VOGONS


First post, by clueless1

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With Voodoo2 SLI. I already applied the 3.22 patch which supposedly fixes Voodoo2 crashes. Prior to the patch, it would freeze in the menus, now after applying the patch the menus work fine, it only freezes when I hit Start to start the race. If I use the -OnlyPrimaryDisplay switch to force my Matrox G100, it works fine. I've tried other switches, but no luck so far. Also tried disabling SLI in the driver, that didn't help. Using the latest official Voodoo2 Win98 driver.

edit: this is weird. The game works great using the Matrox G100. Some stuff (shadows) does not look like it should, but overall it looks better than expected considering it's a G100. I wonder why it freezes with the Voodoo2? Using Patch 3.22 which supposedly fixes all issues with Voodoo2. 😒

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Reply 1 of 15, by Davros

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try different voddo drivers

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Reply 2 of 15, by clueless1

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@Davros - thanks.

Any driver recommendations? My cards are from Creative Labs and are matched. Currently using latest reference driver (3.02.02). I could try official Creative drivers (which are older than what I'm using) or I could go with one of many versions of FastVoodoo2. Any suggestions from anyone?

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 3 of 15, by Davros

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Sorry mate its a bit of a lottery and even then it may not fix the problem
iirc moto racer isnt a glide game so its not a glide problem

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Reply 5 of 15, by clueless1

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Thanks for the responses. Right now everything else runs great and I don't feel like experimenting with driver versions for one game, especially since it runs well on the Matrox G100. I'll leave it be. 😀

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 6 of 15, by trisoret

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I'm having the same exact problem but with one voodoo 2 card in my sytem, and I'm also disabling D3D from the options menu... no go.

Any solutions yet?

Reply 7 of 15, by AngieAndretti

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Five years later... same exact problem. I can force the game to run on my GeForce card using the -OnlyPrimaryDisplay switch, same as the original poster, but the game isn't smart enough to deal with a 32-bit color depth on the desktop so it crashes out unless we switch to 16-bit colors manually before launching the game. It works but it feels so clunky. Also it would just be so much cooler to have it running on the Voodoo2's!

Please post if you've ever gotten this to work!

... or, as a fallback, is there a way to tell Windows 98 to switch to 16-bit color, launch the game, wait for it to exit, and then switch back, all with one click?
I've tried batching it but I cannot get the batch to wait until the game exits before trying to revert the color settings.

Reply 8 of 15, by Davros

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try timeout "X" in your batch file
or
PING localhost -n "X" >NUL (if your dos has a TCP/IP client)
or
CountDown.exe "X"

"X" = a number
(and 1 to the number of seconds you want in ping)

countdown.exe and sourcecode
https://www.robvanderwoude.com/files/countdown.zip

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Reply 9 of 15, by AngieAndretti

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Davros wrote:
try timeout "X" in your batch file or PING localhost -n "X" >NUL (if your dos has a TCP/IP client) or CountDown.exe "X" […]
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try timeout "X" in your batch file
or
PING localhost -n "X" >NUL (if your dos has a TCP/IP client)
or
CountDown.exe "X"

"X" = a number
(and 1 to the number of seconds you want in ping)

countdown.exe and sourcecode
https://www.robvanderwoude.com/files/countdown.zip

I appreciate that but don't all those solutions require that we specify a specific amount of time for the delay?
Problem is we don't know how long I'm going to play the game for, so we need a way to detect when the game exits and only then restore the original color depth.

Reply 10 of 15, by AngieAndretti

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Davros wrote:

try different voddo drivers

... I tried this too, out of curiosity. I ran through all Voodoo2 reference drivers in sequence, from 1.02.50 up to 3.02.02. The older drivers show a bit of texture glitching whereas newer ones do not - but they all crash in the same way at the same time, when clicking the "Race" button.

I'm really surprised by that. I mean, there must be some configuration that works... They must have had it working on a Voodoo2 test bench back in the day, in order to specifically mention that the 3.22 patch corrects crashing seen with the Voodoo2. WTH?

Reply 11 of 15, by AngieAndretti

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OMG! I got it to work!! ... on the Voodoo2's!

Here are all the steps that were required:
1. Patch the game to version 3.22 (there's a link to the patch earlier in the discussion)
2. It may be just me, but I also had to install a No-CD hack because after the game was patched it always claimed the CD was not inserted.
3. Launch the EXE with the following switches: -3DFX -NoPal256
The -Alpha switch also helps things look better IMO, as does setting D3D from "ON" to "Filtered" in the game's options screen. I still haven't found a way to correct texture imperfections under the bike's rear wheel, and with skid marks, but the alpha switch makes this less distracting at least.

This was found to work on a Voodoo2 SLI system using reference driver version 3.02.02, 640x480 screen resolution in-game.

Reply 13 of 15, by Chadti99

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Just wanted to say thanks. This got me running!

Reply 14 of 15, by biessea

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AngieAndretti wrote on 2019-11-02, 12:04:
OMG! I got it to work!! ... on the Voodoo2's! […]
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OMG! I got it to work!! ... on the Voodoo2's!

Here are all the steps that were required:
1. Patch the game to version 3.22 (there's a link to the patch earlier in the discussion)
2. It may be just me, but I also had to install a No-CD hack because after the game was patched it always claimed the CD was not inserted.
3. Launch the EXE with the following switches: -3DFX -NoPal256
The -Alpha switch also helps things look better IMO, as does setting D3D from "ON" to "Filtered" in the game's options screen. I still haven't found a way to correct texture imperfections under the bike's rear wheel, and with skid marks, but the alpha switch makes this less distracting at least.

This was found to work on a Voodoo2 SLI system using reference driver version 3.02.02, 640x480 screen resolution in-game.

I did the same but I have SLI of Voodoo2 of 8MB each one.

When the game loads I wait until the game on 3d appear but it says me "not enough video memory D3D mode not available". And the games runs without filtering.

It's strange cause I have 4MB for texture in each video card...perhaps it works only in a 12MB Voodoo2 cards with those switches.

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Reply 15 of 15, by ntalaec

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biessea wrote on 2024-05-27, 12:57:

When the game loads I wait until the game on 3d appear but it says me "not enough video memory D3D mode not available". And the games runs without filtering.

Try to press Ctrl+F during gameplay, get back to the menu, enable direct 3d filtered and try to load the game again.

There is a know problem with big font size under some configurations and some hardware. I'm not sure if it's your case.