God I wish people would let the voodoo cards die. It is bordering on obsession now. Due to this we have emulators with plugins made for a decade old graphics card line and the wrappers cause issues when used on other cards.

I think people need to move the hell on.

I'll let my cards know that you don't appreciate their sterling efforts in continuing to provide reliable service in 3 of my machines.

I'm sure they'll care as little as I do.

he he, this almost makes me take out my Voodoo2 from the basement and pester Colourless 😀
Btw, he is a Dragon of the UDIC and one of the main members of the Exult (http://exult.sf.net) and Pentagram (http://pentagram.sf.net) teams.
I'm quite impressed, especially since he seems to be so busy with more profitable work, atm...

My problem with Voodoo envy is that we now have N64/PSX emulators and plugins tha require a voodoo based card to function at full speeds. The wrapper have minimal effort put in, and no one seems to think this is a problem. People use age old hardware for no real reason, causing great annoyance to me personally when I try to play these emulators.

I also hate the blind rage people put up when I bring this topic up. Its like people work for 3Dfx or something and get very touchy when I mention new pieces of hardware. Sheesh....a 6600 can be bought dirt cheap and can play 10x the amount of games, and yet people feel the need to hang on to old dead hardware.

My problem with Voodoo envy is that we now have N64/PSX emulators and plugins tha require a voodoo based card to function at full speeds. The wrapper have minimal effort put in, and no one seems to think this is a problem. People use age old hardware for no real reason, causing great annoyance to me personally when I try to play these emulators.

I really see why no one wants to take this problem seriously. So the plugin developers like to code for glide. Either ignore them or use the wrapper. What else are those useless CPU cycles good for nowadays anyway...
For both the N64 and PSX are D3D plugins availlable, bug those developers to make more perfect D3D plugins...
Phew, and I thought people hanging on to their Voodoos have problems...

Ah cmon, even you have to see how pointless N64 emulation has gotten? The only decent graphic plugin is the Glide64 one, and the wrappers simply do not perform very well and do not give you the choice to offload onto the CPU. It is almost unacceptable that the fastest of PCs can't get decent N64 emulation.

The only way to get some effects is with hardware framebuffer on, and you guessed it - only glide allows that with this plugin. So if you want to attempt it with a wrapper it will be extremely slow even on high end cards and CPUs. Thats pathetic in my eyes.

I mean we have emerging DS and 360 emulators, and no working N64 emulation. The only ones that exist are poorly done and crash due to plugin issues. Mainly because the only competant programmers are sticking with their voodoo cards and don't look to the future.

yeah, you are right, that sucks but nothing to really be upset about. If that's how it is, then that's how it is. I did enjoy the visuals on my Voodoo5 before it got replaced two (or is it already three?) years ago. And it's no biggie for me since I essentially played what I wanted to play.

Naw its not me getting upset, I just get fed up with brand loyalty. 😉 I can understand wanting the glory days to return (we all do) but making programs and such for the 20 people who still own their geforce cards can get quite annoying for those of us interested in using said programs on modern hardware.

Its like if I programmed a game that only used the original Gravis Gamepad for input and then said "What, don't you have one? Tough luck!". It would seem rediculous, and yet thats how it is with glide versus opengl/dx in my eyes.

avatar_58 wrote:

My problem with Voodoo envy is that we now have N64/PSX emulators and plugins tha require a voodoo based card to function at full speeds.

I think you're misstating the case somewhat: generally speaking the Glide plugins that are around now are the ones that were around when the emulation first came about, at a time when the cards were still very much a viable option - UltraHLE was the Ur-emulator in that respect, and it predated the latter Voodoo cards by a year and then some, whereas PSEmu and its various spin-offs have always had some sort of Glide plugin. Off-hand I can't think of any that have actually been created from scratch in recent times (PJ64's being the possible exception).

avatar_58 wrote:

I also hate the blind rage people put up when I bring this topic up.

"God I wish people would let them die" is a far cry from "They're a bit long in the tooth now, aren't they chaps?" , don't you think? If you're going to take the bull+china shop approach then it's entirely unsurprising that you don't generally get any reasonable replies.

avatar_58 wrote:

Sheesh....a 6600 can be bought dirt cheap and can play 10x the amount of games

Sweet, I'll be expecting the one you get me dirt cheap to be in the post by the end of the week then; must be nice to be flush.

It's not [always] a case of hanging on to old hardware for the sake of it (though lest it slipped your mind, this *is* a forum about playing older games...); it's simply not a viable option for everyone to spend the cash on a new graphics card, particularly when the existing ones can continue to provide reasonable performance. Nor is it brand loyalty, either - I have 2 older nVidia cards as well, scavenged from other people's discarded PCs, which are great for what I use them for, and a cursory glance at most of the forums about Voodoo cards will show that the majority of those who use them are also quite happy to use cards from other manufacturers.

Now, let's restate your argument in a more reasonable manner that actually has relates to the original argument rather than your own broad-sweeping bias: the development of GlideXP for x64 borders on the anal since it is only useful for the very early iterations of Voodoo cards rather than the more recent ones that can continue to give reasonable use, and anyone who can afford to run a system that would need x64 drivers clearly has the money to spend in ways that would be of more use elsewhere.

Wow, if you'd actually said that I might even have agreed.

Targaff wrote:

"God I wish people would let them die" is a far cry from "They're a bit long in the tooth now, aren't they chaps?" , don't you think? If you're going to take the bull+china shop approach then it's entirely unsurprising that you don't generally get any reasonable replies.

As if I'd say that wanting meaningful replies 😉 Obviously I'm only letting off steam in these posts, I thought that was obvious. When I originally questioned the devs I was actually curious and polite, then I was told to just "go use some d3d plugin" which is hardly helpful. Basically no one seems to care.

Targaff wrote:

Now, let's restate your argument in a more reasonable manner that actually has relates to the original argument rather than your own broad-sweeping bias: the development of GlideXP for x64 borders on the anal since it is only useful for the very early iterations of Voodoo cards rather than the more recent ones that can continue to give reasonable use, and anyone who can afford to run a system that would need x64 drivers clearly has the money to spend in ways that would be of more use elsewhere.

Wow, if you'd actually said that I might even have agreed.

Except thats not what I wanted to say. I was speaking generally - My point is that people seem to have an unhealthy love with these cards, borderlining obsession. I can see wanting to keep it around for shits and giggles, but to use it in development to me is a little out there, wouldn't you agree? You say the plugins have been around awhile, yeah they have - however they are still being updated all the time and are currently the best.

Meaning the only way to get decent emulation without slowdowns or lockups with any degree of accuracy is to own a glide capable card. I can't be the only one who sees something wrong with this.....

avatar_58 wrote:

My point is that people seem to have an unhealthy love with these cards, borderlining obsession. I can see wanting to keep it around for shits and giggles, but to use it in development to me is a little out there, wouldn't you agree?

I don't really see how that makes it any different from anything else, though - everything has its fanboys, and even they have their hardcore. At least with the 3dfx bods they're by and large quite friendly; it's not that there's any real illusion that the cards are better than older ones, more that they're really quite fond of the cards and would like to keep pushing them where possible.

avatar_58 wrote:

You say the plugins have been around awhile, yeah they have - however they are still being updated all the time and are currently the best.

I'm curious as to which plugins you're referring to; neither of ePSXe's Glide plugins have been updated since 2002, and the Glide plugin for PJ64 hasn't been updated for nearly a year, with another year back before the preceding version. By contrast, the more recent efforts have related to getting a reliable wrapper to give the same level of functionality on other cards, which isn't really what you'd expect from a rude community (and incidentally addresses your last point, at least in part).

Outside of TP driver development, which has similarly been mostly dormant until this last month or so, I've not seen anything Glide-related upated any time recently, at least for public consumption. Are you sure it's not just a matter of perception?

Whilst I don't know much about the emu scene, I'm with avatar_58's overall sentiment 😀 There is some kind of cult following with 3dfx hardware. Voodoo's *were* good, now they are old and crusty - let them die! I used a V2 to good effect back in the day but hell that was almost 8 years back now!

And cost is *not* an issue... the topic was started with Voodoo drivers for 64bit XP. So that means you've shelled out a wad of cash on 64 bit hardware and XP64... don't tell me the same person couldn't budget for a video card as well!

Targaff - to get any decent accuracy Glide64 Wonder Plus (Nov 2005) must be used with either a wrapper (good, but not perfect) or Glide hardware. A year isn't a long time when it comes to development. Compare that to the DX plugins which focus on minor additions such as AA/AF rather than the core accuracy which is what the Glide plugin targets. Give me one good reason why these folks stick with glide and not update to 2006 technology?

Its funny that the Wii is coming and will trump n64 emulation even if it was only 60% accurate. Its a shame that cult favourites such as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark cannot be played properly without massive glitches and crashes, mostly due to the graphic plugins.....a result of the best programmers spending all their time on age old hardware and APIs.

Everyone always hails open source (rightly so) and yet they refuse to use APIs and cards that everyone has? Sounds awfully hypocritical.

EDIT - Wow.....if I've ever encountered irony in my every day life this HAS to be the best example. Not a few hours after ranting about this shite I checked around emulation forums. Guess what? The wrapper has been updated and is far more competant. 😒

Although it unfortunately proved my point a little - it wasn't the plugin causing the issues, it is the wrapper. Which of course means had they avoided using Glide in the first place we wouldn't be in this mess.

Reckless wrote:

And cost is *not* an issue... the topic was started with Voodoo drivers for 64bit XP. So that means you've shelled out a wad of cash on 64 bit hardware and XP64... don't tell me the same person couldn't budget for a video card as well!

Didn't I make that point myself earlier in the thread? It really does border on the ridiculous to "develop" (by the looks of things, GlideXP has undergone only a minor modification to achieve this) for the Ur-Voodoos on 64-bit hardware. Avatar's not commenting specifically on that, however ("thats not what I wanted to say"), but on the continued use of 3DFx cards as a whole.

Targaff wrote:

but on the continued use of 3DFx cards as a whole.

Not really the use, but the continued development and support of long dead cards. Why are there plugins and wrappers for programs that aren't even that old? Project 64 and 1964 are more modern emulators, and yet their most accurate results come from using dead hardware.

avatar_58 wrote:

A year isn't a long time when it comes to development.

In all honesty I'd beg to differ; particularly with emulation the development tends to go hard and fast and then slow down to the sort of tweaking you mention as being typical of the DX plugins.

avatar_58 wrote:

Give me one good reason why these folks stick with glide and not update to 2006 technology?

You have to remember that at the time they were created Glide was still (although only just in the case of PJ64) a valid API. It also happens to be a very good API, which is why it was so popular with programmers. By the same token, other people were publishing plugins using other available interfaces at around the same time and those have (it appears) now been left to languish; what does that say about their respective development environments? Evidently it's been possible to achieve quality results using Glide, but there's nothing to stop someone coming along and trying to do the same in D3D or GL - certainly a good quality native plugin is always preferable to running something through a wrapper. However, there's also no reason why a developer is obliged to develop natively for those either, and apparently Gonetz has no interest in doing that, preferring to focus his efforts - at least for now - on a (now quite capable) wrapper. People are using Glide with a wrapper for this because it continues to work better than 2006 technology; what better reason?

avatar_58 wrote:

Everyone always hails open source (rightly so) and yet they refuse to use APIs and cards that everyone has? Sounds awfully hypocritical.

Hang on, open source and market frequency are in no way comparable. That sort of approach is tantamount to saying "well, Microsoft is by far the most common operating system about so what's the point of pandering to the eclectics who like to use something else?" On the contrary; open source would no doubt tend towards providing the best possible options to the widest possible target group, so development like this would more likely be welcome than disdained.

avatar_58 wrote:

Not a few hours after ranting about this shite I checked around emulation forums. Guess what? The wrapper has been updated and is far more competant.

You wouldn't be referring to the wrapper I linked in my earlier post, would you? :>

avatar_58 wrote:

Although it unfortunately proved my point a little - it wasn't the plugin causing the issues, it is the wrapper. Which of course means had they avoided using Glide in the first place we wouldn't be in this mess.

There was every reason to create a Glide plugin at the time it was started, and there were alternatives available at that time for D3D and GL. Why is it the fault of the Glide plugin devs that the other plugins have fallen by the wayside, or weren't up to scratch? Your argument is basically "Why didn't they consider the situation in 2006 when they were developing in 2002?", which really doesn't wash.

avatar_58 wrote:

Why are there plugins and wrappers for programs that aren't even that old? Project 64 and 1964 are more modern emulators, and yet their most accurate results come from using dead hardware.

Again, how is this the fault of the Glide plugin developer? If it's possible to obtain comparable results with the other APIs then I wonder why no-one is doing it; Rice released the source to his RiceVideo plugin back in March, so there's nothing to stop someone taking that and running with it.

Targaff wrote:

Rice released the source to his RiceVideo plugin back in March, so there's nothing to stop someone taking that and running with it.

Thats exactly my point, but no one cares. More time is spent making better and better Glide wrappers.

avatar_58 wrote:

Its funny that the Wii is coming and will trump n64 emulation even if it was only 60% accurate.

Why did you say that? Weren't the n64 emulators for the Wii also available for Windows?

avatar_58 wrote:

God I wish people would let the voodoo cards die. It is bordering on obsession now. Due to this we have emulators with plugins made for a decade old graphics card line and the wrappers cause issues when used on other cards.

I think people need to move the hell on.

This is a forum where people share the common obsession regarding old hardware, so what did you expect? 😜

Consider the 64 bit Voodoo thingy optional 😉