VOGONS


3dfx DOS games?

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First post, by FeedingDragon

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The list here gives, what I'm told, is a complete list of DOS games that have 3dfx patches, or are already 3dfx natively. What I'm wondering is how many DOS games have 3rd party 3dfx patches. Descent II has a 3rd party patch that is better than the one it comes with (and they are both listed in the above link.) Are there others? I could have sworn the Duke 3D had one, but I've since discovered that I was mistaken. The only thing I found was a Windows32 port that uses Direct3D (I believe.)

Feeding Dragon

Reply 1 of 16, by leileilol

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Duke3D had none. The post-2003-source accelerated ports are OpenGL and only OpenGL.

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Reply 2 of 16, by FeedingDragon

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leileilol wrote:

Duke3D had none. The post-2003-source accelerated ports are OpenGL and only OpenGL.

I stand corrected 😀 I wasn't sure what it was, only that it was Windows32 only. So, it's OpenGL and not Direct3D. I'm still wondering if there were DOS games with 3rd party 3dfx patches other than Descent II, though 😀

Feeding Dragon

Reply 3 of 16, by Zup

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Shadow warrior

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Reply 4 of 16, by Gamecollector

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Zup wrote:

Shadow warrior

3dfx patch is official.
IRC there are 2 more "unsupported" 3dfx patches but they are Win32.
Descent and CART Precision Racing.

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Reply 5 of 16, by leileilol

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Battle Arena To Shit Den is another.

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Reply 6 of 16, by Gamecollector

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Why the Battle Arena Toshinden patch is unofficial/3rd party?

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Reply 7 of 16, by leileilol

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Technical support ineligibility.

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Reply 8 of 16, by FeedingDragon

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That doesn't make it 3rd party. The 3D patch for Blood is also ineligible for customer support. 3rd party means it was written entirely by a 3rd party (usually a fan or fans.)

Feeding Dragon

Reply 9 of 16, by boxpressed

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Can you run Descent 2 with the unofficial 3dfx patch from pure DOS? I get a DLL error when I try. Works fine if I start from Windows. Perhaps because I'm using a V3?

Reply 10 of 16, by FeedingDragon

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I got a DLL error message when the OVL wasn't found, with the wrong RAM settings, and if my system was just too fast. I had to either eliminate EMS all together or get 60MB or more, put the correct OVL file in the directory, set a ton of environment variables, and slow my system down to get Blood to run in 3dfx. Until I had done all that, it would always return a DLL error message. Cannot say if that is true for Descent II or not, but the unofficial patch is supposed to be a DOS patch, and is listed as working in DOS with Voodoo 3.

Voodoo 3 list is HERE.

Feeding Dragon

Reply 11 of 16, by vetz

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boxpressed wrote:

Can you run Descent 2 with the unofficial 3dfx patch from pure DOS? I get a DLL error when I try. Works fine if I start from Windows. Perhaps because I'm using a V3?

It's searching for the ovl file in the PATH directory. If this hasn't been set or the ovl file is not located in the game folder its common to get an error like this in pure DOS. The patch is not a statically linked.

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Reply 12 of 16, by FeedingDragon

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I guess, maybe, there weren't any 🙁 A week of searching (Google,) and all I've found are 3rd party patches that require windows. Was there never any documentation available on 3dfx's glide interface?

Feeding Dragon

Reply 13 of 16, by boxpressed

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vetz wrote:

It's searching for the ovl file in the PATH directory. If this hasn't been set or the ovl file is not located in the game folder its common to get an error like this in pure DOS. The patch is not a statically linked.

Thanks. I put the Glide OVL file into the Descent 2 directory, and I was able to get as far as the green text disclaimer page. Then just a black screen, however.

Reply 14 of 16, by filipetolhuizen

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XCar Experimental Racing ran fine for me without the Voodoo 2 patch. It required the batch file, though.
Both GTA and Shadow Warrior ran at 800x600 for me with a Voodoo 1.

Reply 15 of 16, by FeedingDragon

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filipetolhuizen wrote:

XCar Experimental Racing ran fine for me without the Voodoo 2 patch. It required the batch file, though.
Both GTA and Shadow Warrior ran at 800x600 for me with a Voodoo 1.

I always thought that the 640x480 limit was because all but the higher end Quantum3D cards had only 2M of frame buffer memory, and you needed 4M for 800x600.

Feeding Dragon

Reply 16 of 16, by Gamecollector

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FeedingDragon wrote:

you need 4M for 800x600.

For the 800x600 z-buffered mode. IIRC Voodoo1 800x600 w/o z-buffering was used in Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat 3dfx.
There are only 2 DOS games with the 800x600 support: Grand Theft Auto and Shadow Warrior. But maybe this mode is Voodoo2 only...
Voodoo2 is same. 800x600 z-buffered or 1024x768 w/o a buffer. Used in Need for Speed 3/4.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).