V. Did Activision ever make Rendition or nVidia specific versions of MechWarrior 2?
Rendition: […]
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V. Did Activision ever make Rendition or nVidia specific versions of MechWarrior 2?
Rendition:
As far as the original 3D Enhanced versions go, the answer is - no -, there was no "VMechWarrior 2."
Rendition Verite (V1000) based cards* were released just before the original Voodoo Graphics cards came out and were a pretty good 3D performers [for a 2D/3D board], though not up to the Voodoo level. Some probable reasons for the lack of a Rendition port of MW2:
1) Rendition had a hardware accelerated version of Quake ("VQuake") to include with their new cards, something no one else could claim ( not even 3Dfx**). Quake was a huge hit among gamers and if you wanted a cool 3D version, the only option at the time wasyou had to have
2) The card/chipset makers paid good money for these specific 3D ports of games and were only willing to put so much money into their software bundles. Rendition had choosen the path of Quake as their big name investment and didn't want to pay for a MW2 port.
3) Lastly, all the PC 3D Enhanced versions of MechWarrior 2 were made for Win95 based native 3D API 's, to ensure acceptable performance (early D3D performance being questionable at best, especially w/ early Verite drivers). The problem? Surprisingly, Rendition did not have a Win95 3D API ready at the time! (One notes their choice, VQuake was DOS based). You were basically left with programing for the DOS "Speedy3D" API and as mentioned above, these were only Win95 3D ports and with that the V1000's fate was sealed for this game. Of course if Rendition/Sierra/Creative, etc. paid a huge amount of money to Activision, I'm sure they could have accommodated them with a DOS Speedy 3D port. (A version that would have been nice to see @ 640x480 with anti-aliasing). Rendition's Win95 Native 3D API "RRedline" was not released until the Spring of 1997, by which time Activision had moved on and already started preliminary work on what would become the Titanium Edition.
The MW2 Titanium editions, released in the Spring of 1998, did finally offer some level of RRedline support, though I never could find any details, aside from Activision's basic information stating that it supports RRedline and finding a "zredline.dll" file in the plugin folder.
* For the record, the main video boards using the Rendition V1000 were the Sierra Screamin' 3D, The Intergraph Reactor 3D (later renamed the Intense 3D 100), Creative Labs 3D Blaster PCI and the Canopus Total3D.
** GLQuake was not out until early 1997 and Mr. Carmack himself has stated (in Boot magazine and elsewhere) that it was *not* made for 3Dfx, but for his work station, but it turned out that the Voodoo cards where the only consumer level boards available [at the time] that were able to run GLQuake at an exceptable level.