Ever tried FF7 using Voodoo2?

[popnlocke]

Simple question, has anyone on here ever seen FF7 PC while using the old 3dfx Voodoo drivers?

I ask because I just put in a few mods like Aali, Phoenix rejuvenation, Avalanche, and FF7 Music, (finally got it to work after years). The game looks great, but I noticed while the models in battle look nice (like Barret), the battle field is still 8 bit textures and looks outdated and no one has been able to get the battle graphics as good as it was intended to be under 3dfx.

Back when the game came out for PC, I actually had a Voodoo 2 card, and using 3dfx Glide drivers, the battle graphics were pretty great. No blocky pixels in battle, the graphics pretty amazing (for 1998 standards.) Even the world map graphics had smoothed out textures. It was bliss. After a quick Google search to see images of FF7 using old 3dfx glide drivers, I couldn't find any. I think I realize that I'm one of a few hundred that ever played FF7PC using a Voodoo card. Even the 1.02 patch never got the game looking as good as when it did under 3dfx drivers. I never noticed what picking NVIDIA TNT or RIVA128 did.

Viewing this site, I'm surprised no one has adapted the current cards to use old 3dfx-like drivers to work on FF7. I feel like it could be simpler than trying to remodel all the background battle textures. I know absolutely nothing about modding, I just wanted to suggest this as an idea. If it's possible to make the game think you're using 3dfx Voodoo drivers. It was under Renderer, you would pick "3dfx Glide Driver" or something, and the display resolutions would change and the game looked magical (again, for 1998 standards.)

I don't have my old Voodoo 2 card obviously, or the old computer, but I really wished I had taken some screenshots. Seriously, the game looked great under 3dfx glide drivers. I can't be the only one.

[nfitc1]

I was exclusively using Voodoo cards when 3DFX was still around. I was always impressed by them. About the time Jedi Outcast came out the Voodoo just mysteriously disappeared.

So yes, I played this on a Voodoo card. I think it was the V3 at first then I upgraded to the V5. I don't remember anything distinctly awesome about it other than it ran.

Anyway, you want a glide wrapper, not a driver. There are quite a few of them around, but I think they have to be specifically for the application in question and I don't think that's been done for FF7.

[popnlocke]

Thanks for the reply and clarification. I remember portions of the game looking significantly better when using a Voodoo card, specifically the battles. Also, the display resolution was much better. When picking 3dfx Renderer, the options would change to include a 1024 x 768 full screen option.

The fact no one's made a 3dfx glide wrapper for FF7 kind of surprises me, but then again 3dfx was quickly wiped out and maybe no one really remembers that Final Fantasy pc ports used 3dfx APIs? I'll try and get one started because the game will look even better with improved textures in battle.

[Covarr]

I'd be tempted to build a machine just to try this, but it looks like a Voodoo 5 card runs over fifty bucks (USD) before shipping on ebay. I may check it out later.

[popnlocke]

I'd be tempted to build a machine just to try this, but it looks like a Voodoo 5 card runs over fifty bucks (USD) before shipping on ebay. I may check it out later.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. lol But I'm looking for a Voodoo 2 or Voodoo3 card. I hear it worked best with those cards in mind, and for some reason I have a feeling a Voodoo 5 would not be compatible weirdly enough. I played it much later using Voodoo, around 2000. I mainly just want to take screenshots and compare them to what modders have been able to do with the game. You'll be surprised how great it looked under 3dfx.

[savage-xp]

Yes i had that card, but not had poor FSAA.
I Switch to a Geforce 2 and god, that was amazing.

[Borde]

I don't think FF7 look as good with a Voodoo as you're picturing it popnlocke. Sure voodoo cards were famous for their diethering on 16 bits graphics which I'm sure made FF7 look great compared to the horrible banding offered by the other cards. But since we're currently playing in 32bit of color, that's no longer an issue. As for the resolution support, are you sure they added support for resolutions higher than 640x480? I think you're wrong. Textures, on the other hand, are the very same regardless of the hardware you're using, so the only way a Voodoo could make them look any better was though bilinear filtering, and that's available on any other card too. Anyway, I think one could play FF7 with full Voodoo 2 support nowadays using DosBox, so maybe I'll try one day.

[popnlocke]

I'm mainly talking about the battle background textures which haven't been touched by any of the modders. And yes, the resolution was displayed higher than 640 x 480. Maybe it was 800 x 600. I just remember there being different options once I picked 3dfx under "Renderer" in the config program. I remember it well. You can search on these forums "3dfx ff7". I found other boards where people miss playing FF7 on their Voodoo cards, talking about how good it looked. I saw it with my own eyes. The textures were much smoother, even the world map textures. No jagged edges. As for the color, I don't know much about that. I'm just mentioning the graphics. I was never able to get proper rendering on Direct3d or OpenGl, it always looked terrible even with newer cards.  I'll try and put together an old build with a voodoo card and see if I can get it to how I remembered so I can post screenshots up. I just remembered how surprised I was the first time I played it using 3dfx drivers. All the battles looked very different, not blocky at all.

I'll try DosBox if it's not too difficult.

[Covarr]

I've done a small bit of research as a result of this thread, and as far as I can tell, FF7 didn't actually use Glide. It was made for 3DFX cards, for sure, but it still used Direct3D.

However, if you can find the Mt Corel demo, it used Glide, at least in its first release. It wouldn't even run on other cards, without a wrapper.

[popnlocke]

Actually there's barely any information on 3dfx and FF7. It's kind of weird. However the game looked best when using 3dfx over the Direct3d or software options.

[Covarr]

I'm not saying it wouldn't be better, just that it didn't use Glide. I wouldn't be surprised if it had additional options on other cards. If nothing else, support for 8-bit paletted textures would've made a difference.

[popnlocke]

No I understand. I'm not as technically savvy as most of you, so I probably just got confused with what exactly glide is or the name of some things and how direct3d works and what's been posted on other boards. I assumed it was just the name of their drivers or something.

[Template]

at one point I breifly had a hardware setup that made the backgrounds look nice circa 2001. am i imagining that?

seemed like support for those drivers or whatever was broken shortly thereafter. i am probably confused, was around 2000 i think and thats not a time in my life i remember well anyway.

game cost me nearly a hundred bucks then, but it was brand new and sealed. course I resented that purchase when it didnt really work very well for quite a while after that.

[archerxtreme]

Well do you think 3dfx GlideWrapper help? i use it when i play Wing Commander Prophecy on windows 7 and exp....it also requires voodoo 3 grafics....but then again we have to consider Aali's driver already running, and it would seem useless....but do you think FF7 can work on that as part of a patch/mod?

[PitBrat]

You still wouldn't have any of the new textures that require Aali's driver.

[archerxtreme]

But it's great that felix, grimmy, slayersnext and all the other modders have really capitalized on Aali's big time...the battle scene project also looks good so far....