SFFT alpha drivers - V3/4/5 - Join to Testing

[kalte]

Hi, I installed SFFT alpha 55 with a V3 2000 PCI and I've seen the following problems:

- GTA Vice City works but after a while freezes the PC. Also it's max resolution it's 720x576 (16 bits color).
- Heroes of Might and Magic III (with Shadow of Death and Armageddon's Blade expansions) has some graphics problems when moving the mouse over some objects or areas of the screen.
- PowerDVD uses around 20% of CPU Power (on another PC with GeForce 6150SE IGP uses 6% and has a slower CPU --> Athlon X2 5000 vs X2 4200)

Below I include screenshots from Heroes III showing the glitch:

Image Insert:

188.94 KB

And it should look like this:

Image Insert:

180.46 KB

Sorry if my english isn't so good, i'm from Chile and I don't use it as my primary language.

Thanx for the work on the drivers!!

[ps47]

the good side: glide2x issues are fixed in A55,unreal tournament is running fine again (I can see an updated glide2x.dll in the driver),even incubation runs without corruption.I'm still unable to use original 3dfx glide2x though (lockup after launching of glide2x game when using original glide2x from 3dfx).not really a problem anymore,because the latest glide2x release works great,just wanted to let you know.

anyway,nicely done


edit: hitman1 (native glide3x game) says no to the new glide3x-black screen+forced reboot after exiting the game (the game itself works fine).no such issue with glide3x from mesafx release..

[benna]

I tested Alpha 55 and i found a very strange behaviour:
Finally Glide works again, but i have very weird color errors in many games; the strange think is that i tried to capture these errors with hypersnap, but the screenshots are perfect without errors, so i made some photos with my camera to show you how i see the game.


UT99 Menu captured with Hypersnap:

217.26 KB


Same menu photographed:

156.77 KB



UT99 ingame captured with Hypersnap:

35.13 KB



Same image photographed:

142.82 KB

To be sure it wasn't a driver installation issue I unistalled the driver, deleted with driver cleaner pro, rebooted, reinstalled alpha55, rebooted and played, but nothing changed; to be sure it wasn't a card issue i played UT99 in D3D and it works perfectly (it only works in 16bit mode, if I select 32bit the game switch to 640x480x16 in window mode; but it's another story)

Similar errors appears also with Carmageddon2


Carma2 with Hypersnap:

58.09 KB


Carma2 photographed:

89.3 KB

Note the back of the car, there are some strange colors.
Playing UT99 with a resolution belows 1280x1024 generates errors like those in Carma2, not so evident like the errors in 1280x1024.

I know that SFFT drivers are only D3D, but i ask you SFFT please to fix this problem because i have so many glide games i want to play and since alpha4x i have to choose if play old games or test SFFT, because do both without reinstalling driver every time isn't possible

--------------------------------------------------

EDIT: I tested new SFFT Alpha56 and now Glide works perfectly!!!
Thank you very much SFFT! and thank you also for italian installer:)

I did more testing on Alpha56 and i found an error in Worms Armageddon: the game and the menus flickers badly but, as usual, hypersnap can't capture this error; so i did a video showing the error
Video
System Shock 2 keeps the hud flickering error, which is similar to Worms Armageddon's issue
BMW M3 Challange can't start due to insufficient video ram, like with previous drivers

[kalte]

Hi, with Alpha 56 Heroes III is worse than before, has the same problem but now it leaves different artifacts. I can post an screenshot if needed.

Also I can't run CrystalMark OGL test (neither with Alpha 54 and 55)

PowerStrip with Alpha 55 showed an error when cheking OGL state, now it is working.

In CrystalMark if using MesaFX It shows a 3DFX screen and then crashes.

If it is possible can be added to the driver some 16:10 widescreen resolutions? In my case I have a 1440x900 LCD and with the driver al default I can't use it at that, but with PowerStrip I0m now using it at that resolution with the SFFT driver without any problem.

Thanx for all the work on the driver!!

[kalte]

In my last post I wrote that PowerStrip with Alpha 55 showed an error when cheking OGL state, now it is working. I restarted my computer and now it's not working. I think it worked because I tried MesaFX and then deleted it but without restarting and the DLL must've been kept loaded or something like that.

[kiith]

Thanx for all the work on the driver!!
I tested ssft alpha 56

Finally I find my way
I must ues this setting
"SSTH3_SLI_AA_CONFIGURATION=1"
Force enable 2-Sample Anti-Aliasing only for voodoo4 SingleChip mode
to use my second VSA-100 chip problem voodoo5
why I can't DISABLE Anti-Aliasing?
so I'm sure that after SSFT alpha52
if "SSTH3_SLI_AA_CONFIGURATION=0"
the driver can't identify your video card type
because:
for voodoo4 "0"=Fastest Performance DISABLE AA
for voodoo5 "0"=Single Chip Only DISABLE AA and DISABLE second VSA-100 chip
WE know windows desktop 2D mode voodoo5 only use one VSA-100 chip
I found that
DESKTOP>DISPLAY properties>seting>Advance>
Hardware Acceleration Level
Full Hardware Acceleration setting windows desktop 2D speed will slow  
one step less Acceleration setting windows desktop 2D speed will faster(can this setting fix Heroes III??? someone try this?)
But once if you open a Full screen Direct3D GAME and SWICH the game to windows mode play and EXIT the game
and now no matter how Acceleration Level you set
windows desktop 2D speed all will be faster
what this means? The Full Hardware Acceleration setting don't work at system bootup?
perhaps voodoo card not support hardware mouse cursor?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\3dfxvs\Device0\HardwareInformation.AdapterString
ssft driver always display my video card is voodoo5 5500 agp but I use voodoo5 PCI
my device id is:
PCI\VEN_121A&DEV_0009&SUBSYS_0003121A&REV_01\4&1E46F438&0&00F0
I need reflash video BIOS??? but in old Amigamerlin and tdhq driver there display voodoo5 PCI they all OK

[kalte]

Hi, I tried what kiith says about hardware acceleration. The only way to get Heroes III to work as expected the way he says is deactivating DirectDraw and Direct3D acceleration, if acceleration is set any higher the game shows lots of artifacts no matter of much acceleration is being used. Anyway, thanks kiith for that solution, I never tought about lowering the hardware acceleration to play the game, at least now I can play it =)

[ps47]

some notes about the new glide3x: hitman1 exits fine if desktop is set to 32bit,but goes to black screen if the desktop is set to 16bit (same behaviour wih older glide3x releases from the SFFT driver).original 3dfx icd has problems with this glide3x as well (glquake starts with broken textures and locks up)..using the mesafx release of glide3x fixes all those problems.

I will try wickedgl tomorrow..


btw,no problem with system shock2,hud works normally..

[benna]

btw,no problem with system shock2,hud works normally..

Can you test worms armageddon? i have the latest patch installed
And can you test also System Shock 2 with alpha 55 or previous? I want to exclude any software error in my pc

[mhanor]

here's another minidump (driver stopped working) with sfft56 under Windows XP SP3 RC (build 3264)
I haven't encountered such an event lately, this is a first even for my SP3 RC... I was playing quake2 and wanted to change the server
https://www.3dfxzone.it/public/uploaded/mhanor/20081822330_Mini010808-01.zip

too bad no one is working on MesaFX anymore... but I see that somebody is working on the glide libraries... maybe he could fix the crash in glide3x.dll on alt-tab while in OpenGL/Glide games

[ps47]

shock2 on A55,no problem.the game is fully patched via kolyas universal tool,and enhanced with texture upgrade and model upgrade as well.


edit: wickedgl seems to run ok on the new glide3x.dll,at least for glquake..

[kalte]

Hi, WarCraft III FT works excelent with Alpha 56 on a Voodoo3 2000 PCI at the max resolution the game allows me(1152x864x16), I've played it at 1440x900x32 but I supose the resolution is limited by hardware and not the drivers. Also I've set all details to high and the game works very good.

[ggab]

alpha56 is up:)

nice news!


thanks for the releases SFFT

[agrelaphon]

Originally posted by kalte

Hi, I installed SFFT alpha 55 with a V3 2000 PCI and I've seen the following problems:

- GTA Vice City works but after a while freezes the PC. Also it's max resolution it's 720x576 (16 bits color).
- Heroes of Might and Magic III ...
...
Thanx for the work on the drivers!!

That problem with GTA + Voodoo3 has been going on for ages. I'm begining to think it's unsolvable

[sirkoz]

Just saw on the main page - the SFFT Alpha 57 is out.