I thought there was a Direct3d driver for NV1, most games fails because of no z-buffer though.

I did some more digging and found a Edge3D v2.30 driver that does indeed have D3D support.

http://www.connectworld.net/iecnet/Downloads/ … vers/ACC7210-2/

Known Limitations […]
Show full quote

Known Limitations

Direct3D applications that access the EDGE 3D HAL drivers may demonstrate
some problems. There are quality issues with the accelerator. The EDGE 3D
technology was designed for SEGA games like Panzer Dragoon and Virtua
Fighter. These games were designed before Direct3D and subsequently they
use a different method for 3D graphics texture mapping called quadrilateral
forward texture mapping. This method is only somewhat compatible with
Direct3D. For this reason, Direct3D titles sometimes demonstrate anomalies
while rendering which appear as cracks between polygons or dropped pixels.
The best way to work around these rendering artifacts is to use the Direct3D
HEL layer drivers: the RAMP and RGB emulation drivers.

The Direct3D HAL layer is not available in 8 bit per pixel modes. Most
applications automatically use the RAMP and/or RGB emulation drivers
in 8 bit per pixel mode which works on the EDGE 3D DirectDraw drivers.

How is this even possible!?
Can you capture a couple of videos? Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight would be awesome to try out 😜

swaaye wrote:

I did some more digging and found a Edge3D v2.30 driver that does indeed have D3D support.

http://www.connectworld.net/iecnet/Downloads/ … vers/ACC7210-2/

Known Limitations […]
Show full quote

Known Limitations

Direct3D applications that access the EDGE 3D HAL drivers may demonstrate
some problems. There are quality issues with the accelerator. The EDGE 3D
technology was designed for SEGA games like Panzer Dragoon and Virtua
Fighter. These games were designed before Direct3D and subsequently they
use a different method for 3D graphics texture mapping called quadrilateral
forward texture mapping. This method is only somewhat compatible with
Direct3D. For this reason, Direct3D titles sometimes demonstrate anomalies
while rendering which appear as cracks between polygons or dropped pixels.
The best way to work around these rendering artifacts is to use the Direct3D
HEL layer drivers: the RAMP and RGB emulation drivers.

The Direct3D HAL layer is not available in 8 bit per pixel modes. Most
applications automatically use the RAMP and/or RGB emulation drivers
in 8 bit per pixel mode which works on the EDGE 3D DirectDraw drivers.

The word is "quadratic" not "quadrilateral".

F2bnp wrote:

How is this even possible!?
Can you capture a couple of videos? Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight would be awesome to try out 😜

Yeah I want to try it. From the readme it sounds like this was a long shot.

swaaye wrote:

F2bnp wrote:

How is this even possible!?
Can you capture a couple of videos? Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Knight would be awesome to try out 😜

Yeah I want to try it. From the readme it sounds like this was a long shot.

This happened when I tried to run Shadows of the Empire (see attached screenshots). Game crashes right after "Shadows of the Empire" logo, right before you enter the menu.

Maybe try a game that uses an older D3D version, like Hellbender or Monster Truck Madness.

Those two games actually worked.

Made a very quick video on youtube: http://youtu.be/ZOstiHUk_EM
Also included a comparison with the D3D on a rendition card.

Monster Truck Madness is a little bastard of a game. Did not want to listen to 3DCC for D3D device and thus I had to pull out my Voodoo and PowerVR card to get it to run on the NV1...

Does also someone else notice how much better the rendition parts sound? That is because those segments are recorded with the Aureal Vortex2 card, and the Nv1 parts the NV1 itself are doing the sound.

Wonder if it's possible to use something like 3D Analyze or something along those lines to force more apps to run?

Crap. Perhaps Jedi Knight will run though, it was less hardware demanding that Shadows of the Empire which was released a year earlier. For example, I'm fairly certain SotE not only required 3D Hardware, but would refuse to run on an S3 Virge and Matrox Millennium II/Mystique. In contrast, these cards run Jedi Knight fine.

F2bnp wrote:

Crap. Perhaps Jedi Knight will run though, it was less hardware demanding that Shadows of the Empire which was released a year earlier. For example, I'm fairly certain SotE not only required 3D Hardware, but would refuse to run on an S3 Virge and Matrox Millennium II/Mystique. In contrast, these cards run Jedi Knight fine.

On Shadows of the Empire

According to Wookipedia

"The PC version of the game supported a special set of 3d graphics drivers and filters and therefore had very peculiar graphic cards requirements, more than any other LucasArts game of its time. Even now its requirements are incompatible with recent hardware."

And here's a list of supported cards from Tom's games

Graphics Card: 3D Accelerated PCI Graphics card required.
Currently supported 3D cards: ASUSTek
3DexPlorer 3000, Canopus Pure 3D, Canopus
Total 3D, Canopus Total 3D 128v, Creative
Labs 3D Blaster, Deltron RealVision Flash3D,
Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro, Diamond Monster 3D,
Diamond Monster 3D II, Diamond Stealth II S220,
Diamond Viper 330, Hercules Stingray 128/3D,
Intergraph Intense 3D 100, Intergraph Intense
3D Voodoo, Matrox M3D, NEC Apocalypse 3Dx,
Orchid Righteous 3D, STB Velocity 128 as well
as other cards supported by the following
chipsets: 3Dfx Voodoo Rush, 3Dfx Voodoo II,
Rendition Verite 1000, Rendition Verite 2100,
Rendition Verite 2200, NVidia Riva 128,
Permedia 2, NEC PowerVR PCX-2 or other chipsets
with similar or better performance.

http://www.jeuxvideopc.com/patch/bugs-1670.php

Surprisingly, Tom's says that a P-90 is required for Voodoo graphics while a P-120 is required for the other video cards in the list. Does the Voodoo really offload that much work from the CPU that it can run the game on a CPU that is so much slower than the rest?

Back on topic, I don't think there's any way in hell an nv1 card runs this game at all even using a D3D wrapper.

I got my Edge3D 2120 to run Hellbender along with PCPlayer D3D Bench and the old simple MS Direct3D Fillrate/Geometry benchmark app.

It appears to have image quality like you'd expect, with depth fighting because of no zbuffer, texture mapping perspective errors, and no filtering. But it does work. Software mode of Hellbender looks better though.

The MS D3D bench app's tunnel test measured about 7 megapixels/sec fillrate. 😀 Default feature settings with no z buffer.

swaaye wrote:

It appears to have image quality like you'd expect, with depth fighting because of no zbuffer, texture mapping perspective errors, and no filtering. But it does work. Software mode of Hellbender looks better though.

To those that wonders how Hellbender looks on the NV1, I posted a youtube video of it in my earlier post, but it seems most missed it: http://youtu.be/ZOstiHUk_EM

vetz wrote:

To those that wonders how Hellbender looks on the NV1, I posted a youtube video of it in my earlier post, but it seems most missed it: http://youtu.be/ZOstiHUk_EM

Sorry I missed your reply on that. Thanks for putting up a video!

F2bnp wrote:

Crap. Perhaps Jedi Knight will run though, it was less hardware demanding that Shadows of the Empire which was released a year earlier. For example, I'm fairly certain SotE not only required 3D Hardware, but would refuse to run on an S3 Virge and Matrox Millennium II/Mystique. In contrast, these cards run Jedi Knight fine.

No option to turn on accelerated mode in the setup menu in Jedi Knight (Demo). Does not seem to register the card properly. The game does run in software mode, but it is sluggish on the NV1.

Interesting info found on Google Groups:

From Computer Retail Week - Feb. 3/97:
TOP-SELLING 3D ACCELERATOR BOARDS AT RETAIL

July - November 1996

1##  Company                           Product
2
3 1  Diamond Multimedia                Edge 3D 3400XL, 4MB, PCI
4 2  Diamond Multimedia                Stealth 3D 2000XL, 2MB, PCI
5 3  Diamond Multimedia                Stealth 3D 2400XL, 4MB, PCI
6 4  STB Systems                       Velocity 3D, 4MB, PCI
7 5  Creative Labs                     3D Blaster Game Card, 2MB
8 6  ATI Technologies                  3D Xpression+ PC2TV, 4MB
9 7  Number Nine                       3D 64-bit Video Card
10 8  ATI Technologies                  3D Xpression+ PC2TV, 2MB
11 9  Diamond Multimedia                Stealth 3D 3000, 4MB
1210  Diamond Multimedia                Monster 3D Add-in PCI

Aggregated data represents approximately 30 percent of U.S. retail
market. Source: PC Data, Reston, VA.

Looks like the Edge 3D wasn't the biggest fail we may have been led to believe, but this only shows the product in its last period of sale and the 3400XL was later sold with a huge bundle and reduced price.

Huh? And 3D Blaster VLB on 5th place... where are those cards now. Then again In July - November 1996 there weren't much clues which chip will be the good buy.

Just because the Edge3D sold well initially, doesn't mean it was any less of a fail. It still used a rendering technology that the rest of the industry rejected so it was doomed from the start as it would have been difficult for game developers to support both quadratic and triangle rendering in their games.

Putas wrote:

Huh? And 3D Blaster VLB on 5th place... where are those cards now. Then again In July - November 1996 there weren't much clues which chip will be the good buy.

Pretty sure those numbers include the PCI version which had been on the marked since October.

Just because the Edge3D sold well initially, doesn't mean it was any less of a fail.

Yeah, but I was more thinking of a marketing/selling perspective. I know that the card itself didn't show it's potential in 3D (all supported games does not use the card to its full potential. Most are converted triangle games, except for the SEGA Saturn ports which are built for quads, but with no use of QTM which was the main feature to increase fidelity and performance.) and the DirectX along with DOS VGA/SVGA performance sucked. The sound and MIDI portion of the card is actually decent for its time.

vetz wrote:

Putas wrote:

Huh? And 3D Blaster VLB on 5th place... where are those cards now. Then again In July - November 1996 there weren't much clues which chip will be the good buy.

Pretty sure those numbers include the PCI version which had been on the marked since October.

Only if stated memory capacity is wrong.