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EF2000 for DOS with 3DFX patch

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First post, by Nigel

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Hello for my first message! Has anybody tried to run EF2000 for DOS with the 3DFX upgrade patch, under GLIDOS?

Does it work?

If so please let me know how!

I've run Super EF2000 but it was Win95 and had no 3DFX support.

I'm running a Geforce 2MX chip, Pentium 4 and XP.

I'm using Tombraider 1 and it is now so good I would like to try other games of old!

Thanks!

Reply 4 of 97, by Stiletto

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We've mentioned it before here at VOGONS:
If you're looking for a patch to a game and the manufacturer's site no longer has it, go to The Patches Scrolls first. 😀

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 5 of 97, by Nigel

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The patch was freely available and could only be applied to EF2000 after the Tactcom add-on. It was also marketed as a single product under the name EF2000 Evolution.

I've had the separate CDs for years and the patch had the filename "gfxplus.zip". I still have it though it's 9MB in size. Many computer mag cover disks of about 1997/8 had it.

It would run up to and including Voodoo 3 (with a lot of SST variable tweaking), but best results I had were with Voodoo 2.

If memory serves me I *think* in discussions on the net at the time it was said that it didn't use the Glide2x.* files. It did however read the SST variables. Smokeypoint worked on that.

Reply 6 of 97, by Stiletto

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Nigel wrote:

It did however read the SST variables. Smokeypoint worked on that.

I've been meaning to ask about that. Paul, if a game is trying to set the SST variables via a batch file, etc., or expects them to be already set, are there any corresponding settings that GLIDOS/OpenGlide should alter? Is there any rationale to look into this and/or implement something in GliDOS/OpenGlide to watch for it?

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 7 of 97, by Glidos

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Stiletto wrote:

I've been meaning to ask about that. Paul, if a game is trying to set the SST variables via a batch file, etc., or expects them to be already set, are there any corresponding settings that GLIDOS/OpenGlide should alter? Is there any rationale to look into this and/or implement something in GliDOS/OpenGlide to watch for it?

As far as I know, it is the driver that reads these, and so they make no difference to the behaviour of Glidos/OpenGlide. I guess
there could be useful information in these variables that could be used by a wrapper, but Glidos and OpenGLide don't.

Reply 8 of 97, by Glidos

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Nigel wrote:

I've had the separate CDs for years and the patch had the filename "gfxplus.zip". I still have it though it's 9MB in size. Many computer mag cover disks of about 1997/8 had it.

That's the file Stiletto found. I'm downloading it now. Is this not going to work with my OEM version of EF2000?

Reply 10 of 97, by Nigel

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Well the "gfxplus.zip" file contains an executable called "tactpat.exe" so I'm guessing it only patches the Tactcom upgraded version (all this is still DOS only).

Tactpat.exe is actually 14MB and contains a Rendition patch as well as a 3DFX patch. Strangely they both only patch the files from a Windows 9x environment!

Reply 11 of 97, by Stiletto

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Glidos wrote:

That's the file Stiletto found. I'm downloading it now. Is this not going to work with my OEM version of EF2000?

No idea, I don't own the game.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 12 of 97, by Stiletto

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Glidos wrote:

As far as I know, it is the driver that reads these, and so they make no difference to the behaviour of Glidos/OpenGlide. I guess
there could be useful information in these variables that could be used by a wrapper, but Glidos and OpenGLide don't.

*Adds to To-Do list "Make list of VoodooX command prompt variables"*

A tweaking utility probably has this all done for me... I'll look.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 14 of 97, by Nigel

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Well CDAccess.com list Tactcom. It was plentyful enough in the UK though. It must be available s/h for very little money - finding one ought not be too hard as not many fly this sim these days. Shame it wasn't "abandonware" yet.

Reply 16 of 97, by Nigel

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Well I guess that's only applicable if there's enough demand for Glidos registrations by offering your hard work to get EF2000 to work in 3DFX mode!

Realistically speaking I don't suppose there is. Tombraider etc are probably more attractive to the populous, and TR1 is still available. EF2000 and Tactcom are not.

If no one else has tried to get it working I don't eally think it warrants all your time, effort or money!

It was (still is) a splendid flight sim - especially with the 3DFX patch. Hampered by a max res of 640x400 it still looked great using 3DFX. With my Voodoo2 card I had to "underclock" the chip to get it to work! I'm not actually sure if this worked as I thought but by setting the clock speed to 50 (as per a Voodoo1) with an SST variable, instead of the default 90, it ran.

Thanks for trying though - I appreciated it.

Reply 18 of 97, by Tanyrhiew

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Super Ef2000 is the win95 ddraw only version.

Tactcom was an addon for the DOS version. The 3d patch installed over that. The double pack of the original dos version and tactcom was known as ef2000 evolution. Now you know

I managed to get a copy of ef2000 evolution (its pretty hard to find). If the tactcom bit (it came on a seperate disc) is small enough i will post it somewher for you to get ef2000 working.

I'd like to see ef2000 in all its glide glory as I could never get it to work even when i had a original voodoo.

The campaign is still one of the best around.

excuse the grammer - its getting late 😉