4500 AGP + Homeworld 2

[4500x2]

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.

[4500x2]

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.

[amp_man]

Woah mate! Slow down a little! 7 posts in less than 3 hours! Have you gotten the game to work? AM 3.0 9x is in beta, hopefully amigamerlin himself will get back to me soon:D. Game-specific TnL patches are just for those games, they won't work with different games, and I see you have found the universal TnL patch, 3D analyze. But anyways, you have it working now, yes?

[amp_man]

In 3D analyze, try the "force SW TnL" or "emulate HW TnL caps" options, these are the most common ones to help. Other than that, I cannot be of much specific help. Please, also read the post I left for you in the motherboards section.

[4500x2]

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!

[amp_man]

Sorry, this "caustic american personality" just got dumped and is running solely on a 12 pack of mountain dew. If you have £40.00, go for it, but be warned: nVidia's aren't all that great, ATI is much better. Trust me, get a 9500 or 9600, Pro or XT, you will be much happier. But I wouldn't give up on the V4 yet, I'm fairly sure this game will run, just I don't know how to make it do so.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Well what you also could do is install Windows 98SE, it matches your system a little better then install Amigamerlin 2.9 for 9.xx when you've done that enable Geometry Assist [Emulate T&L]+ Force 32Bit rendering and actually your worries should be over. I've done the same with my Voodoo4 4500 & Voodoo5 5500 cards no prob's with Vice City, UT-2003, GTAIII, and Freelancer and if Home World 2 doesn't work yet you could also try useing the MESA 5.1. patch.

this is where you can download the MESA 5.1 Patch :

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

BTW MESA 5.1 is best used under OpenGL Apps.!!!

New games like

Jedi KnightII: Jedi Outcast

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Return To Castle Wolfenstein + Enemy Territory

Call Of Duty

and possibly Doom3...it is OpenGL also.

Anyway these are all T&L based games, so it should be possible and try reso 800x600x32 or x16 on your Voodoo4 4500 I recommend that reso.

[Paul Harrison]

If the game is using DirectX, I would suggest going back to an earlier driver, try the last 3dfx genuine 3dfx supplied driver, assuming that they will work with DX 9, the DX 7 drivers, work with DX 8.1, which is more than Amigerlin 3.0 seems to do. If the game is compiled for a DX version later than  DX 7, I think that you will encounter serious problems with Amigerlin 3 on Win2k. Its worth a try to see if it improves things.

Paul

[Nightbird]

@ 4500x2

This is not useful to write all these first 7 posts for 1 problem.
You can always choose "edit reply" and write again

[4500x2]

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.

[Nightbird]

Ok, you found it and some other useful buttons also
Even for you, that will be easier now
And if you have some doubts
http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/faq.asp
OR ask

[4500x2]

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!