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

[amp_man]

Microsoft has a number of command line switches avaible at their website, these could come in handy, if anyone can find them again. I found them, printed them off, and now can't seem to trace my way back to the site or find the printout. There's one for fixed-function cards, they cite the gf2mx i think, so that should also theoretically work for voodoo 5, it's like -ffunction or -fixedfunction, something like that. wish i could remember, i hope someone can do something with this info.

[Nightbird]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;830487

Anyway, their faq is really interesting and perhaps will help.

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

Has anyone tried Halo with the hacked config file and the SFFT 13 driver. I would be interested to know the result. I am getting a bit confused as to what has been tried. Has anyone noticed any performance increases with Aplha 13.

SFFT

[Nightbird]

I hacked myself the config. file in order to recognize my card.
Hum, the file ; soon i would be able to try the full game.

[paulpsomiadis]

SFFTV3 alpha 13 won't install on a Voodoo 3 1000 (Compaq)

You get an error when running the installer...

This can be fixed by adding the following line to the INF file.

PCI\VEN_121A&DEV_0005&SUBSYS_005212A&REV_01

After the drivers were installed correctly, I tested Unreal Tournament in GLiDE mode...

I simply got the message "Error" and the game went into 'safe mode' (software rendering).

Hope this helps developement!

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

The glide support with these drivers is the same as Amigerlin 3, the only changes are to the DirectX support.

SFFT

[FBS]

I have been trying the SFFT13 driver since its release and I do not like them very much. I find the driver to be more unstable than its predecessor. My screen freezes often with Flight Simulator  and I have to restart my game and a reboot is also required so the PC operates properly.

Originally posted by FBS



No change for me with the SFFT13 drivers. Ghost Recon works well. As for my kneeboard in Microsoft Flight Sim 2004 same problem with the bllack window. In Fast preformance my frame rates crunches to a halt with the kneeboard open and in 2 sample the frame drop is about 20%.

As with my other post on this I find the game works very well in single chip mode. No freezes, Good Frame rates, and the kneeboard display properly even in full screen. Only problem in single chip is no AA and the graphics are not as pretty.

[FBS]

2 Sample AA
Image Insert:

63.81 KB

Single Chip
Image Insert:

63.83 KB

Here is some more information on the drivers. Even in window mode the drivers don't seem to render the graphics properly. Look at the two pictures, one has is in single chip mode, the graphics are rendered as they should be. The other is when the card is set to 2 sample AA, you see there is no texture. Now this is a third party aircraft, as I thought was the cause of the problem posted in page 10 of this thread. This was the problem with the way the terrain graphics rendered. But it seems that no one else in the flight sim community has the same problem with these particular aircraft models. So I am now convinced that this is a driver issue. Now as you may know Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 is a T&L game.

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

Can you test the Flight Sim in fastest mode and see if it runs the same as in Single Chip mode or how it compares with 2 Sample AA mode.
I would expect Single chip and Fastest modes to have the same amount of texture memory available, but there to be less in 2 Sample AA Mode or 4 Sample AA Mode.

SFFT

[FBS]

In fastest mode the textures diplay well as in single chip, but the kneeboard and speed FPS is best in single chip. The kneeboard and speed in fast is the same as 2 sample.

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

So it sounds like the texture problem is you running out of texture memory, and you would seem to be having some problems with blitting between surfaces in fastest and Anit-aliasing modes. it seems like some of it is being done in software.

SFFT

[FBS]

You are good SFFT it makes a lot of sense when analyzed. I have attached a section of my sim config file to show you what I have to deal with.

[DISPLAY]
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=128
DisableSoftwareWarning=1
[GRAPHICS]
FULL_SCREEN=0
PERFORMANCE_MODE=1
DEF_PERF_MODE=2
TEXT_SCROLL=1
AUTO_LOD=0
DETAIL_TEXTURE=1
WATER_EFFECTS=0
TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_MAP=1
TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_OBJECTS=1
EFFECTS_QUALITY=0
GROUND_SHADOWS=0
SMOOTH_VIEW=1
IMAGE_SMOOTHING=1
TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=128
COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=0
AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=0
LANDING_LIGHTS=1
IMAGE_QUALITY=1
TEXTURE_BLDG=1
TEXTURE_GND=1
TEXTURE_WATER=1
AIRCRAFT_TEXTURE=1
SEE_SELF=1
TEXTURE_QUALITY=3
LOD_TARGET_FPS=10
NUM_LIGHTS=6
FBS

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

FBS I have attached a zip with 2 utilities in it, that enable changing the number of Tiled Buffers. If you run Set3Tile it will increase the texture memory available although it will disable tripple buffering Set4Tile simply sets the mode back to the standard layout. It may help you to run with 3 tile buffers.

SFFT


Download Attachment: settile.zip
22.56 KB

[FBS]

I am not sure how the Set3&4Tile is working I see no changes in the way the textures a re displayed. What I have also learned most recently is that if I set filtering to trilinear in the display options of the sim software the plane displays normally, but the terrain graphics look real blurry such as show in the picture of pg.10 of this thread. When it is setting is set to bilinear the plane graphics look blurry and the terrain textures look normal. Another thing that puzzles me is that the config file comes up with a card type. It references another config file display and it shows the followings entries here below. If I set the name in the game config to the display config, the game config rewrites a new entry back to the original.

Game Config line
[DISPLAY.Device.3dfx Voodoo Series.0]
Mode=1024x768x32

Displa Config Lines
; 3dFX Voodoo 1
;----------------------------------------------------------------------
[0000121a:00000001]
MultiTexture=0
TexGen=0

;----------------------------------------------------------------------
; 3dFX Voodoo 2
;----------------------------------------------------------------------
[0000121a:00000002]
MultiTexture=0
TexGen=0

;----------------------------------------------------------------------
; 3dFX Voodoo Banshee
;----------------------------------------------------------------------
[0000121a:00000003]
MultiTexture=0
TexGen=0
PageFlip=0
MipMap=0


;----------------------------------------------------------------------
; 3dFX Voodoo 3
;----------------------------------------------------------------------
[0000121a:00000005]
TextureForce=0
MultiTexture=0
TexGen=0

[3dfx32v3.dll]
Disable=1
[3dfx32v3.dll.1]
MinDriverRev=4.12.1.666
Disable=2

;----------------------------------------------------------------------
; 3dFX Voodoo 5
;----------------------------------------------------------------------
[0000121a:00000009]
DXTn=0
MultiTexture=0
TexGen=0
RenderToTexture=0

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

The config seems to imply that compressed textures are switched off DXTn=0, You can use compressed textures with these drivers.

SFFT