QuoteOriginally posted by milen

I noticed the new version 6.1.0.5 on your site.I have some questions.
1. what's new in this version?

I forgot!

Quote2. is there some pixel format fixes, so I can plug my voodoo3 again.

There was a pretty good behavior since Hitman2 fix. Can't remember the number, though. Pfff, I hope I'm done with this crap. But then again, never say never...

Quote3. I looked in the new documentation in the CVS of mesa3d.org. There i noticed some new mesafx env vars.

Those envvars are also presented at my situ. Smaller file, easier to read.

QuoteOne of them was to convert FXT1 -> NCC compression. Is this avaible in the release or I have to compile myself the source for it to work. And there is FXT -> S3TC also. That mean S3TC->FXT1->NCC , or not?.

Nope. Those are NOT envvars, but compilation defines. Which means you have to recompile the source. But alas, you're mixing things here.

• FX_TC_NCC binds general texture compression to NCC
• FX_TC_NAPALM binds general texture compression to FXT1
• S3TC_AS_FXT1_HACK binds DXTC to FXT1

However, since 6.1.0.5 release, S3TC->FXT1 is enabled by default. That's because nVidia gave written permission to the Mesa project to use FXT1 (can't tell the same thing about S3, though). Now people can use MesaFX with any Glide and still have texture compression.
NCC is experimental, added only because I love my V2 and V3 This means textures passed through the general GL_ARB_texture_compression are compressed to NCC (you will have to use SourceForge Glide for this to work), then sent to HW. You can't have precompressed textures and sometimes the encoder is slow (still, can be tuned). What can I say, smooth gradient textures encoded with NCC can have 32bit quality

In response for q#1: minor fixes, this S3TC->FXT1 hack (originally proposed by Kool), some other changes that happened in the Mesa core. Really, nothing too big; but I can't remember them all.

Thanks DBorca ,I love my voodoo3 too and I'm happy that finaly it can do some texture compression in Opengl. I have radeon9000pro too, but I like my voodoo3 more.I'll plug it tonight and see what it can achive with the new mesafx.

Wow, another game fixed. Daniel, you are really awesome.
But I got a problem, too.
The game "Star Wars:Knights of the old republic" requires an OpenGL1.4 compatible card. It runs with MesaFX, but horribly slow and heavy distorted graphics.
As far as I know there is no demo available, but I will try to post screenies if you like.
The game is from Lucasarts and uses an improved Neverwinter Nights engine.

Alright, now I know this is still a minor nitpick, but....

..when are you going to change the version string (I might be wrong, but isn't it GL_Version or something?) so MesaFX will identify itself as a 1.3-compatible driver?

Games like HomeWorld2 are still identifying it as an OpenGL1.2-compatible driver, and are needlessly complaining (I.E. actual error messages) about it.

@Rolo01
I'd love to help. But lemme ask you one question: when you're sick, you post pictures of you to the doctor? Now that was a joke. I'll try to find a demo somewhere.

@Ragnarok72
I can't bump the version number. There are some extensions required for 1.3 that cannot be done. Advertising 1.3 would be a lie. Is this such a major issue? I never tested HomeWorld2.

yep,oni works.awesome[8D]
I have been testing hitman3 a bit,seems like the texture flicker problems are related to the hitman3 opengl engine,and not mesafx.anyway,the game is still very crashy on napalm cards..
@Ragnarok72:
homeworld2 requires cube maps and per pixel dot operations,and also complains that the hardware cant do enough textures per pass,and I think cube maps are no-go for 3dfx cards..

QuoteOriginally posted by dborca

I can't bump the version number. There are some extensions required for 1.3 that cannot be done. Advertising 1.3 would be a lie. Is this such a major issue? I never tested HomeWorld2.

Ah, but we're ALREADY advertising it on the site, that MesaFX is a 1.3 driver.  That's why I'm nitpicking about it.

As for it being a issue in regards to HomeWorld2, it is my understanding that even IF we were to get the other functions faked somehow, it would still pick up the fact MesaFX is identifiying itself as a 1.2 driver, and may refuse to run it's 3D engine ON THAT POINT ALONE.

And yes, it certainly does complain about what version a given OpenGL driver identifies itself as.

QuoteOriginally posted by Ragnarok72

Ah, but we're ALREADY advertising it on the site, that MesaFX is a 1.3 driver.  That's why I'm nitpicking about it.

You're not pulling my leg, now are you? If you show me where I advertised 1.3 anywhere on my situ, I'll eat the geocities harddisks.

QuoteAs for it being a issue in regards to HomeWorld2, it is my understanding that even IF we were to get the other functions faked somehow, it would still pick up the fact MesaFX is identifiying itself as a 1.2 driver, and may refuse to run it's 3D engine ON THAT POINT ALONE.

And yes, it certainly does complain about what version a given OpenGL driver identifies itself as.

Stupid enough. Not sure I can do much about it, tho...

Okidok, I was searching an error last night and... I FOUND HER . Hehe. It's true boyz & galz, Babylon5 works now. Well, but there's more in the package...

A special Glide. Temporal AA is enabled if running on Napalm, and Glide sees the following environment variable:
set FX_GLIDE_TAA_TOGGLE_KEY=key
This also mean you can toggle TAA off and on at run-time. "Key" represents the win32 keycode (ie: 120 for F9, 123 for F12 etc.). TAA will not work on 1-chip 2xFSAA and 4-chip 8xFSAA. If you don't like TAA (or don't care) or you don't have a Napalm board, feel free to use any Glide3x that suits your needs.

The long-awaited Mesa Control Panel for Win9x/ME/2k/XP.
Win9x: you need WINSET.EXE in the path or in the same directory where CPAN resides. In order to "remember" the variables after reboot, you need to run "cpan /silent" (or otherwise register it at startup).
Win2k: you don't need WINSET.EXE and you don't need to run anything next time you reboot the machine. However, the envvar broadcasting exhibits a bit of latency, so be patient after hitting "Apply".

That is, folks, a lot of candies for today, from your favourite team: me & Kool & Amiga. Well, even if we're not your favourite, you'll gonna take it and LIKE IT.

Oh, btw, you can find the goodies at my situ. Hope I can broadcast on 3dfxzone & FalconFly before Geocities locks my account.

QuoteHope I can broadcast on 3dfxzone & FalconFly before Geocities locks my account

The file is online.

QuoteOriginally posted by Ragnarok72

but I do want to alert you to another game which MesaFX does not seem to be compatible with: HomeWorld2, an OpenGL-only game.

I finally took a look at it last night.
Pretty sh!tty, cos the texturing artifacts exhibit on a random basis. Unfortunately, the MesaSW renderer crashed, so I couldn't tell it's a core problem or a driver issue.

Hm, Homeworld 2 is known to be quite Problematic on anything that does not have the NVidia Label on it :p

I got the Game as well, and eventually just had to give up trying it on a Radeon 9700pro (after trying several Drivers and Patches), since the sucker did always crash at one Point, no matter what

When it ran, it often exhibited either severe Performance issues, or (above mentioned) random Rendering Artifacts. Took quite a while of experimenting to get rid at least of those, since I could not reproduce them every single time.

6.1.0.6 fixes crashes with homeworld1 as well[8D].man,youre a machine:D
I have tried TAA too,works fine with glquake,there is some flicker though.
control panel doesnt seem to work for me (win98se),hmm..

Homeworld1 works now???  sweeeetttt. looks like this whole weekend is gonna be shot to hell with homeworld1 sweetness...... I need to check out NWN while I'm on the home PC as well. I will keep you posted.

QuoteOriginally posted by dborca
You're not pulling my leg, now are you? If you show me where I advertised 1.3 anywhere on my situ, I'll eat the geocities harddisks.

Alright, I'll admit that you may not be saying it in the situ, however, I was more refering to the fact that there are some places on 3Dfxzone.it that say it is a 1.3, and I quote :

QuoteThis new graphics library is OpenGL 1.3 compliant and supports 3dfx Voodoo Banshee, Velocity 100/200, Voodoo3, Voodoo4, Voodoo5 boards. MesaFX works fine with Amigamerlin drivers series allowing a better execution of OpenGL 1.3 recent games, like Call of Duty. Besides, running older titles, like Quake 3 Arena, MOHAA, Serious Sam The Second Encounter, you can get both higher frame rates and better hardware performance with 32bit of color depth (this one by cards with VSA-100 chip-sets only).

Source: https://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/3dfx/common_files/index.php

QuoteOriginally posted by dborca

I finally took a look at it last night.
Pretty sh!tty, cos the texturing artifacts exhibit on a random basis. Unfortunately, the MesaSW renderer crashed, so I couldn't tell it's a core problem or a driver issue.

Dborca, I suggest you have a look at the "driverConfig.lua" file in notepad.  It appears to be written in if-then statements containing possible workarrounds for various drivers, mostly for problems with Radeon and Geforce cards -- However, I wouldn't be surprised if those workarounds can be adapted for use with MesaFX/Mesa in general.

Maybe its grasping at straws, but it's better than having to work on it from scratch.

I've attached it in a zip file.  Remember, you can use notepad on it, you don't need any fancy-pants specialized programs to read the file, thank God.

-edit-
Doh!  Uploaded the wrong version of the file.  The one that got uploaded contains my (admittantly bad) attempt to get it to recognize 3Dfx cards.  I stopped work on it when I found that I didn't need it to launch the game....but still, the only changes were that I added that 3Dfx entry -- everything else pertaining to Radeon/Geforce workarounds are still there.

Download Attachment: HomeWorld2--driverConfig_lua.zip
2.12 KB