I have a particular build which I would like to use an ATI Rage XL. I would also like to be able to run Final Fantasy 7, as it's one of my favorite games to have on tap, and the Rage XL performance-wise is up to the task. However, it has some kind of graphical error with the background tiles. Performance is otherwise excellent.
Does anyone know of a way to fix this?
Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-25, 08:15:I have a particular build which I would like to use an ATI Rage XL. I would also like to be able to run Final Fantasy 7, as it's one of my favorite games to have on tap, and the Rage XL performance-wise is up to the task. However, it has some kind of graphical error with the background tiles. Performance is otherwise excellent.
Does anyone know of a way to fix this?
The latest Rage XL drivers are not good for Win9x gaming. Try using W98_RXL_4_12_2647.exe from November of 2000. It has proper support for paletted textures.
Remember to patch FF7 to version 1.02, and in the external config utility, uncheck the "Nvidia" box.
I just now realized that the config utility is acting differently for the Rage XL than on other cards. When I uncheck the checkbox for "Nvidia", only software mode is available. I confirmed this with a Voodoo 3, which works just fine without the checkbox and allows 3D acceleration, as expected (and actually crashes when the checkbox is set).
Out of curiosity, I swapped back to the Rage XL after setting this non-Nvidia configuration, hoping to have found a loophole. Unfortunately, the output is a garbled mess.
This does actually look like an issue with palletized textures. I'll give the other drive a shot.
Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-25, 09:17:The latest Rage XL drivers are not good for Win9x gaming. Try using W98_RXL_4_12_2647.exe from November of 2000. It has proper support for paletted textures.
That was it! Everything works perfectly. Thank you.
I love the Rage XL. Highly underrated, as is the Rage 128. I only wish that it had better table fog support, but this seems to be a common problem.
There are also unofficial patches for this game to completely replace the rendering engine with opengl, and the actually official tnt/tnt2 patch (official patch 1.02), which changes how the game handles palleted textures.
Since the original community forums where these were held (and the eidos support forum where official patches were stored) have bitrotted to oblivion, and I happen to have these on hand in my NAS...
Here are the last version of the ff7 opengl patch, the official 1.02 update, and the official ff7input.cfg file for playing on laptops without a numeric keypad.
Official 1.02 patch:
Official laptop keyboard input file:
Unofficial ff7/ff8 opengl rendering engine patch, by Ali:
The official patches are the property of eidos, and came from their support site (which no longer has them)
The unofficial opengl patch comes from qhimm forums, from a user named Ali.
The unofficial patch's source code is available on github.
This is a little frustrating. The latest driver release "wme-j5-30-1-b02.exe" is actually the most feature complete, looks great, and renders 3DMark 99 correctly. Paletted textures seems to be broken though, and I think that this is what is causing D3D rendering with FF7 to fail.
The earlier driver version "w98_rxl_4_12_2647.exe" fixes paletted textures and FF7 works great, but there are rendering errors with 3DMark 99.
I narrowed the problem down to two files:
ATID32AE.DLL (ATI Rage Pro DirectDraw HAL)
ATI3DRAE.DLL (ATI Rage Pro Direct3D HAL)
If I install the latest driver version but overwrite these two files from the older version, I can be on the "latest" driver version but have FF7 work. Of course, this also rolls back the other fixes and 3DMark 99 has errors.
I tried replacing one file at a time as well. Copying just ATI3DRAE.DLL (D3D HAL) allows FF7 to pass the paletted textures check, but the game crashes when it's started; so ATID32AE.DLL (DD HAL) is required. I tried using the new D3D HAL with only the old DD HAL, but then the FF7 config program crashes, as does every other D3D program I try to run.
I looks like both files need to be updated in tandem; the DD HAL and the D3D HAL. The latest one renders more accurately while the older one has some render problems but has paletted texture support.
I wasn't able to locate any other driver release between these two versions to compare. Since I only notice the rendering error from the old driver in 3DMark 99, it might not be apparent or applicable to games. The older driver seems to be the best and obvious choice.
wierd_w wrote on 2024-02-25, 13:17:Here are the last version of the ff7 opengl patch, the official 1.02 update, and the official ff7input.cfg file for playing on laptops without a numeric keypad.
I tried this OpenGL patch with the Rage XL, but it does not work. Switching to the custom driver creates a popup error "Failed to load driver: A device attached to the system is no functioning."
This driver may need more than OpenGL 1.1 support. I know that Alis later versions do, for sure.
yeah that opengl patch is poor advice - it's written for OpenGL 2 and uses GLSL shaders, a thing ATI did not do until Radeon 9700.
When it comes to helping out old hardware, it's important to read between the lines; Rage XL is among the least GL capable ATI hardware to begin with so it would be worse had it been a proper working GL 1.1 patch.... and some of the biggest achilles' heels of the early rages are blending functions, especially alpha blends and a different 3D API can't help that.
The config actually has an option to disable shader use and suggests a OpenGL 1.1 code path. It does not work, however, and produces a lot of rendering errors. I don't even think that it's reading the config file right, or maybe something is going completely pear-shaped. For example, enabling winowed mode rendering does nothing, which makes me wonder if it even knows that I want to disable shaders.
leileilol wrote on 2024-02-27, 02:19:Rage XL is among the least GL capable ATI hardware to begin with so it would be worse had it been a proper working GL 1.1 patch.... and some of the biggest achilles' heels of the early rages are blending functions, especially alpha blends and a different 3D API can't help that.
Overall, I'm actually very happy with my Rage XL. It's not the fastest, but it's extremely compatible and has some of the fewest bugs of cards I've seen from this era. I would argue that the worst offenders didn't truly get ironed out until the next generation with the Rage 128 and Riva TNT. The Rage XL is an otherwise great little card, so long as you limit yourself to DirectX 5. Anything more and it's just blind luck.
I ordered a Rage Turbo to play around with as well, since CIF seems to be mostly broken on the XL series.
Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-27, 03:21:I ordered a Rage Turbo to play around with as well, since CIF seems to be mostly broken on the XL series.
ATi CIF does work on the Rage XL, but you need to use Gona's modified drivers for that. Grab ATI_3D_CIF_compatible_Rage_XL_(AGP_only)_driver_for_Win9x-ME_r4.zip from his CIF page. Note that this driver only works with the AGP version of the card.
Gona also has a compatibility chart so you can see which games work and which don't. I've only tested Tomb Raider, and it ran quite well, delivering a steady 30 FPS even at 800x600. Unfortunately, the CIF version of that game seems to be a bit buggy, and will crash when certain enemies are defeated.
Recently when I tried Tomb Raider Cif on a Rage Pro I experienced other bugs. The first is well-known, where there are unsightly texture glitches when playing with a Pentium 3. I don't know whether this is a processor speed issue or bus speed issue. These first show up in the second level. There are some videos on youtube showing this.
I also had a bug where if the camera is directly behind lara her gunshot sounds are muted. If the camera swings left or right you can hear the gunshots. Was using a Sound Blaster Live that's never given me problems otherwise. At that point I gave up on it, and so got nowhere near the centaurs.
Would be interested to hear if you run into any these issues.
