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dgVoodoo 1 announcement thread

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Reply 140 of 206, by Dege

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I was searching on the web, and found the following info about ATI + w buffer:
Radeon 9500+ cards no longer supports w buffer and 32 bit z buffer. 😳 😵
I was hoping those are disabled in driver level but somewhere else I read that w buffer support is absent in Rx3x0 GPUs. I also saw that those can be enabled for compatibility reasons in the control panel in ATI's Direct3D options, but that was for a R9200.
I really don't understand ATI why doesn't support it, and why it was disabled by default when it was supported. 😕 😕 😕
It seems my only option is to try to improve W-buffer emulation in the wrapper. 😢

Reply 141 of 206, by CraigG

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I found these, for the 9700 Pro.

Additional product features 128MB DDR SDRAM unified frame buffer, Z-buffer and Texture storage 64-KB BIOS Serial Flash ROM, repr […]
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Additional product features 128MB DDR SDRAM unified frame buffer, Z-buffer and Texture storage
64-KB BIOS Serial Flash ROM, reprogrammable by SW, 3.3V only, no Jumpers
2D and 3D acceleration provided for 16-bit and 32-bit RGB modes
Hardware cursor with full color alpha channel
16/32 bit Z buffer, 16/32 bit W-buffer, 8-bit stored alpha and 8-bit Stencil planes
Bus mastering support for 2D/3D display lists and local memory vertex list execution
Hardware lighting support for up to 8 lights
Bilinear, Trilinear and Anisotropic texturing
Cubic Environment and Perturbation Bump Mapping
Projective Texture, 3D Texture and Video Texture support
Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) support with up to 6 subsamples
Video Engine supports YCrCb (4:2:2, 4:1:0, 4:2:0) to RGB conversion
Video scaling and up to 4x4 tap filtering supported for all YUV and RGB16/32 formats
Per pixel quad buffering on all screen resolutions
VESA compliant Stereoscopic Interface on MiniDin Connector
Compliant with Microsoft®/Intel® PC2001 Workstation requirements
Video Timings compliant with VESA DMT 1.0 and VESA GTF 1.0 specifications
DDC2B+ Monitor support on all OS platforms
ACPI Version 1.0b Power Management support (all modes)

16/32bit W-Buffer, is in there.
Perhaps it's just the drivers that need to expose this feature ?
Or perhaps, most worryingly, is that the drivers have disabled it ?

One thing to try, and I'll try it myself, is to run a program called REGMON, and then run NFS2 SE with the W-Buffer ON.
Play the game, then exit, and go back to regmon to see what it's logged.
Just look for something like ExportWBuffer, and see if it says "Success", under the results tab. If it does, then it is using the W-Buffer.

Athlon 64 3000+ stock
MSI NForce 4 K8N Neo Platinum
2Gb RAM
nVidia Geforce 6800GT stock clocks
SBLive! Platinum + Audigy ZS2 Drivers
WinXP Pro SP2

Reply 142 of 206, by CraigG

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Actually, scrap the above test, as one of the ATI Catalyst team has said it doesn't support W-Buffer above the 8500 series. 😠

Oh well, He did mention this though

A wrapper would do you no good as all of the incoming vertex data would need to be changed to be Z buffer friendly, if this is even possible.

You can't "force" W buffer on a platform that doesn't support it, just like you can't "force" pixel shaders on hardware that doesn't support it.

Seems like a lot of work, for something thats supported by a handful of games.

Athlon 64 3000+ stock
MSI NForce 4 K8N Neo Platinum
2Gb RAM
nVidia Geforce 6800GT stock clocks
SBLive! Platinum + Audigy ZS2 Drivers
WinXP Pro SP2

Reply 144 of 206, by ableeker

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Am I really the only one that can't play TR1 with 1.22? Or is it only TR1 that's affected? Anyway, I've tried the new version on my own computer, and just to be sure, on the wife's computer, which has an AMD Duron 800, and an Nvidia Geforce 2 MX, but on both computers it's running *extremely* slow. The frame rate isn't something like 10 frames per second, but 10 seconds per frame! That's 0.1 frame per second! The last version that works on my computer is 1.20, 1.21 has swimming textures, and 1.22 is unbearably slow, and that's using the same settings for dgVoodoo and VDMSound.

Actually, this happened as well with the logging version, but I thought that was because it was a debug version. I'm beginning to wonder, though...

Anybody else has seen this, or knows how to fix it? Emulating the W-buffer is fine with me, but I'd like to be able to play 1.22 at a normal speed, or even 1.21 without swimming textures.

Aldo Bleeker

Reply 146 of 206, by VirtuaIceMan

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Has anyone managed to get Screamer2 3DFX or Screamer Rally 3DFX to work? They're a pain - I made one of them work in Glidos once but it was very slow.

Also, I know that ATI are annoying about their drivers. The Sega Model 2 emulator has severe clipping problems as according to the author: "ATI video cards don't support TLVERTEXCLIP direct3d capability"

Definitely gonna get Nvidia if I ever need to replace my graphics card!

Ice

Reply 147 of 206, by ableeker

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Dege,

Thought you might like to see the log! So here it is.

Aldo Bleeker

=================================

Entering InitDosNT()
NT mode: VDD
Leaving InitDosNT() successfully
Time statistics:
First 10 functions spending most time
InitDosNT, 10ms
grSstWinopen: InitDraw() OK
grSstWinopen: InitMovie() OK
------ dgVoodoo: driver description -------
dwDevCaps: 61bbef1
dpcLineCaps
dwMiscCaps: 132c83
dwRasterCaps: f7361b3
dwZCmpCaps: ff
dwSrcBlendCaps: 3fff
dwDestBlendCaps: 3bff
dwAlphaCmpCaps: ff
dwShadeCaps: c528a
dwTextureCaps: 7ed4f
dwTextureFilterCaps: 703073f
dwTextureBlendCaps: cf
dwTextureAddressCaps: 37
dwStippleWidth: 0
dwStippleHeight: 0
dpcTriCaps
dwMiscCaps: 132cf3
dwRasterCaps: f7361b3
dwZCmpCaps: ff
dwSrcBlendCaps: 3fff
dwDestBlendCaps: 3bff
dwAlphaCmpCaps: ff
dwShadeCaps: c528a
dwTextureCaps: 7ed4f
dwTextureFilterCaps: 703073f
dwTextureBlendCaps: cf
dwTextureAddressCaps: 37
dwStippleWidth: 0
dwStippleHeight: 0
dwDeviceRenderBitDepth: 500
dwDeviceZBufferBitDepth: 400
dwMinTextureWidth: 1
dwMinTextureHeight: 1
dwMaxTextureWidth: 800
dwMaxTextureHeight: 800
dwMaxTextureRepeat: 800
dwMaxTextureAspectRatio: 800
dwMaxAnisotropy: 10
dvGuardBandLeft: -960.000000
dvGuardBandTop: -960.000000
dvGuardBandRight: 2880.000000
dvGuardBandBottom: 2880.000000
dvExtentsAdjust: 0.000000
dwStencilCaps: 1ff
dwFVFCaps: 100008
dwTextureOpCaps: 3ffffff
wMaxTextureBlendStages: 8
wMaxSimultaneousTextures: 8
dwMaxActiveLights: ffffffff
dvMaxVertexW: 10000000000.000000
wMaxUserClipPlanes: 6
wMaxVertexBlendMatrices: 4
dwVertexProcessingCaps: 3f

Depth buffer config: Enable W-buffer

Desired depth buffer bit depth: 16
Creating depth buffer OK
Used depth buffer bit depth: 16
Time statistics:
First 10 functions spending most time
grSstWinOpenDosNT, 157988ms
GlideNullSurfaces, 33027ms
grBufferSwap, 8002ms
grBufferSwap, 8002ms
grBufferSwap, 8001ms
grBufferSwap, 8001ms
grBufferSwap, 7992ms
grBufferSwap, 7991ms
grBufferSwap, 7991ms
grBufferSwap, 7991ms

Reply 148 of 206, by Dege

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Uhh, those are very very large values.
Ok, I've just reloaded a new 1.22b on my page 😁 , try that.
I've studied the code, and there was a point where I set the dos thread priority to high. It didn't cause any problem on my hyperthreading p4, but when I set the affinity to one processor, it ate all the processor time. 😊 😊 😊
However I'm not satisfied with the speed with one proc. 😠
Another thing I must work on. 😒

Reply 149 of 206, by ableeker

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Nice work, dege! You're right, TR1 still feels a bit sluggish, but 1.22b still is a *huge* improvement over 1.22.

Anyway, if I use Alpha-based color keying, and W-buffer emulation, TR1 looks quite good. Keep up the good work!

Aldo Bleeker

Reply 150 of 206, by Kaminari

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Just gave a spin to The Need for Speed 2 SE (Demo) with dgVoodoo 1.22b on my good old rig (P3@667, GeForce2 Ti, ForceWare 52.70) and I'm very pleased with the result. It works almost as good as OpenGlide, except that I get about 25 fps when OpenGlide runs around 30 fps. Still very enjoyable 😀

tnfs2se_01.jpg

Reply 151 of 206, by VirtuaIceMan

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Here's a bit of info Dege, NFS2SE is the same, though this may be the best possible on ATI cards with their lack of features! I can't remember if Zeckensack's wrapper worked better as it would only work with the demo...

Anyway, Test Drive Off Road 2 is now perfect, where it wasn't with Zeckensack's wrapper.

Once you've got to a point with your wrapper that you're happy with (as 1.22b is a beta) then I'll test run the majority of my Glide games and see what does what (at present I just install dgVoodooSetup.exe and glide2x.dll in the game's folders as I use Zeckensack's wrapper for the rest).

Ice

Reply 152 of 206, by CraigG

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Let me just say something here,

Dege's wrapper is by far THE most advanced wrapper around.

Proof can be found by trying it out on

Outlaws - A game that hasn't worked well on ANY wrapper, up until Dege's. Openglide doesn't display hardly any graphics, while the others are sooo slow.

Ignition - unbelievable slow down, with other wrappers, Dege's is fine.
Croc - black around objects, especially with Openglide. Dege's, none.
Screamer 2 and Rally - Works well in Paul's Glidos, but has some terrible slowdown, 12 fps at best. Dege's is fullspeed, too fast at times, but has some colour problems which MAY be ATI related.

I'm still testing, as I have well over 50 glide games, with most being naitive glide.
At the moment, it's best to have both Paul's Glidos, and Dege's wrapper, installed. You then get the best of both worlds.

Athlon 64 3000+ stock
MSI NForce 4 K8N Neo Platinum
2Gb RAM
nVidia Geforce 6800GT stock clocks
SBLive! Platinum + Audigy ZS2 Drivers
WinXP Pro SP2

Reply 153 of 206, by VirtuaIceMan

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CraigG wrote:

Dege's wrapper is by far THE most advanced wrapper around.

Won't disagree, though Zeckensack's is pretty good too!

CraigG wrote:

Ignition - unbelievable slow down, with other wrappers, Dege's is fine.

Ignition is fast and smooth on Zeckensack's too (on my top-end PC at least!).

CraigG wrote:

Screamer 2 and Rally - Works well in Paul's Glidos, but has some terrible slowdown, 12 fps at best. Dege's is fullspeed, too fast at times, but has some colour problems which MAY be ATI related.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give me a step-by-step guide to getting dgVoodoo working with Screamer2/Screamer Rally! When these games run, do they still exhibit random crashes (as the original non-3Dfx version does)?

CraigG wrote:

At the moment, it's best to have both Paul's Glidos, and Dege's wrapper, installed. You then get the best of both worlds.

I just use Zeckensack's as it seems to cover everything to my liking, then I use dgVoodoo for the games that have problems in Zeckensack's wrapper. Only tried Glidos once as I don't have lots of Glide DOS games!

Ice

Reply 155 of 206, by Dege

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I'm working on a new version.
I've tried it with Screamer rally (thanks Craig for the stuff!), and it worked under w98 as well as xp. There is, however, a texture-bug coming out with w98 in 1.22b, which is due to a designing mistake in the communication.
I can't get Screamer2 to run because of some missing files, but it also should run under w98 (with the texture bug). Under xp, it complains about too few memory (incompatible DOS environment, I think), haven't tried to solve the problem yet, but I think I've read about it somewhere (perhaps here in VOGONS).
Ice, why those games doesn't even start for you? In what circumstances do you try to run them?
But, I can advice, if you really want to play those games with dgVoodoo, wait for the next version.

Reply 156 of 206, by CraigG

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Hey Dege, How you doing ?

Did you manage to read any more from the DVD ?

Both games run fine of my PC, but there is a weird colour scheme that pops up in the background, when you play the games.
I'm thinking ATI's drivers, but haven't had a chance to test out Catalyst 4.5 yet. And no chance of it being fixed in Win9x, as ATI have dropped Win9x support, the morons.
Oh well, back to NVidia with the 6800 GT. 😁

Athlon 64 3000+ stock
MSI NForce 4 K8N Neo Platinum
2Gb RAM
nVidia Geforce 6800GT stock clocks
SBLive! Platinum + Audigy ZS2 Drivers
WinXP Pro SP2

Reply 157 of 206, by VirtuaIceMan

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Dege wrote:

I can't get Screamer2 to run because of some missing files

I've got Screamer2 (and the patches) so if there are any specific files you need just ask!

Dege wrote:

Under xp, it complains about too few memory (incompatible DOS environment, I think), haven't tried to solve the problem yet, but I think I've read about it somewhere (perhaps here in VOGONS).

Ice, why those games doesn't even start for you? In what circumstances do you try to run them?

That's it, I use WindowsXP! Using VDMSound (and sapucdex line) I can get Screamer Rally (for example) running with sound in low res (bit too fast). With high-res it (and Screamer2) always crash to desktop at the same place when playing. These games are a bit unreliable as they (and the original Screamer) all tended to crash occasionally on my old Win98 machine.

I do remember the Glide version being less likely to crash (as well as looking better) though. So that's why I'm holding out for the Glide version in XP!

Oh yeah, I try to use dgVoodoo inside the game folder rather than inside Windows system as I use Zeckensack's wrapper in the Windows system - though his wrapper seems to have stalled so maybe dgVoodoo is the future 😉

Ice

Reply 158 of 206, by Dege

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Craig! It's needless to try with newer drivers. Weird colour scheme is the fault of the wrapper, not your driver (I ment this thing under texture bug).
Unfortunately, I didn't managed to get the files from the dvd I've mentioned. 🙁

Ice, thank you for offering your help!
As for the glide version of SC rally, it seems it's not more stable than software versions. I think those crashes are caused by the 3D engine of Screamer, not by its renderer.

Reply 159 of 206, by DoomGaZer

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Hey guys. dgvoodoo seems to be coming around nicely. I just wanted to throw my two cents in here. I actually got Blood 3D to work with the 3dfx patch (and no sound, but hey, baby steps as they say)! It doesn't even have that texture corruption like Shadow Warrior does. I tried turning sound on and did that whole cli2nop patch business and it sorta worked. Only problem was it slowed down the emulation (which was slow enough already) and the sounds were mostly static with a few accurate noises every so often. I also did something that I read about here in the forums (maybe even this thread) where you load everything into memory and force 640x480 at the command line. I also had to run nolfb.com to get it to work (not running it would bomb before the first graphic ever loaded). My command line looks like this:
nolfb.com
set BUILD_640X480=1
set BUILD_CONVTEXTURES=1
set BUILD_GAMMA=1
set BUILD_RESAMPLE=1
blood3dfx.exe
-------------------
where blood3dfx.exe is the 3dfx executable. I see no texture corruption except for lines between the sections of the sky (flat texture separated into vertical chunks). However, I still have texture corruption in Shadow Warrior. One thing of note, SW runs quicker despite the corruption (still without sound mind you). I also wanted to ask about mouse capture. I know I got it to work before but it might have been using dgvoodoo at fullscreen (or using regular video and VDM Sound) but I just can't remember. Any help on the mouse thing would be appreciated. Thanks again to dege for all his hard work. Keep up the good work. If you want to test out Blood 3D, It think there is an abandonware version at http://www.the-underdogs.org/