Re: Found the vintage PC motherlode...
Posted on 2019-02-02, 20:22
Re: ATI Radeon 9700Pro vs 9800Pro
Posted on 2019-01-31, 11:33
tpowell.ca wrote: More to the point, is there anything at all the 9700 does better than the 9800 ? Yes, it's better at leaving lasting impressions among gamers and serving as rhetorical fuel for modern debates.
Re: Why 4K isn't a gimmick -- or why it really is.
Posted on 2019-01-29, 00:54
Is it my imagination or is this shimmering somewhat new to the last generation or two? I always remember having jaggies without AA but I don't remember the screen dancing even as I was standing still -- what the hell? Do you by any chance enable FXAA? These intraframe post-process AA solutions do …
Re: NVIDIA nForce audio experiences?
Posted on 2019-01-23, 13:37
The nForce 2 Ultra 400 chipset usually included the MCP-T which supported "Soundstorm" audio. If you look that up you'll find a decent amount of info about it. It was a very nice sound solution for the time. Interestingly, it not only could do Dolby Digital Live encoding for surround sound, it …
NVIDIA nForce audio experiences?
Posted on 2019-01-21, 20:17
I haven't ever seen much talk about the nForce audio solutions. Apart from being an early OpenAL accelerator together with Creative's cards, there also seems to be several references to an "Nvidia FX API" that works as an extension to DirectSound. There is an SDK floating around with documents and …
Keyboards with non-standard keys
Posted on 2019-01-20, 03:29
I have a desire to one way or another map out all the keys used throughout the life of the pre-USB IBM-compatible keyboard range beyond the ubiquitous ANSI/ISO sets. A notable historical example is the array of function keys that extended beyond F12 on some old PC keyboards. Of things still relevant …
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-19, 18:45
intel i740 gl_flashblend 1, r_dynamic 0 - 34.6 gl_flashblend 0, r_dynamic 0 - 40.4 gl_flashblend 0, r_dynamic 1 - 40.3 This result is interesting, but not surprising, considering this card's way of handling textures over AGP. I thought I would give it a shot on a modern system with Intel integrated …
Re: Change rom font on Tseng4000 vga?
Posted on 2019-01-16, 16:52
Is there a database of the various VGA fonts that have manifested themselves on this planet?
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-16, 16:14
How do you "mod it in?" I probably made it sound easier than I should have. I meant that you can download the Quake source code and add a few lines here and there involving gl_arb_texture_env_combine. This is what source ports have already done. Also, are there any such sourceports which will run …
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-15, 21:21
So, like, is there a way to fix the issues that article presents using GLQuake? No, but it's very easy to mod in, and most source ports are based on a codebase with support for lossless overbrights. The state of vanilla GLQuake renders the dynamic lights almost invisible, but they are nonetheless …
Re: Half-Life Performance Issues: The Ressurrection
Posted on 2019-01-15, 12:06
Try adjusting the various gl_ and r_ variables that you can find references to on the web. If I am not mistaken, there is also the launch parameter "-gl 11" to try out.
Obscure T&L Benchmarks
Posted on 2019-01-15, 11:57
Scouring the archived internet for an extensive amount of time, I found some programs that I have been looking for. Specifically, official applications that demonstrate the theoretical prowess of early T&L hardware. There are other old gems I have seen references to (like old NVIDIA SDKs), but never …
Re: Doom vs Heretic VGA performance difference
Posted on 2019-01-14, 15:11
Not a single ISA card that handles Doom better than Quake? Ouch. Things should look really nasty for the latter with vid_mode 1, though.
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-14, 08:26
It's to do with the texture formats involved for slow uploads. It's clearly not BGRA. This was early OpenGL before performance realizations were had. GL_LUMINANCE is slow? That's counter-intuitive. The launch parameter "-lm_4" should convert them to full RGBA. Curious to see how that runs in …
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-13, 16:48
software (WinQuake 1.09): 14.9 Umm, wasn't the author asking for tests with GLQuake, not WinQuake? Sure I did, but it doesn't hurt to get the performance metric of different modes into the picture. It actually helps put things into perspective. When even software mode runs blazingly fast, you know …
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-10, 03:27
You should be able to scroll in the console with Page Up. Vid_wait 0 disables Vsync.
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-08, 23:54
That S3 result is very telling of why flashblend was a thing, though this automatic enabling sounds mysterious to me. I never recall seeing a switch in the game code for automatically controlling the variable, so I suspect the driver is doing something fishy, ironically tanking the performance.
Re: Fastest Tualatin Chipset / Best Pentium III Motherboard
Posted on 2019-01-08, 14:09
You are welcome :) What other games from 1999-2002 are good benchmarks as well? Perhaps that Crytek X-Isle demo? Certainly a mouthful for a CPU when there's no hardware T&L. Assuming it can run with that hardware at all. If it doesn't work on Ati, then there sure is some impressive backwards …
Re: GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-07, 23:37
The oldest system I have working right now it a Athlon 1.4 with a Voodoo 4 4500. 1024x768 gl_flashblend 1: 78.4 fps gl_flashblend 0, r_dynamic 1: 85.7 fps gl_flashblend 0, r_dynamic 0: 95.2 fps Interesting how flashblend is actually slower. I guess the trend reverses once you go back to the PCI era …
GLQuake dynamic lighting performance request
Posted on 2019-01-07, 20:20
One graphical feature that GLQuake omitted over its software rendered counterpart is the dynamic lighting that was used profusely throughout the game, supposedly to save a non-trivial amount of performance. Luckily, a console variable lets one restore this lost feature that makes the game really …
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