My 2 cents get yourself some removable hard drive frames and use one HDD for important stuff, when you want to play with games and drivers whack in your alternative Hard drive OK you have to shut down your system but it's as good as having 2 PC's. Do a clean install on your new hard drive.  Not sure if you can get dma100 compliant frames you can get dma66 frames and bob's you're uncle. Have fun! OK and back up you're system before you upgrade you're mo'bo but if you are confident with what you're doing it should not be a problem.

Looks like I have got my work cut out.  Rather than scrub my "useful disk with everything on it" I think I will slap a new hard drive in with removable frame since I got a few spares (got some pretty hefty partition juggling to do though to free them up!!) and then I can have a 'games' hard drive seperate from all my personal data so I can just keep reformatting it 'n all that if I need to. We're getting there! Thanks, David.

Yes I was looking at the 9200 as I thought that was the best value for money but they go out of stock fast.  I am wondering if it's not worth waiting till the end of the month for prices to come down with the release of Directx 9b I really think I want a DX9 compliant GFX card so if I can save a few quid by waiting to get a 9600 then I'm laughing. Play the game the right way

Hi Guys,

I can remember when Win2k came out it was like, YES now we have got the stability (sic?) of NT with the plug'n'pray technology of windows 98 and OpenGL support for games.

Groovy I thinks but it has sadly annoyed me because I have never ever got anything to work in OpenGL on windows 2000 with my Voodoo except my screen saver.

I would appreciate any suggestions before I say farewell to the old stalworts and get a radeon. I am trying to console myself with getting Homeworld to work with Babylon 5 mods since HW2 is a no-go.  Guess what? B5 mod (great wars III) only works in OpenGL or software.

GrrRAR my life has been nothing but stress since satan delivered me homeworld 2 for Christmas. I really ought to know better.

Thanks, David.

can I just add to the sticky at the top - it is the Radeon 7000's that don't have TnL support?

Radeon 9200 has got the Charisma II TnL engine so somewhere in between 7200 and 9200 models must be the Charisma I engine.  

Also the 9600 claims to have DX9 support well I can accept 9.1 support but DirectX 9b is too new for that? Don't take anything at face value is my advice. Sorry this is voodoo board but since it's come up I thought I would share what I found out looking at the Radeon market in general.

Thanks, David.

Hi Chaps,

Hope you had a great new year's celebration! I don't know what to think about homeworld 2 anymore, look at this link:

http://www.thegamingunion.co.uk/Forum/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=24;t=002066

That's what those guys think. I downloaded the latest DivX player still a no-go and quite honestly I am starting to think that it profits me more to get rid of Homeworld 2 than it does to get rid of my Voodoos.  

It is worth pointing out that the guy who had the problem has only got a 64mb Geforce.  Maybe HW2 likes 128mb of RAM before it thinks of actually starting up? I think this is NAFF. I have had too much aggro for one game and if I didn't want to buy a radeon anyway I would sling it out. But since the price is right if I can get the card that I want then I will try it out. Grr@sierra.  Major nafo deployment of a popular game.

It looks like I am going to have 2x4500agp up for sale in come the new year what's the going rate? Not expecting treble figures here lol! I bought them for.. £60 each but that was 2 years agone.

Actually I have changed my mind.  I'll donate one of them to your voodoo project if you don't mind paying the shipping cost and the other one can go to my friend since her pc is in dire need of upgrade. What the heck. It's Christmas - the season of goodwill to all men! Happy new year!  

If I had a 5500 or something and my PC was a bit more gutzy I might persevere but... it's way more hassle than just buying a new card. Good luck with all your projects I have to say I am pretty impressed with what you've accomplished. Long live the Voodoo.

Running on Windows 98:

Obi Wan I have tried as you suggested but all I get is a black screen. Doh.  Out of software options by the looks of it. At least win2k handles the crash better and I don't have to keep rebooting! Perhaps my PC just doesn't have the gutz to make up for the lack of TnL hardware.

I don't have any other TnL games to try out TnL emulation either and establish if it is working or not on my system in any case. I'm still going to mess around with stuff but only until I get my order in for a cheap radeon!

Cheers!

This sounds really silly I know but I can't find the 'edit' button!

Wait! Now you've said it I've found it - It just wasn't where I expected it to be doh.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2776083375&category=27387

If £40 is all I need to avoid caustic american personalities then I will pay it gladly my friend! Au revior, Au revior a delight to make your aquaintance!

As the deer pants after the brook, so I pant after dx9b compatibility (forgive me GOD I have waited yonkos for homeworld 2).

I got a QDI Advance 10T. Apollo Pro chipset. I think it will support AGP 4x too... *goes and checks manual* yup, AGP 2.0 compliant. Had zero problemo with Voodoo 4500agp until I tried to play homeworld 2 and upgraded to Dx9b. GrrrrrrrrRAR.

And just to agree with Nightbird.  I got two Epox EP-MVP3G5 (which has no onboard sound, I know one of th MVPGx models does have it) using apollo MVP3 chipset, running NT4.0 one with voodoo 4500 agp. Zero problemo there.

Avoid the TMC AI5VG+ - apollo MVP chipset yes, S3, Voodoo, TnT support - forget it. Also forget the TI5VG+.  Sux. Not that anyone is about to rush out and buy one anyway lol!

Right er so we's all waiting for the new DX9b beta drivers yes?

Further note (maybe relevant/maybe not).  

After installing Amigamerlin and using 3dAnalyser (which generated the logs) the Homeworld 2 crashdump was:

"Homeworld2.exe caused an Access Violation in module Homeworld2.exe at 001b:69532f7d.

Error occurred at 12/26/2003 20:50:18.
Homeworld2.exe, run by Administrator.
Microsoft Windows 2000.
1 processor(s), type 586.
256 MBytes physical memory.
Read from location 69532f7d caused an access violation.

MiniDump failed to save."

After installing the Mesafx patch the crashdump turned into:
(when I tried pointing hook.dll to winnt/system32)

Homeworld2.exe caused a Stack Overflow in module OpenGL32.dll at 001b:02bc26af.
Error occurred at 12/27/2003 17:00:34.
Homeworld2.exe, run by Administrator.

MiniDump failed to save.

The Original Homeworld runs with no problem - but only in Directx mode - OpenGL fails under win2k.  I have played it in OpenGL mode on windows 98 WITHOUT any custom drivers.

So running Homeworld 2 it's certainly a TnL/Directx 9b/OpenGL problem under Win2k.  

Now considering (in order):

Running under win98.
Graphics card upgrade (cheap 2nd hand £10-£50 job, radeon has been recommended)
Processor Upgrade (to a PIII 1.26ghz)

Never flash videio BIOS it will only add to problems. Unless you are 200% certain that it's the right thing to do.  That probably eliminates 99% of the general population.

Christmas time.  Santa has been and gone and left me with my favourite new game - just what I always wanted, homeworld 2.

I whacks it in the cd tray... got the HDD space... doesn't kick up a fuss - installation complete. Groovy. Rings me sister to say thanx.  Hangs up.  Double clix Homeworld 2 Icon, savouring the moment... the screen goes black... and I am sadly returned to my desktop. I knew I should have been suspicious of someone whose name is an anagram of Satan.

It must be the screen resolution!!! I thinks in a dismayed panic.  Nope.  Thus began the epic journey which has deposited me here.

First of all - a big thank you to the developers of amigawhatsit drivers WOW they have already jazzed up the performance of my OpenGL screen saver.  Anything that does that has got to be impressive.

Right down to business, I can see that it did all look a bit confusing below so I am now tidying up my posts (now I have found the edit button) into something more logical:

My PC specs:

PIII 733, 256mb PC133Ram, QDI advance 10T mo'bo(apollo Pro Chipset), 7200rpm HDD (I forget who made it),  Creative Encore Dxr3, Via sound
and Voodoo 4500agp.

I dual boot between win 98 & 2k.

Trying to run HW2 in win2k:

Install:

No problems.  Installation wizard puts in Directx 9b (necessary for HW2) and the latests version of the Divx Player.  Never used or heard of that before I assume it's to run the ingame movies.  Ignore Divx - the issues are with D3D/opengl.

Running the game:

1)Double click HW2 Icon - returned to desktop after screen flicker. Crash log generated in /program files/sierra/bin/release.

2)I installed Amigamerlin 3.0 drivers. This improved general performace but did not enable HW2 to run.

I ran DXdiag.  The tests behaved oddly. I learned this is fixed by switching on v-sync in 3dfx tools.

3)I downloaded 3danalyzer v2.26.  I have played with the basic settings but no result there either.

4)I downloaded the mesafx 0.51 zip file, putting the two files into /winnt/system32 dir. This did not solve the problem.

I have not considered flashing the BIOS of my card. I see from reading the forum it is not recommended and out of my personal experience with PC hardware in general it is very rare to need to do that procedure.  Voodoo's use a wide range of components from what I gather so it is risky business.  I am now taking advice to get HW2 running under windows 98.  Will edit a post below to outline what I have done there.

Thanks to everyone on the forum for thier kind advice, welcome and support.