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

[kalte]

Hi, I tried to install SFFT Tools, but after installing it doesn't appears neither on Start Menu or Control Panel. Also it doesn't loads at Startup and if I start it manually from the .exe it doesn't show any info about my card.

I tried to use SetTile to see if with that I could use WarCraft III at higher resolutions but when clicking them nothing happens.

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[m14radu]

The games was made only for Vista, but there is a Halo2 version for XP !
I managed to start it on my main sistem, under XP.
The graphics is the same as used in Halo 1.

Br.
Radu.

[Rolo01]

I have some serious problems with Alpha 58, I cannot start a single 3D application !
Battle for Middle Earth shows this error :
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GTA:Vice City shows this :
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At least GTA:Vice City starts, but the main menu looks like this :
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Even Glide does not work.
What is very strange is that I cannot even play videos, I tried mpegs and avis, but there is no picture, just sound.
With Alpha 57 and before there were no problems at all.

Test system is as usual Pentium4-EE-3400, Asus P4C800E-dlx, Voodoo4 AGP and WinXP SP1.

[Rolo01]

Gothic 1 crashes with the following error :
======================================= UNHANDLED EXCEPTION OCCURED ======================================================
======================================= CRASH INFOS: =====================================================================
GOTHIC 1.08j, Parser Version: 50
User:  Rolo,  CPUType: 586,  Mem: 1023 MB total, 650 MB free
Startup Options:
=============================================== CALLSTACK : ==============================================================
001B:005DD754 (0x0A634034 0x007F66DC 0x01F54F14 0x08E201CC) GOTHIC.EXE, zCTexture::LoadAndConvertInternal()+196 byte(s), D:\dev\Gothic\current_work\ZenGin\_Dieter\zTexture.cpp, line 1185+28 byte(s)
001B:00566169 (0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000) GOTHIC.EXE, zCMesh::LoadMSH()+2025 byte(s), D:\dev\Gothic\current_work\ZenGin\_Dieter\zMesh.cpp, line 2908

[kalte]

I can play mpeg's and divx videos without problems with driver 58 and a Voodoo3 2000 PCI. Also I can play Unreal and WC3, but I don't have any glide game to test. Maybe Rolo01 got a bad installation of the driver, you could try to uninstall and install everything again.

[Rolo01]

I uninstalled Alpha 58, tested Alpha 57 again ( was fine ) and re-installed Alpha 58 with the same bad result.
I will try downloading it again from a different source.

[kiith]

Originally posted by kalte

Hi, I tried to install SFFT Tools, but after installing it doesn't appears neither on Start Menu or Control Panel. Also it doesn't loads at Startup and if I start it manually from the .exe it doesn't show any info about my card.

I tried to use SetTile to see if with that I could use WarCraft III at higher resolutions but when clicking them nothing happens.

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13.95 KB

I can't use C:\Program Files\Sfft\SetupSFFTTools\Configurator.exe
I must use  C:\Program Files\Sfft\SetupSFFTTools\IconMgr.exe
then clik icon from systray to do config

[kiith]

O my god
Alpha 58 I can't play any video any game with voodoo5 5500 pci

[Glide]

For Users experiencing compatibility issues with latest SFFT Alpha 58 driver:

Please post your hardware and software configuration, including motherboard, processor(s), and video card(s) as well as OS and games used. Then you can make a rollback installing SFFT Alpha 57 Driver, and  wait so next Alpha release.

However, thanks a lot for your reports: compatibility of SFFT driver grows by it.

Bye bye    

[deAtog]

With the latest SFFT Alpha 58 driver, the NeHe demo obtained from http://nehe.gamedev.net/data/projects/project.asp?project=dolphin crashes upon start up. The demo runs using the default Windows XP driver but without hardware acceleration. I have observed smooth performance with other 3rd party drivers but they have shown to be unstable. As a developer, I'm willing to aid in development despite my lack of experience with Windows WDM drivers. Below is the hardware configuration of my computer with the Voodoo 3 card.
Windows XP SP2
2 x 533mhz Intel Celeron processors
Abit BP6 Motherboard
256MB Ram
Direct X 9.0c
Voodoo 3 3000

[kalte]

Hi, I've run the NeHe demo too, and it also crashes on my computer, but if I copy opengl32 from MesaFX the demo runs fine.

Yesterday I found this page http://3dfxbios.stantoworld.co.uk/ and there says they have 3dfx BIOS and driver source code, maybe that can be useful.

[Rolo01]

OK, I did some more testing.
It seems that the errors described above are related to the P4 system.
I installed Alpha 58 on my AMD rig and it runs fine ( Athlon XP-M, Epox 8K3A+, 1 GB Ram, Voodoo4 AGP ). Divx videos work and even Ankh:Heart of Osiris is playable again.

[Xasd]

I have the same problem with Alpha58. I can't play videos and when I start 3DMark or any other game it fails.

I have uninstalled Alpha 58 and installed Alpha 57 and all is ok.

Specs:
WinXP Pro SP2
Pentium 4 3Ghz
Asrock P4Dual-880Pro
2 Gb RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 XT (I uninstalled it to test Alpha58)
Voodoo 5 PCI

[Raff3DC]

Whoa! SFFT ftw! Alpha 58 makes another step towards killing the V5 6000's SLI f*ckup. I've tested Max Payne and the 3DMark2000 – 1600x1200 runs fine in 32 Bit mode! Can anybody verify that?

€dit: The sky in Need for Speed Most Wanted is fixed too. I don't know since which driver version, but: excellent work again!

Greetings from Germany,
Raff

[kalte]

Hi!! I installed Alpha 59 and tested it a little. WarCraft III now supports resolutions un to 1280x1024x16, but the game runs a little slow at that resolution with high details (I tought it would be unplayable at that resolution with just a Voodoo3). Unreal Tournament 99 doesn't run in full screen and is slower than before, it's unplayable (with Alpha 57 run at very high FPS). Video playing works okey, DVD playback works right also. Heroes III still works okey.

I got a used GF7300GS for 10USD some days ago and I can't use both cards because windows says that the driver was designed for an older version of windows and it is no longer compatible with Windows XP. I'm not sure wich driver is causing the problem, because i'm using Forceware 174.70 beta.

Like in previous versions, widescreen resolutions must be added with PowerStrip.

The Dolphin demo from NeHe still doesn't works with just the driver. Is it possible to add MesaFX to the driver and the file to be stored inside the system32 directory instead to be added manually to the program working directory?

Thanks for the hard work!! I'll be waiting for the next release!

EDIT: I compared CPU usage using the V3 and GF7300, the V3 uses around 17-20% and the 7300 uses 5%-8%, as I know both have MPEG-2 hardware acceleration. Is this difference because the NVIDIA PureVideo, because the driver or is just that the V3 is less powerful?

I tried to install again SFFT Tools and now they work on my computer.