Wow, this post has gone through quite a few revisions. 😀 I think topics like this are what the wiki was meant for, sadly no one seems to care about it and that's why such questions keep popping up.
wrote:I think topics like this are what the wiki was meant for, sadly no one seems to care about it and that's why such questions keep popping up.
Yup, none of these people even mention the Wiki.
The overall standard seems to have decreased. I even find myself discussing about how Windows 8 sucks. 🙄 This is not really what this forum should be about. Of course more "serious" topics don't get the attention they deserve, not even speaking about the wiki...
No offense to the OP, just general observations 😀
Well, we could lame it out and tell people to use DriverScannerPro for their FREE driver download, AntiVirus XP 2009 for their FREE Spyware, check, Reinstall Windows XP on a 386 for Better Performance And Compatibility And Driver's And etc...
I don't understand the objection, this is a perfect topic for a discussion forum. It's a personal choice on what video card somebody wants to run on a particular machine. I don't see how it works as a wiki topic.
Ultimately there's no wrong answer, just run whatever card you want to play with.
It's personal if it's a decision based on hardware nostalgia. Like "Oh I want Radeon 9800, because I had it in 2003 and I miss it, even though it sucks in some cases, especially with older games!"
The "best" video card for a machine usually implies "which card will run games best?". There are a lot of facts involved with that question. That's the point of the wiki.
yes and no. Despite the bickering the OP is still better off with any of the half dozen or so primary suggestions than he would be with 90% plus of the other possible cards he might have randomly chosen. There is value in the spot judgments of you experts.
I just see the wiki as a good platform to collect and present the opinions that seem to have established over the years on this forum. Of course there is no absolute and final truth. Still there is really no need to have the same old discussions over and over again. Why list all the same stuff like paletted textures, blah blah each time? Such threads should just be answered with a link to the wiki and that's it.... If there is still something to be discussed than so be it, but my proposition would save some people a few posts 😀
I think part of the issue with that wiki is that there's a lot of missing information that nobody has stepped in to fill yet.
For starters, we need a list of games that depend on paletted textures and other general features that have been removed by newer graphics cards (or their drivers).
We could also list off games that have support for very specific graphics card features, like the 3dfx T-Buffer or ATI's TRUFORM tessellation.
Heh did you even care to look at all pages? 🤣 Not saying that it's complete but that list is on there for quite some time.
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_g … texture_support
I think 3DMark2000 does support the T-Buffer, I recall seeing something referring to it on the screen while benchmarking my V5 a while ago. It does some blur effects in there I think. I doubt any game did support it though. Of course SSAA is done through it as well.
Truform was relatively obscure and buggy I think. There is a list on Wikipedia on it.
I have a personal wishlist of content I'd like to see in the wiki as well, but as I said it many times, requesting something is always easier than going ahead and throwing an article together. 😉
I envy your knowledge of old gaming technologies, deeply. Been learning more a month in this forum than everything I did during that particular period.
wrote:Truform was relatively obscure and buggy I think. There is a list on Wikipedia on it.
I put together a lot of that Wikipedia article. I will put it up on our site.
Radeon 9xxx/Xxxx: fastest, very bad OpenGL support (The last quality drivers are 7.11, all later drivers have severe errors. And even with 7.11 we have the epic negative blending and table fog troubles).
Geforce 5xxx/6xxx: high speed in dx3-dx8, performance gap for d3d9. Excellent compatibility for dx and opengl (I really think FX is the ethalon, 6xxx series just lack the palettized textures support). The only "sort of" opengl question is - no GL_SGIS_MULTITEXTURE support, so - Quake2 is rendered in multipass. 😀
So - use NVidia and forget about lack of compatibility. At least before ATi will shoot all Catalyst team and will create normal drivers from the scratch.
wrote:Heh did you even care to look at all pages? :lol: Not saying that it's complete but that list is on there for quite some time. […]
Heh did you even care to look at all pages? 🤣 Not saying that it's complete but that list is on there for quite some time.
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_g … texture_support
I think 3DMark2000 does support the T-Buffer, I recall seeing something referring to it on the screen while benchmarking my V5 a while ago. It does some blur effects in there I think. I doubt any game did support it though. Of course SSAA is done through it as well.
Truform was relatively obscure and buggy I think. There is a list on Wikipedia on it.
I have a personal wishlist of content I'd like to see in the wiki as well, but as I said it many times, requesting something is always easier than going ahead and throwing an article together. 😉
Holy crap, I have a penchant for missing the most obvious things sometimes...doesn't help that I was mostly focusing on the hardware-related articles, which are still largely incomplete. ESPECIALLY the sound card section, and DOUBLE ESPECIALLY the input devices section. I'd start filling in stuff myself, but my own first-hand knowledge is limited.
Also, there's an article on games with environment-mapped bump mapping. I'm not quite familiar with that particular technique, but I am wondering if Descent 3 uses it or not, seeing as it has some form of bump mapping ("-bumped" command line argument), but it also predates programmable pixel and vertex shaders generally used for bump-mapping in later games. At the very least, I do know that whatever method it is still remains on modern graphics cards (8800 GT, probably GTX 460 too).
Usually, the term "bump mapping" makes me think of the distinct look Far Cry, Doom 3, and a boatload of games afterward had...complete with plasticky gloss sheen. It can't be enabled without pixel shaders, and chances are you won't even be able to run the games at all without support for PS1.1 at minimum, like Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows.
Prolly just that Emboss Bump Mapping which 3dfx cards could do. Btw I thought Descent 3 demo performance sucked on V3 for whatever reason. I generally had bad experiences with Direct3D on that card so far.
By the way, FF7 have a patch for "I'm working without palettized textures" support. 😀 Plus there is Aali's driver.
European Air War can be run through nGlide.
FF8... Strange, I remember finishing this game on something like Radeon 8500. No NEED for palettized textures, just WISH for them? Well, I will recheck this... And again, there is Aali's driver.
Software rendering...?
There were lots of good and not so good patches for FFVII. FFVIII PC is a disaster whichever way you look at it.
No, FF7 patch is d3d. I have used it to finish the game on all my ATi cards. Aali's driver is OpenGL.
Have rechecked FF8 - the game is working in d3d w/o palettized textures support. So - this feature is optional, not "must be" as for FF7.
