Dark forces and glitches while using a voodoo 3 (solved) \ VOGONS

Dark forces and glitches while using a voodoo 3 (solved)

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First post, by iraito

Posted on 2019-05-25, 16:50

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Lately i'm setting up every PC and console i have to be readily and comfortably recorded, one of those is a WIN98 machine (Pentium III 733 - 256mb RAM - SoundBlaster 5.1 - voodoo 3 3000 AGP and matrox millennium II 4mb) that i use for DOS\WIN95\98 stuff, i thought the voodoo 3 had a borderline perfect compatibility with DOS games but after trying dark forces i wouldn't be so sure, this is the game running on the voodoo https://streamable.com/18ccz

As you can see the picture is jumpy at times and random lines appear on the screen (it never happens during cutscenes\menus) it looks as if the card is having problem with the refresh rate, i tried every driver and i searched for this issue everywhere but to no avail. Before today i never actually tried to add a second GPU to this machine since i thought the voodoo 3 was good for 2D and 3D stuff, but today i tried since i still had a PCI slot free and the voodoo is AGP giving me the ability to swap easily between the two from the BIOS, this is the result https://streamable.com/uxanm

Not a single problem, has any of you ever encountered this issue with any other DOS game using a 3dfx card ? now i'm actually happier to be able to switch to an older card for better compatibility with older games (like blood for example), so i guess all ended well.

EDIT: Damn did i post this in the wrong section ?

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Reply 1 of 8, by rasz_pl

Posted on 2019-05-25, 18:53

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>recorded

so you dont have voodoo compatibility problems, you have recording setup problems

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Reply 2 of 8, by iraito

Posted on 2019-05-25, 18:57

iraito Offline

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rasz_pl wrote:
>recorded

so you dont have voodoo compatibility problems, you have recording setup problems

Recorded with a capture card from vga with obs, there's no recording problem, i changed gpu and the result changed completely, there's no problem with non-dos game either with the voodoo, i think you misunderstood my recording method.

The problem is present on my monitor too when not recording, it's totally a 3dfx problem.

EDIT:Tell the truth, you stopped reading at "recorded" right ?

Last edited by iraito on 2019-05-25, 19:46. Edited 1 time in total.

If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
MIDI Devices: RA-50 (modded to MT-32) SC-55

Reply 3 of 8, by collector

Posted on 2019-05-25, 19:32

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Wrong forum. As per the description of this forum: "Getting old DOS games working on modern hardware." Ask old hardware and driver/configuration questions in Marvin. Marvin, the Paranoid Android

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Reply 4 of 8, by iraito

Posted on 2019-05-25, 19:36

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Yeah i noticed after, if a mod want to remove the thread i would be more than ok.

If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
MIDI Devices: RA-50 (modded to MT-32) SC-55

Reply 5 of 8, by Stiletto

Posted on 2019-05-27, 19:03

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Moved.

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Reply 6 of 8, by appiah4

Posted on 2019-05-28, 07:05

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Dark Forces is not a GLIDE game so it does not run on 'Voodoo', try vesa enhancers like UniVBE perhaps?

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Reply 7 of 8, by Rawit

Posted on 2019-05-28, 07:32

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The VooDoo Banshee and up have fast and highly compatible 2D cores. See: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Your issue in game does seem refresh related and could be caused by your LCD/output device/capture device. Especially the part where you throw grenades near an enterance makes me think this is refresh related. Dark Forces runs in Mode 13h, which is 70hz. Do you somehow force 60hz? Or do you capture at 60fps but the input is 70?
If you have a CRT around you can test this. Otherwise try following: Re: VGA Capture Thread
With the VGA240 tool you can force 60hz in a different way, which might at least solve your recording issues.

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Reply 8 of 8, by iraito

Posted on 2019-05-28, 20:46

iraito Offline

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appiah4 wrote:
Dark Forces is not a GLIDE game so it does not run on 'Voodoo', try vesa enhancers like UniVBE perhaps?

You know that a voodoo 3 is able to play openGL\DX\DOS games right ?

Rawit wrote:
The VooDoo Banshee and up have fast and highly compatible 2D cores. See: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/ […]
Show full quote
The VooDoo Banshee and up have fast and highly compatible 2D cores. See: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Your issue in game does seem refresh related and could be caused by your LCD/output device/capture device. Especially the part where you throw grenades near an enterance makes me think this is refresh related. Dark Forces runs in Mode 13h, which is 70hz. Do you somehow force 60hz? Or do you capture at 60fps but the input is 70?
If you have a CRT around you can test this. Otherwise try following: Re: VGA Capture Thread
With the VGA240 tool you can force 60hz in a different way, which might at least solve your recording issues.

I tried with an old LCD that support up to 75Hz and that looks pretty damn good at 1024x768, i tried with and without VGA240, the problem is only present with the voodoo 3, the matrox solved the problem completely, even a geforce 2 MX has no problems, everything seems to point at the voodoo 3 being the problem but it's important to specify that this is the only game that gives me this issue, the voodoo 3 works flawlessly with every other game i tried (DOS and windows) it could just be some strange quirk of the dark engine messing with the voodoo.

Regarding the voodoo 3, i tried dark forces 2 and while it works extremely well and with hardware acceleration the device is listed as direct 3D, did it work always like this under 3dfx ? i don't remember if DF2 actually had glide.

If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
MIDI Devices: RA-50 (modded to MT-32) SC-55

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