3Dfx drivers do NOT use Glide to emulate D3D or OpenGL calls, like what was apparantly done for the V1/V2 OpenGL support.
For example, in the current driver set I'm using (called the "Amigamerlin 2.9"; win9x version of course :P ), the OpenGL ICD is a file called "3dfxogl.dll"; and from what I can tell, it shouldn't need the assistance of the Glide2x or Glide3x dlls to function; as the file's properties (under the "version tab") give it a description as being the 3Dfx OpenGL ICD, version 1.1.
Actually this isn't true. 3dfxogl ICD (http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/glide.html) requires GLIDE3x DLL's it uses these for handling many of the screen functions. KoolSmokey made an initial direct OGL 1.3 driver that didn't require it (3dhq is no longer around though). Any 'stock' 3dfx driver uses the GLIDE driver, even if it is just to set up the screen (which it's not), it's slow because it takes OGL functions and translates them to GLIDE and translates GLIDE too whatever was native with the 3dfx cards. :)
Here (http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/oglicd.html) is a link to a DIRECT OGL ICD 1.2 using MESA on windows the directions are that you place this in the directory of the game NOT in your windows system directory (the reason for this is clear as it will load the 3dfx driver instead of the OGL driver by KoolSmokey (http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/).. it looks in the current directory first for DLL's).
There aren't really any 'modern' driver sets mostly hacked 3dfx drivers that are repackaged. The source code for there drivers is now widely available so it's really not a big deal. Koolsmokey though did a GREAT job of making his Win2K and XP drivers. These are what you see stuffed in a lot of those 'driver' sets. If it says 3dhq it's real otherwise it's pretty much what I said.. repacked stuff with some hacked fixes generally.
I've tried 8 different sets, of them the only ones that didn't give me the blue screen of death was 3dhq's :)
Cyb
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You are all wrong!
Ive decided that Voodoo3 renders in 64bit. All you have to do is run a 3d game or program, 4 times at the same time.
32 + 32 - 32 - 16 = 16 + 8 - 40 + 16 x 2 = 32 x 32 = 64
Not only that, but base times height I win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I just added a semicolon to the original "shell=" line and put in my own thing. But I'll try it now without big path names/use of quotes. Before I would try to run it with quotes and it would do okay, but the paths would still be screwed.
[EDIT - much later]
I figured out how to do it right, but it is all in vain. What worked for me is copying all the program files needed to run the game into the windows root directory. Then it ran fine. But, there seems to be no improvement in performance in..well..anything! I ran 3dmarks with explorer.exe as the shell, and 3dmarks as the "shell", and there was no difference in the score. And YES, I made sure I had the same settings and everything.
[EDIT - after the edit]
Ugh...I hate how someone posts before you get done editing
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Actually this isn't true. 3dfxogl ICD (http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/glide.html) requires GLIDE3x DLL's it uses these for handling many of the screen functions. KoolSmokey made an initial direct OGL 1.3 driver that didn't require it (3dhq is no longer around though). Any 'stock' 3dfx driver uses the GLIDE driver, even if it is just to set up the screen (which it's not), it's slow because it takes OGL functions and translates them to GLIDE and translates GLIDE too whatever was native with the 3dfx cards. :)
Yeah, I know about Koolsmokey. Brilliant guy, I tell you; when it comes to understanding how Glide/OpenGL seems to work on 3Dfx cards. Back when I was tryin' to figure out why FF9 had major framerate drops when several character models were on screen (the exception was for battle scenes), someone suggested I use his Glide3x update, and when I tried it with his new Glide3x, the framerate drops disappeared. Not to mention, his hosting of the Glide source code was what allowed Lewpy to figure out why the VSA-100 option under "Draw Method" wasn't working correctly.
Here (http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/oglicd.html) is a link to a DIRECT OGL ICD 1.2 using MESA on windows the directions are that you place this in the directory of the game NOT in your windows system directory (the reason for this is clear as it will load the 3dfx driver instead of the OGL driver by KoolSmokey (http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/).. it looks in the current directory first for DLL's).
A WORKING 1.2 ICD for 3Dfx cards?! This I gotta see.
There aren't really any 'modern' driver sets mostly hacked 3dfx drivers that are repackaged. The source code for there drivers is now widely available so it's really not a big deal. Koolsmokey though did a GREAT job of making his Win2K and XP drivers. These are what you see stuffed in a lot of those 'driver' sets. If it says 3dhq it's real otherwise it's pretty much what I said.. repacked stuff with some hacked fixes generally.
Yes, that is true. However, I think I have a problem with the language of my post when I said "modern". What I meant by "modern", are the driver sets that didn't need to rely on a game-dependent Mini-GL driver due to a complete lack of an ICD in ANY licensed form. Now, not much may have changed, but at least its improved to where you don't have to select "3Dfx OpenGL" to even get hardware accelerated OGL. :P
I've tried 8 different sets, of them the only ones that didn't give me the blue screen of death was 3dhq's :)
Ouch. You know, I heard that the Amigamerlin drivers are using the most stable builds of the 3Dhq stuff (and the set seems to have 3Dhq's blessing which may not be surprising, because Amigamerlin was one of the members of 3Dhq anyway). But still, BSOD's were THAT common? What OS are you using; WinXP?!
True and yet untrue. It will do 2d rendering in 32-bit, but the 3d pathway won't allow it. Just had to revise that. OpenGL screensavers, if the desktop is in 32-bit mode, will slow to a crawl as they will use Microsoft's 'software' OpenGL rendering.
Exactly, Lord Kane. The "odd" screensaver behaviour was one of the first things that tipped me off that the V3 is incapable of 32-bit 3D rendering.
And, I suppose I had yet another problem with language there, as well. I have very rarely heard "rendering" used to refer to a 2D drawing operation, so when I said "rendering" I thought people would assume I was refering to 3D drawing operations as done with Glide/D3D/OGL. However, you are correct, as far as DirectDraw seems to be concerned, 2D "rendering" at 32-bit color is possible, otherwise it'd be impossible to run the windows desktop at 32-bit in the first place! :P
You are all wrong!
Ive decided that Voodoo3 renders in 64bit. All you have to do is run a 3d game or program, 4 times at the same time.
32 + 32 - 32 - 16 = 16 + 8 - 40 + 16 x 2 = 32 x 32 = 64
Not only that, but base times height I win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ROFLAMO!!!!! (http://home.fr.inter.net/gc12/x3dfx/lmao.gif)
Thanks, I needed that. Seriously.
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In case you're wondering where I got the smilie, I "borrowed" it from the x-3dfx forums, in the forum of an image link, LOL. I don't think this would be a problem, but if there's some policy that this is running up against, I'll understand it being taken down.
</disclaimer mode off>
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Yeah, I know about Koolsmokey. Brilliant guy, I tell you; when it comes to understanding how Glide/OpenGL seems to work on 3Dfx cards. Back when I was tryin' to figure out why FF9 had major framerate drops when several character models were on screen (the exception was for battle scenes), someone suggested I use his Glide3x update, and when I tried it with his new Glide3x, the framerate drops disappeared. Not to mention, his hosting of the Glide source code was what allowed Lewpy to figure out why the VSA-100 option under "Draw Method" wasn't working correctly.
Well apparently Pete got a clue as to why 3dfx cards had slow downs a lot too there are a lot of redundant repetitious and over done operations in the ICD that 3dfx made for OGL :) <note repetition and redundancy ;)>
A WORKING 1.2 ICD for 3Dfx cards?! This I gotta see.
Well it's not a pancacia.. it still suffers from rendering to a window problems 3dfx created from there card design. So what happens is if your program only renders to a window (see Biowares Aurora toolset for NWN module editing). It shrinks the screen to a tiny itty bitty spec (320x240) and you think your screen is blank but it's not you have to kill the program to get out, it will work with Quake ]I[ though! :)
Too bad he didn't release his mesa based drivers :P Mesa is now 1.3 compliant.. shouldn't be too much of a hassel (ok maybe it's a lot but hey I can dream ;) ).
Yes, that is true. However, I think I have a problem with the language of my post when I said "modern". What I meant by "modern", are the driver sets that didn't need to rely on a game-dependent Mini-GL driver due to a complete lack of an ICD in ANY licensed form. Now, not much may have changed, but at least its improved to where you don't have to select "3Dfx OpenGL" to even get hardware accelerated OGL. :P
Ahhh! hehehe miniGL (continued laughing) sorry. ahemm..
Yeah the miniGL uses Glide2x.dll (hence the laughing). Yeah nightmare city indeed (sigh).
Ouch. You know, I heard that the Amigamerlin drivers are using the most stable builds of the 3Dhq stuff (and the set seems to have 3Dhq's blessing which may not be surprising, because Amigamerlin was one of the members of 3Dhq anyway). But still, BSOD's were THAT common? What OS are you using; WinXP?!
I am using win98SE now.. (sniff) lost my developement machien WAHHH! (Sorry still bummed). Need Win2k upgrade (hate XP such a PITA).
Exactly, Lord Kane. The "odd" screensaver behaviour was one of the first things that tipped me off that the V3 is incapable of 32-bit 3D rendering.
It always amazed me WHY they were still stuck in 16 bits per pixel even at the begining of the year 2000. They are dead but sometimes I still wonder if we can learn what not to do from now defunct companies (better than doing it yourself and remain humble!)
I've found it interesting that both Nvidia and ATI are no longer JUST a graphics company I thought, had 3dfx assisted Nintendo with the GBA video system they actually might still be in business today. I guess they weren't diverse enough.
Cyb
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Well it's not a pancacia.. it still suffers from rendering to a window problems 3dfx created from there card design. So what happens is if your program only renders to a window (see Biowares Aurora toolset for NWN module editing). It shrinks the screen to a tiny itty bitty spec (320x240) and you think your screen is blank but it's not you have to kill the program to get out, it will work with Quake ]I[ though! :)
Too bad he didn't release his mesa based drivers :P Mesa is now 1.3 compliant.. shouldn't be too much of a hassel (ok maybe it's a lot but hey I can dream ;) )
Actually, I _heard_ that 3rd party OpenGL 3Dfx ICD devolopment would start hitting a brick wall for version1.3 compliancy, due to the lack of hardware TnL on the cards. Of course, if it was possible to use the same HW TnL emulation routines that the D3D section (read: the Geometry Assist option)has, then such a problem could at least be worked around. Of course, by no means is Geometry Assist perfect, but at least its a start.
As for window-based rendering, I've never really needed to do that, so at the moment it looks like I'll be able to avoid that problem with it.
Ahhh! hehehe miniGL (continued laughing) sorry. ahemm..
Yeah the miniGL uses Glide2x.dll (hence the laughing). Yeah nightmare city indeed (sigh).
Did I say something stupid?! Or were you more laughing at the miniGL aspect of the drivers themselves?
Personally, I think it wasn't a good idea to come out with a miniGL driver, they should have bit the bullet and paid the license fees so they could use a proper ICD like everyone else did. :P
I am using win98SE now.. (sniff) lost my developement machien WAHHH! (Sorry still bummed). Need Win2k upgrade (hate XP such a PITA).
Eh, that might not be a good idea if you're trying to use the Voodoo to play games that require HW TnL capability (or at least the reporting of it in the drivers); As I have also heard that Geometry Assist doesn't work AT ALL; in that respect you're better off with Win9x. But, other than that, there shouldn't be much of a problem...
It always amazed me WHY they were still stuck in 16 bits per pixel even at the begining of the year 2000. They are dead but sometimes I still wonder if we can learn what not to do from now defunct companies (better than doing it yourself and remain humble!)
IIRC, the performance-to-image-quality ratio wasn't balanced enough in 3Dfx's mind (points to the performance hits of the TNT and maybe TNT2 as an example), to warrant it based on the performance yields of cards in the pre-geforce generation. Of course, the V4/V5 is perfectly capable of it; though we all know the appearance of the Geforce 256 was probably the "kick in the pants" that 3Dfx needed to add those features.
I've found it interesting that both Nvidia and ATI are no longer JUST a graphics company I thought, had 3dfx assisted Nintendo with the GBA video system they actually might still be in business today. I guess they weren't diverse enough.
_Supposedly_, VSA-100 chips were used in the HUD displays of certain fighter jets like the F-16, however I don't remember the particular source that statement came from, so I'm considering this more "rumour" than "fact". Still, if it was true, that could be considered as diversifying. Of course, it still sounds like a stretch.
And, AFAIK, 3Dfx was in negotiations with Sega (who later turned them down in favor of PowerVR's solution), not Nintendo; but then again I never heard anything about Nintendo working with 3Dfx for GBA system development....
Cyb[/quote]
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And, AFAIK, 3Dfx was in negotiations with Sega (who later turned them down in favor of PowerVR's solution), not Nintendo; but then again I never heard anything about Nintendo working with 3Dfx for GBA system development....
True. SEGA of America was working on the Blackbelt system with 3dfx, based on Voodoo 2s. SEGA Japan decided to go with the NEC system even after SoA had signed the contract with 3dfx. This was one os SEGA's many cataclysmic errors before it almost died, as 3dfxsued their a$$es off for breach of contract. This coupled with the loss of money from the 32x (Who honestly thinks that 2 different architectures from the same company can co-exist when they are incompatible. The PSX/PS2 manage it by virtue of the PS2's backwards compatibility), the Saturn (I know, we'll release the console 4 months early at E3 when there are no games for it at $399. Oh shit, Sony just announced thier console at $299), and the Dreamcast itself (I know, we'll make a really nice console, and we'll make loads of great games for it, but we won't bother advertising it Oo)..... getting slighty off topic here.... nevermind.
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I have a new question about FF7 and registry tweaking:
Under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII", there is a key labled "DiskNo", and right now it's value is 0...I think it may be causing me problems.
Currently I'm having problems in which I can't get past the opening movie in the game (probably due to the fact that somewhere along the line, the TrueMotion codec got deleted or something). The "DataDrive" key and all that is fine, though curiously enough I still only get sound and no video playback.
So, figuring it was just a case of missing codecs, I install TrueMotion off the FF7 install cd and try it out. Of course, I had forgotten that the "driver" option was still set for OpenGL, and so now that caused the movie to not run, and also resulted in my comp locking up, to the point where I needed to do a hard reboot.
I'm about to try it again, this time with the registry set to use D3D, but I wonder.... is there any possibility the "DiskNo" key's value (currently "0", like I said earlier) is telling the game that there's no disk in the drive, thus resulting in my problems?
Or is this a key that's changed by the game during run-time, when a save file is loaded, so that it requests the right disc? Something tells me that there's a connection here between this key and "cdcheck.exe"....
Of course, if this is possible, then that could just open up all sorts of stuff similar to the old "swap disc to have game play a random movie" trick for FF7 PSX.... :P
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It would seem that DWORD value known as 'DiskNo' ([nitpick]it's not a key, keys look like folders in regedit[/nitpick]) _never_ gets read, so I doubt that it's causing you problems. Mine seems to be set at '0' also, and works.
Oh, right. Looks like I need to pay more attention to registry terminology. :P
I dunno if the value was used in some unreleased build, and is obsolete, or if it gets read in extremely rare circumstances, but it looks pretty useless based on a 5 minute test.
Hmm.... I wonder if running CDcheck.exe (outside of the game, obviously) with one of the FF7 cds in the drive would cause the value to change...?
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I found out what I done to make them run at the right speed so I think it might only work on geforce cards all I done was as follows:
1. I put the anti analising all the way up to 4X
2. enabled texture sharping
3. have anisotropic filtering all the way up 2X
4. (optonal) have a a tv connected and set to clone.
well that all I done to make the bike and cockbo races work someone plz try it out to see if it works for them plz
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Cockbo? Oh dear god...
I believe that THIS is what many others suggested would have worked...a LONG time ago. Keep in mind that from now on the text will be blurry.
Underclock your video card. You can find a way to do it at http://www.guru3d.com
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soz about the spelling mistake but my text doesn't go blurry when I do that and im running a geforce 2 mx 400 with 64 meg of memory on it so why isnt it blurry if it spose to.
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Are you sure you're not running it in....software?!
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no im not useing software rendering i am useing direct 3d (http://C:\My Documents\My Pictures\ff7setup.jpg) i don't know if the pic will show[/img]
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We can't see shite that's on your desktop, mate.
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ho w can I put images up on here which are on my computer and not on the net
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...this is quickly degenerating into a troll situation.
I'll assume you *really* don't know, just this once.
ho w can I put images up on here which are on my computer and not on the net
You can't. To show us a picture, you *have* to put it somewhere on the net.
-Srethron :roll:
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What's your IP (internet provider) most of them, if not all of them; reserve a set amount of server space for your use as an optional web page, that you can create.
Most people, just use that space to upload pictures...to the net. You'll have to do some digging in you account. And learn about FTP loaders and such (The IP will usually have them for Download, and instructions in how to configure it for their server...it'll be simular to configuring outlook to download email of the IP server.). Or use whatever they have online for creating a default, web page. And find the section that will upload pictures and remember the path.
4 years ago I would have told you to enroll in Yahoo's Geocities.com, but they've gotten strict in the uploading of junk for hot links, recently. I haven't bothered finding others.....just not into it anymore.
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You can email that picture to me, I will upload it to my totally awesome angelfire account. Or you can use mirexs bin...
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ho w can I put images up on here which are on my computer and not on the net
You will not be able to upload images (Qhimm.com)
1. ff7setup.jpg
2. Upload - http://bin.mypage.sk (C:\My Documents\My Pictures\ff7setup.jpg)
3. Link - h**p://bin.mypage.sk/FILES/ff7setup.jpg (Copy & Paste)
4. (http://Step 3)
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here it is: (http://bin.mypage.sk/FILES/ff7setup.jpg)
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Well you didn't have to show it...I mean I believed you but I was just making sure. The "glitter settings" (anti-aliasing, aniso, text sharp) turned up all the ways is a viable way to reduce the framerate...but it seriously does make things look somewhat fuzzy. Which basically makes it look like it does on the tv screen. So it all evens out.
But, for those of us who like a sharper picture, I think underclocking is your best choice.
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With a reference.
http://forums.qhimm.com/viewtopic.php?t=2335