New driver set for Voodoo2 and Voodoo4/5 on WinXP

[roflkopp]

I'm talking about glide3x.

Here are some Q3a Screenshots which illustrate the problem: http://www.keepmyfile.com/download/f9da801748814

EDIT: card is a voodoo5 5500 pci, but a 6000 also has the same problem...

[Raff3DC]

Originally posted by koolsmoky
2. A new "glide3x.dll (3.10.00.22217)" has been supplied which includes a number of fixes and additions made by the glide.sourceforge.net crew. It is recommended that you replace this file over any previous glide3x.dll installed. Although I have released it with the Voodoo5 WinXP/2k driver set, it fully supports Banshee, V3, V4, V5 and will work on Win95, 98, 98se, Me, NT, 2k, XP. If you just need glide3x, extracted it and copy it to the appropriate folder.

My Voodoo3 AGP doesn't like the Glides (Win XP). Starting UT or Undying results in a corrupted screen and the need to reset. V5 runs fine.

Greetings,
Raff

[koolsmoky]

Originally posted by roflkopp


Here are some Q3a Screenshots which illustrate the problem:

The sign of the lodbais is being lost with performance trilinear routines. I have fixed it and will be fine in the next release. For now you can set FX_GLIDE_LOD_SUBSAMPLE_DITHER to 0 if you need to change FX_GLIDE_LOD_BIAS.

Originally posted by Raff3DC


My Voodoo3 AGP doesn't like the Glides (Win XP). Starting UT or Undying results in a corrupted screen and the need to reset. V5 runs fine.

UT uses Glide2x unless you are using the OpenGL renderer. The glide2x.dll in the Voodoo5 driver set is the original 3Dfx driver. All original (untouched) 3Dfx Glide drivers (glide2x and glide3x) are incapable of running on winxp unless you are using my modified windows minport and display driver which includes a fix for this issue. Additionally, the glide3x.dll in the driver set includes a special workaround to enable use with any winxp banshee,V3,4,5 driver set (excluding Microsoft's). If you'd like, you can download a glide2x.dll that includes the same fix from my web page.

Let me repeat my initial post;
The "glide3x.dll (3.10.00.22217)" in the Voodoo5 driver set fully supports Banshee, V3, V4, V5 and will work on Win95, 98, 98se, Me, NT, 2k, XP. If you just need glide3x, extracted it and copy it to the appropriate folder.

The "glide2x.dll (2.56.0.22217)" and "glide3x.dll (3.3.0.22217)" in the Voodoo2 driver set supports V2 including the Quantum3D Obsidian series and will work on Win95, 98, 98se, Me, NT, 2k, XP.

-KoolSmoky

[roflkopp]

wow. thank you very much. now it will be finally possible to take voodoo5 6000 aa-screenshots with good texturequality

but there are still a few featurerequests - if you run out of new ideas *g* :


x) a possibility to force FXT/DXT compression in d3d/glide/opengl:
x) an option to force 16bit wbuffer instead of zbuffer in d3d.
x) an option to force 16bit rendering in d3d
x) an option to surpress vendor id's (if it's possible) - to run   FarCry eg.
x) an option for temporal aa (switch aa sample pattern per frame)
x) a software tnl-engine
x) a software pixelshader-engine
x) a modification which allows to use 2 voodoo5 5500s in sli - per feature connector

[koolsmoky]

Unfortunately I do not have the time to work on D3D. Besides, you always have SFFT's excellent D3D driver. I can only find time to spend on Glide related projects. The Voodoo5 driver set I provided are geared toward those who need a stable win2k/xp driver set for Glide and OpenGL.

Originally posted by roflkopp


x) a possibility to force FXT/DXT compression in d3d/glide/opengl:

For OpenGL, the application will most likely request and use texture compression if available. As for Glide, existing applications do not require excessive texture ram so there is not much point forcing it. I believe the only reasonable stuff to use forced compression are emulator gfx plugins like Gonetz's Glide64 and Lewpy's PSX glide3 plugin, especially when used with texture enhancers like 2xSaI and Hq4x or Hi-Res retexture packs. In fact, Gonetz and I have made a texture enhancer library with forced texture compression for Glide64. Check it out at http://www.emuxhaven.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6427

Originally posted by roflkopp


x) an option for temporal aa (switch aa sample pattern per frame)

Temporal AA is old news. Daniel and I have implemented it a long time ago. Glide3x and OpenGL has it. Set FX_GLIDE_TAA_TOGGLE_KEY and you'll get temporal AA. 2xFSAA will give a 4xFSAA effect and 4xFSAA will give 8xFSAA. "144" will let you toggle TAA on and off with the "NumLock" key. You'll need at least 100fps to fool your eyes.

Originally posted by roflkopp


x) a modification which allows to use 2 voodoo5 5500s in sli - per feature connector

SLI would be difficult to do because you need strict signal timings. AFR or Split screen rendering would be more feasible but you'd still need a hardware mod. The feature connector on the VSA board is not a SLI connector. To get this done, Hank's help is a must. There is also a lot of work to do the driver side of things.

-KoolSmoky

[roflkopp]

Originally posted by koolsmoky
In fact, Gonetz and I have made a texture enhancer library with forced texture compression for Glide64. Check it out at http://www.emuxhaven.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6427

seems interesting. I'll have a look on it. on the other side i'm quite sure, that later glide games like operation flashpoint nfs5 and (maybe even) ultima9 would profit from compressed textures.

Originally posted by koolsmoky
Temporal AA is old news. Daniel and I have implemented it a long time ago. Glide3x and OpenGL has it. Set FX_GLIDE_TAA_TOGGLE_KEY and you'll get temporal AA. 2xFSAA will give a 4xFSAA effect and 4xFSAA will give 8xFSAA. "144" will let you toggle TAA on and off with the "NumLock" key. You'll need at least 100fps to fool your eyes.

good point.

Originally posted by koolsmoky
SLI would be difficult to do because you need strict signal timings. AFR or Split screen rendering would be more feasible but you'd still need a hardware mod. The feature connector on the VSA board is not a SLI connector. To get this done, Hank's help is a must. There is also a lot of work to do the driver side of things.

-KoolSmoky

Ok, mayby i'll propose this to hank, after he finished his 256mb ddr vsa101 6000

Originally posted by koolsmoky

Unfortunately I do not have the time to work on D3D. Besides, you always have SFFT's excellent D3D driver. I can only find time to spend on Glide related projects.

Unfortunately SFFT is not so communicative and seems to ignore my ideas. but another neat idea would be a fps counter in glide. i'm shure raff would update his nfs5 benchmarks.

[Raff3DC]

Originally posted by roflkopp
on the other side i'm quite sure, that later glide games like operation flashpoint nfs5 and (maybe even) ultima9 would profit from compressed textures.

Every game could profit in high resolutions and/or with SSAA enabled. Look at Unreal Tournament, which runs fine with WickedGL and maxed FXT1. The higher the settings, the more Glide is slower.

Sure, bigger textures mean more hunger for VRAM and bandwidth, but why wasting fps if you could have them even with small textures?

Just yesterday I encountered impressive results of what texture compression can do: http://forum.voodooalert.de/thread.php?threadid=13478

Originally posted by roflkopp
Unfortunately SFFT is not so communicative and seems to ignore my ideas. but another neat idea would be a fps counter in glide. i'm shure raff would update his nfs5 benchmarks.

Of course I would!
But the most important still is a fix for the SLI bug. I'm sure the goddess could kick some more GeForce asses then. Again I can only ask, or better pray to you: Please look at this bug!

Greetings,
Raff

[feinripp]

But the most important still is a fix for the SLI bug. I'm sure the goddess could kick some more GeForce asses then. Again I can only ask, or better pray to you: Please look at this bug!

Jeah, if any time this bug could be banned, the performance in some games would be greatly improved.

[koolsmoky]

Originally posted by Raff3DC
Every game could profit in high resolutions and/or with SSAA enabled. Look at Unreal Tournament, which runs fine with WickedGL and maxed FXT1. The higher the settings, the more Glide is slower.

Sure, bigger textures mean more hunger for VRAM and bandwidth, but why wasting fps if you could have them even with small textures?

Just yesterday I encountered impressive results of what texture compression can do:

I know very well that compression reduces texture swapping to the hardware and helps with performance. Which is why I give an option to force compression in the Glide64 texture enhancement library. If it prooves to work well and if I have time, I might just port the function to Glide. You have to understand that we are dealing with realtime compression. Games that download all textures to the hardware before a game is started are easy to deal with. BTW, did you resolve your problem with V3 and UT? It would be nice to know.

Originally posted by feinripp

Originally posted by Raff3DC
But the most important still is a fix for the SLI bug. I'm sure the goddess could kick some more GeForce asses then.

Jeah, if any time this bug could be banned, the performance in some games would be greatly improved.

I understand it would be wonderful to have a perfect V56K. Unfortunately right now I only have time for Glide OpenGL and SLI pretty much work OK with them. Free time is what I need.

-KoolSmoky

[roflkopp]

Originally posted by koolsmoky
You have to understand that we are dealing with realtime compression.

Just like WickedGL. You only have to compress the textures once, if you save the in a swapfile.

But a glide fps-counter would be also a nice (imo easier to implement) feature.



Maybe we should start a petition for metabyte to make wickedgl open source.

[koolsmoky]

Originally posted by roflkopp


Just like WickedGL. You only have to compress the textures once, if you save the in a swapfile.

But a glide fps-counter would be also a nice (imo easier to implement) feature.

I already do that with the Glide64 texture enhancer library. It uses the system memory to cache realtime enhanced compressed textures to achive speed. The cache will also be saved to disk so it can be used next time you run it. I understand you want this feature in the Glide driver itself.

As for the Glide fps-counter, isn't there any other tool like fraps?

-KoolSmoky

[roflkopp]

Originally posted by koolsmoky
I already do that with the Glide64 texture enhancer library. It uses the system memory to cache realtime enhanced compressed textures to achive speed. The cache will also be saved to disk so it can be used next time you run it.

sounds good.

Originally posted by koolsmoky
As for the Glide fps-counter, isn't there any other tool like fraps?

-KoolSmoky

Not that I know of. (fraps doesn't work under glide)

[Raff3DC]

Originally posted by koolsmoky
I understand it would be wonderful to have a perfect V56K. Unfortunately right now I only have time for Glide OpenGL and SLI pretty much work OK with them. Free time is what I need.

-KoolSmoky

I don't want to rush you. We're living with this bug for more than six years now. But it would be nice to know if somebody could kill it, finally ...

The compression for Glide sounds very nice, too.

Greetings,
Raff

[max1024]

koolsmoky

As for the Glide fps-counter, isn't there any other tool like fraps?

try this http://win32.fatal.ru/glidefps/ this programme was made by one of members of our -=Voodoo Masters=- club.

[koolsmoky]

Originally posted by max1024

As for the Glide fps-counter, isn't there any other tool like fraps?

try this http://win32.fatal.ru/glidefps/ this programme was made by one of members of our -=Voodoo Masters=- club.

Thanks for the tip. Anyone try it out, yet?

# Would a moderator please move this thread to the "3dfx, hardware and software - General Forums, General", thanks.

-KoolSmoky