First post, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman
- Rank
- l33t
Inspired by this thread.....
Well I just wonder; what are the 3D accelerators you ever owned besides Voodoo series and TNT2? Did you actually try such obscure things like Diamond Edge 3D (NVidia NV1) or Creative 3D Blaster (3D Labs Permedia)?
I still remember reading the July 1996 issue of Computer Gaming World tough.... I was actually more interested in Rendition Verite than Voodoo. I can still cite the paragraph:
RENDITION VERITE
Rendition is a new company focused on delivering a complete graphics solution for fast game play. We had the opportunity to see gameplay with VERITE, and what we saw looked good. Rendition was showing IndyCar 2, and the Quake graphics engine, both tuned for the Verite. IndyCar 2 played very well on a Pentium 100 with all rendering features enabled. Walls looked very good close up thanks to texture filtering and MIP mapping, and the cars looked great as well.
Of course, during that time, I was still completely ignorant (and too much optimistic) on how 3D accelerators actually work. Of course there are games specifically made for specific 3D processor, but magazine advertisements being put by S3 and the likes gives false impression that a 3D accelerator will accelerate every DOS and Windows title you have.
How stupid I was! I was mistakenly thinking that texture mapping calculations for games like Jane's ATF and Duke Nukem 3D was performed by video card instead of CPU --totally oblivious to the fact that games need to support particular 3D API or particular 3D chip in order to get accelerated. That's partly the reason why I was crazy about Rendition Verite, because I took the following paragraph the wrong way:
Mechwarrior 2 for Windows 95, which uses Microsoft's DirectDraw API, ran very smoothly on the Pentium 100 --easily comparable to a Pentium 133 runnning one of the quickest Windows 2D accelerators available.
But after I seen a friend's Rendition Verite (it was Creative 3D Blaster PCI) running games in Mode X, I changed my choice to Matrox Mystique. Again, I was still a fool here --mistakenly thinking that the smoothness of hi-res (640x480) 3D games is more influenced by the drawing speed of video card instead of the speed of texture mapping calculation performed by the CPU. Thus, I happily bought Matrox Mystique --hoping that it will boost my Pentium 100 when playing games like Top Gun: Fire At Will or Jane's ATF, while still not realizing that what I need is an upgrade to Pentium Pro!
Well, Mystique-bundled games like Mechwarrior 2 and Scorched Planet runs in 640x480 pretty smoothly, but not as smooth as I actually expected. There was absolutely no changes in non-supporting 3D games like Jane's ATF, of course. MDK is a non-bundled games, but it supports Microsoft Direct3D API, so I tried it as well. It ran pretty smooth, but no smoother than running with software renderer! Moreover, it actually looked worse than software rendering because Mystique does not support Alpha Blending, i.e, no transparency!
So that's how I learned how 3D accelerators actually work --the hard way.
I eventually upgraded the CPU while desperately looking for 3D games (especially flight-sims) that support Direct3D to make use of my Matrox Mystique. Too bad, most games were using GLide during that time, and Voodoo is still the only working 3D accelerator out there (the rest are decelerator. After several months, I eventually gave up and got a Voodoo 2. It was then I finally experienced all the glory of 3D accelerator. Whew!
But it actually marked a turning point in my life, because it was then when I decided to stop being a "layperson" and start to be an enthusiast. Well, at least to some degree (I was still a poor university student at that time so money was the biggest limiting factor).
Any stories to share?
Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.