VOGONS


Reply 101 of 133, by VirtuaIceMan

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Tuxality wrote:
@spiroyster: Yes, I'm aware of the issues that comes from the unified interface, but they are relatively easy to overcome with n […]
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@spiroyster:
Yes, I'm aware of the issues that comes from the unified interface, but they are relatively easy to overcome with no or (at most) negligble performance cost.

As I've made my statement at the beginning of this topic, this wrapper may and probably will be opensourced but only after making it stable and useful enough. Although, there will be SDK released with documentation that will allow anybody to implement easily their own renderer for most of my wrappers, let it be for SGL or S3DTKW. Oh and don't count on releasing this on hipster code hostings. 😉

@VirtuaIceMan:
Is Moon Racer at least good game and worth getting to run? I've got it to boot on my first version of my wrapper, although with null rendering because it does use most of the high-level API that I have mostly not implemented yet. Also I've checked it and I can confirm that it still does run with the latest version of my wrapper but of course with null rendering, so it should be not that hard although a little time consuming to get it going. Of course I'm talking about the demo of this game. 😀

Moon Racer demo seemed very easy, but is was something a bit different with the low gravity, I seem to recall. I believe the full game only had 3 tracks. Oh, the old days of arcade racers, when that was enough!

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 102 of 133, by VirtuaIceMan

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I just bought a copy of Moon Racer, so will help however I can!

p.s. I was actually in touch with the former CEO of Virtuality KK who made Moon Racer (and Revolte), who I was hoping could help me locate a copy, then one appeared on eBay!

I hope one day the wrapper might show some graphics for it, 🤣...

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 103 of 133, by Myloch

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VirtuaIceMan wrote:

I hope one day the wrapper might show some graphics for it, 🤣...

Don't hold your breath 😉

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 104 of 133, by Tuxality

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Myloch wrote:
VirtuaIceMan wrote:

I hope one day the wrapper might show some graphics for it, 🤣...

Don't hold your breath 😉

Oh, come on! 😈

Ok, so there is another delay, great... I'm really sorry for that, believe me or not but I'm too angry at myself... real big this time, real life sucks. Anyway, I would like to thank people that have sent me messages regarding my wrappers and other projects. 😀

I just wanted to write this post because I would like to inform you that my website may/will be probably temporarily unavailable so I don't want people to think that I've passed on this. 😀 It's just that the VPS my friend is loaning to me will be taken down and I'll need to setup my own server in order to host things which will happen as soon as possible. Also domain probably will be changed, but there is possibility that it will remain. 😀

Of course I'll release wrappers (for now SGL and S3DTKW only) but I don't really know when. Alpha preview is almost complete (sadly no Moon Racer for now, although I've written partial code in order to support this game, there is high probability that it will be supported too). The problem is that I've discovered some bugs on newer AMD Radeon GPUs that breaks blending related stuff on them in my wrapper so I need to fix that before release. It's actually some sort of the old fixed-pipeline based OpenGL implementation bug, it didn't happened on older and newer NVIDIA/ATI cards, so I'll probably move my renderer implementation to newer API.

I would just like to know how much you are interested in running this on older PC and how much in running this on newer PC with newer APIs (like for example DirectX 11)? Then maybe I can ditch this old API, because I don't think that I'll get good DirectDraw wrapper on top of old OpenGL without PBOs and other stuff and using old API with several extensions doesn't make any sense. Of course there still will be possibility to implement another renderer for my wrappers with use of SDK that will utilize old APIs, but I want to know what is more important to you.

Reply 105 of 133, by spiroyster

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It would be awesome to have these games on more modern hardware. Won't the game executables need some aditional patching though? Not too sure any of these games (powervr versions) were tried on anything other than a platform with a powerVR card. Pre Win2K basically? I couldn't get my Apocalypse3D to work on my win2k box when I last tried? Or has this landscape changed?.

In what capacity/context do you need PBO's? Is this a performance thing or are you rendering stuff client-side to then composite in a frame?

Reply 107 of 133, by Tuxality

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spiroyster wrote:

Won't the game executables need some aditional patching though?

Sadly some of them needs to be patched. The worst game I can think of is Mechwarrior PowerVR Edition, I've tried to patch it but without success. Only got it to that 2D animated menu then after selecting mission it will immediately launch "mission successful" summary screen. Aaaand that's about it. Maybe after releasing alpha preview I'll try to get in touch with UCyborg as it seems that he is quite good at this stuff and maybe he can help me debug this. 😀

spiroyster wrote:

I couldn't get my Apocalypse3D to work on my win2k box when I last tried? Or has this landscape changed?.

That's because there are no Win2k drivers for PCX1/PCX2/Neon250 cards.

spiroyster wrote:

In what capacity/context do you need PBO's? Is this a performance thing or are you rendering stuff client-side to then composite in a frame?

Both, keep in mind that some of the games are updating part of the frame (for example 2D overlay) by utilizing pure, raw CPU power then blitting this with use of host GPU. Sometimes they use pixelformat that is really slow on old GPUs and even newer on plain old OpenGL. The only thing I can think of is making conversion on the fly before doing data movement or doing this on the fly.

leileilol wrote:

Demul seems to be doing DX11 well with its PVR2 emulation including the familiar common PowerVR post-dither table. Closed source though

Yes, I'm aware of that, but they are doing PVR2 emulation rather than API wrapping and this is a little different. SGL API is not that low-level and some things (most of them) are postprocessed by PowerVR drivers after passing data from SGL before sending this to real GPU unit. So, while this still somewhat apply to PowerVR wrapper it doesn't matter that much in terms of visual compatibility or whatnot. When it comes to compatibility and getting the feel of original PowerVR unit, I'm more interested in my PowerVR PCX2 emulation project. 😉

Reply 108 of 133, by Myloch

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Tuxality wrote:

I would just like to know how much you are interested in running this on older PC and how much in running this on newer PC with newer APIs (like for example DirectX 11)?

I'm all for new PCs: the possibility to crank framerate and resolution to maximum levels (à la Dgvoodoo2). Destruction derby S3 literally screams for better fps or hires.

No moonracer huh? What about Purevex demo?
Enabling support for it will hopefully convince the few owners out there to spread full version.

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 110 of 133, by Myloch

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leileilol wrote:

Is craving warez all you care about in a warapper?

I care about playing the full version. That's why I spent a lot of money, time and patience during last few years to search and buy rare/obscure games, feel free to PM me if you find an auction or a seller for that game. 😈

Other than that, I crave about playing old games in all their potential and full glory, that's why I really love and support wrappers like nglide or dgvoodoo2. I really wish good luck to Tuxality for his future work.

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 111 of 133, by VirtuaIceMan

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Yeah, I'm hoping he doesn't lose heart, I'd like to one day try Moon Racer again, without having to buy an old PC and PowerVR card 😀

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 112 of 133, by VirtuaIceMan

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This has gone very quiet 🙁

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 113 of 133, by Myloch

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VirtuaIceMan wrote:

This has gone very quiet 🙁

Story repeats itself 🙄
You should definitely consider the idea to make a team or sharing source code, this would *maybe* boost wrapper development. Just my 2 cents heh...

Same for S3 wrapper.

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 114 of 133, by RaVeN-05

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Sorry for bumping. I also interested in all that wrapper(s). Nice work Tuxality!!!
You really know for now about:
GLCIF, GLRAGE and very very big thanks for fans who collecting wrappers -> http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/wrappers/files/3DCIF/
S3D emulated big thanks for PCem developers =)
PowerVR there is SGL.DLL in game Fifth Element minGL for 3dfx? http://www.zeus-software.com/files/nglide/fifth_patch.zip maybe it can be helpful for reverse enginering it?
I am sorry to mention HeXen II: Continent of Blackmarsh again, but its PowerVR (not asking, i have it already but 1.10 version, would be cool to obtain even older version 1.08 but... i am talking about other things for now =)) )
there is OpenGL32.dll that actually minGL to SGL, fan fact if you replace it with opengl32.dll from retail game it will work in 3dfx mode, but it cant use opengl32 from OS.
Dreamcast sources can be helpful or mame?

by wrapping NV1 you probably can do force bilinear filtering option, to make game even nicer. Sega Saturn emulators probably can be helpful, or mame.

For me there is list games that can not be played in full "glory" (i think you know what i mean):

Creep Clash
IceHawk 
Sento 

Euro 96
IndyCar Racing II / CART Racing
Rebel Moon
SODA Off-Road Racing (but i think this game can be saved Rendition (RRedline) wrapper to Glide developers??? )

Tank Commander

Moon Racer
Nirgends ( 虚空漂流ニルゲンツ )
PureVex 
CyberTroopers: Virtual On

The other games can be founded on other platforms or use other available API for now.

read more -> http://www.zeus-software.com/forum/viewtopic. … 51c346cc4#p7672

and yes there is many DOS titles and i guess this video cards need to be emulated, coz no possible to wrap?

in attachments is things, how i see it, nice to be have emulation for Matrox Impression, 3D Blaster PCI, Paradise Tasmania 3D, only these 3 cards.

Matrox Impression is coming to me
3D Blaster (CGL) dont have it =( but have S220 rendition card.
Paradise Tasmania 3D don't have it.

i thinking its almost not possible to find these 2 card. Also PowerVR cards is really Expensive =0

i have:
Matrox Impression? , Matrox Millennium, ATI 3D Rage, S3 Virge, Rendition Verite, S3 Savage3D.
So i thinking on connect retro PC to internet and setup some remote controlling apps like TeamViewer, so developers can find out how they work .
Sorry for long post , my head overrun with that stuff, need to share trough. =)))
I thinking i said everything i want for now =)

Attachments

  • Filename
    Proprietary APIs (1).xls
    File size
    50.5 KiB
    Downloads
    84 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

https://www.youtube.com/user/whitemagicraven
https://go.twitch.tv/whitemagicraventv

Reply 115 of 133, by Myloch

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I heard that s3d pcem emulation is slow as s**t though.

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 116 of 133, by RaVeN-05

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also in vogondrivers specs exist with defenition registers for video card verite:

http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … &menustate=17,1
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … &menustate=17,1

This is very nice if you look in any category there is lots of documentation's
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=5&menustate=1,0

Update: Paradise Tasmania 3D chip registers Yamaha YGV611 & YGV612

Matrox Impression registers http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/component … 61f8101f4685b4b

SDK PowerVR http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … &menustate=16,1

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Reply 117 of 133, by kjliew

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Sorry for necromancing an old thread as I really hope to see the light of SGL wrappers one day, even the last binary alpha release is fine. They used to be available for download from Tuxality website before they were taken down abruptly. With QEMU MESA GL pass-through, it may be possible to run SGL wrapper within QEMU Win98SE guest and provide a completely new experience for PowerVR SGL games with the prowess of modern CPUs that the games had never seen before.

I would love to see Mechwarrior 2 31st in action with fog and better view distance in action from the PowerVR version.

Can anyone please re-post the SGL wrapper if you happened to download the binary alpha releases from Tuxality website before they were taken down? I hope Tuxality do not mind them being re-posted.

Reply 118 of 133, by RaVeN-05

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Well great idea, unfortunatelly i dont have those files too =((
i maybe have one file , is for compatibility layer a wrapper from SGL to SGL2 , so PowerVR 250(Neon 250) video card can handle SGL games better, also i know that SGL2 used in Sega Dreamcast and on some MAME source codes, because there is some Arcade games uses SGL2.
I have Matrox M3D Accelerator its SGL, so i can do test if needed.
Also need to deep examine vogons forums, i remember i saw PowerSGL wrapper development subforum, from another guy not Tuxality.

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Reply 119 of 133, by RaVeN-05

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Found it on my computer
http://raven-05.narod.ru/PowerVR2/SGL2_Test-A1.zip
also some unusual sgl.dll that is from worldcup98
http://raven-05.narod.ru/PowerVR2/worldcup98/sgl.dll
and from fifth element look previous posts here
i fear its all what i know here, never seen PowerVR wrapper/emulator my self , but i seen on forums and on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/user/whitemagicraven
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