leileilol wrote:

True...ish. One edge JK had than Quake's software was the area tinting to simulate colored lighting in certain areas, it's more […]
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swaaye wrote:

I do recall in previews that the JK software mode was touted as having better graphics than Quake software mode and that is definitely true. They weren't even considering 3D hardware at the time though. There was no GLQuake yet.

True...ish. One edge JK had than Quake's software was the area tinting to simulate colored lighting in certain areas, it's more like Duke3D/SW style in that rather. Vertex lighting however was a step back from lightmaps. There's also alpha-mapped windows and water. Jedi Knight also had better model precision with the whole skeletal mesh thing. Some things are virtually matched (particle system and sprites). I recall the intense babbling between the graphics of Q2Test and the JK Demo 😁

Quake had affine texture mapping in software.

I should know a bit from this since i'm trying to juice up Quake's software renderer. 😜

How does Bethesda's XnGine (Daggerfall/Skynet) stack up? Skynet seemed to have better model animation than JK. Can't speak to the texture mapping. It also seemed to run a bit faster, but probably because they were still using sprites everywhere (especially in Daggerfall).

I found another list of s3d games, although I think some are not games:

1S3 ViRGE/DX Game List
2
3        Title                    Companies
4=====================  ============================
5 Stratosphere           Acclaim Entertainment Inc.
6 Mech Warrior 2         Activision
7 Confirmed Kill         EIDOS Interactive
8 Flying Nightmares 2    EIDOS Interactive
9 Terracide              EIDOS Interactive
10 FX Fighter Turbo       GTE Entertainment
11 Actua Golf             Gremlin
12 Actua Soccer           Gremlin
13 Descent II             Interplay
14 Microleague Baseball   Microleague
15 Mega Race 2            Mindscape
16 Demon Driver           Philips
17 Destruction Derby      Psygnosis
18 Havoc                  Reality Bytes
19 Rocket Jockey          Rocket Science
20 Terminal Velocity      Terminal Reality
21 Brender                Argonaut
22 3D FX                  Asymetrix
23 Web 3D                 Asymetrix
24 Pioneer                Caligari
25 Pioneer Pro            Caligari
26 True Space 2           Caligari
27 Render Ware            Criterion
28 Stereo VR              Media Synergy
29 VR WorkShop+           Media Synergy

HunterZ wrote:

How does Bethesda's XnGine (Daggerfall/Skynet) stack up? Skynet seemed to have better model animation than JK. Can't speak to the texture mapping. It also seemed to run a bit faster, but probably because they were still using sprites everywhere (especially in Daggerfall).

XnGine was disgusting. Poor Z handling and also the clipping issues is horrible 🙁 Whatever Bullfrog's terrain engine was for Magic Carpet/Hi Octane/Dungeon Keeper/Syndicate Wars was *WAY BETTER* than that XnGine stuff. Infact Magic Carpet is legendary for its uncanny-for-1994 ahead-of-the-damn-time software renderer, I really wish EA released the source code to *that*.

Magic Carpet dazzled my eyes and was a blast to play. how could Bullfrog go so wrong with High Octane?

Because Hi-Octane was a spare time project there? Same with Tube. Way back when games were made just for the hell of it!

I am testing an S3 Virge card. It's the "original" Virge; 325 chipset. It's by Number Nine. General image quality seems quite good. Also, I like the look of the card.

What is the vga pass through good for?

VESA feature connector. You could get various expansion cards for video cards back in the day, like MPEG decoders. They were very rarely used though.

The card is a Number Nine Reality 332. (press release) I see a typical Number Nine hidden PCB message. Looks like "She Loves You" for this card. 😁

swaaye wrote:

I see a typical Number Nine hidden PCB message. Looks like "She Loves You" for this card. 😁

Just out of curiosity, where do you see these "hidden messages"?

Top right edge of the card. It's slightly visible in the pic.

🤣 😁

Holy shit I just realized that the entire Number Nine brand is based on Beatles stuff. All these years I thought to myself "man what a weird company name." Only after familiarizing myself with the entire Beatles catalogue that am I finally now capable of bridging the disconnect.

"Number Nine"

"Revolution"

"Ticket to Ride"

"She Loves You"

...all Beatles song titles or lyrics.

One of their 1995 video cards had a "♫ When i'm sixty-four ♫" message on their BIOS startup too. Forgot which though

leileilol wrote:

One of their 1995 video cards had a "♫ When i'm sixty-four ♫" message on their BIOS startup too. Forgot which though

Hehe. The BIOS POST screen on this Virge card I am testing says:

9FX Reality 332 ... is all you need

Every #9 card that I've had has had a little BIOS message and a quote in the PCB. Fun goofy stuff like that is always welcome.

Even neater when they put it inside the chip. (scroll down a little for the cool stuff)

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html

And Happy Thanksgiving!

Files to convert Mechwarrior 2 Win95/Pentium version to S3 Virge edition
Mech2_S3_files.7z

Any idea if the S3 Virge patch for Terminal Velocity works on any of the Virge chips? Tempted to find a GX2.

Can the 3d acceleration be done in real dos?

TV didn't recognize my Virge GX. So I have a feeling that it will only run on the original Virge and maybe the Virge VX.

The game runs pretty well on the original Virge anyway though.

What did you use? GX on PCI?

Only GX2 i've seen on ebay is AGP.

Thanks for trying it out!