First post, by vetz
- Rank
- l33t
There are loads of games that promised support of 3D acceleration using proprietary APIs, but were never released as advertised. The majority (I believe) are listed in my proprietary 3D acceleration list here on Vogons. Many of these games were only once or twice mentioned in press releases or had a rumour floating around on the internet and probably never had working demos/ports at the developer. They dwindled into oblivion.
I've made this list to showcase the games which had ports that I know or believe existed in some form or another with 3D acceleration support for the mentioned chipset/card. Not much is known, but I've tried to piece together from what is found on the internet.
The list:
- Mechwarrior 2 on Nvidia NV1
One of the unreleased port we know alot about. Thanks to this interview.
- Descent on 3D Blaster VLB
Another port that most likely existed at some point. The most interested bits on information is this comment here:
I found porting Descent to the 3D Blaster, which uses 3Dlabs' technology, to have been easy and straightforward. The initial port took only 1 week. You can now run Descent at 640x400/15 bit color with excellent frame rates on a 486/66 based machine.
- Jay Patel, technical director at Interplay October 1995
It was also featured in the 3D Blaster VLB commercial with video footage. Unfortunately it is impossible to tell if the clips were from the 3D Blaster VLB or just regular software mode.
It was also announced in press release by Creative:
In addition, Creative expects more than 20 new games from hot developers soon to be available including titles such as...."Descent" from Interplay
- Rave Racer on PowerVR
See my Youtube video of it which covers the the known info and footage about this port to PowerVR and the PC. After the video was made public a former Videologic employee contacted me and told me the demo was still in existence, but it required the prototype Midas 1 or Midas 2 cards to run.
- Nascar Racing on Rendition Verite
This could all be talk about the sequel, but nothing is mentioned of that in the press releases. It is possible that a port of the original NASCAR Racing was made to show its potential on the Rendition Verite, but since the release of the V1000 card shifted from Q1 1996 to Q4 1996 they switched to releasing the sequel with support instead.
Our initial port of NASCAR Racing(TM) to the Rendition Verite demonstrated our future Rendition Ready titles will deliver quality and performance most industry insiders believed would be impossible ...
Source: -J. David Kaemmer, vice president, Papyrus Design Group, Inc. November 1995
"The performance and quality of our NASCAR RACING game on Number Nine's board has gone way beyond anyone's expectations for what was possible on a PC platform," said David Kaemer, vice president, Papyrus Design Group. "With the gaming market so cost-sensitive, the architects of this platform really did a tremendous job in picking all the right features and performance enhancements that will really make a huge difference in 3D games. We could hardly believe how exciting NASCAR RACING became when we first ran it on the 9FX Reality 3D. I think our customers are going to be even more excited."
Source: -David Kaemer, vice president, Papyrus Design Group. November 1995
According to this source it was also showcased on E3 in 1996.
- Daytona USA on Nvidia NV1
EDIT: Daytona USA on NV1 confirmed to exist (Japanese retail release and bundled with a third party NV1 card). What is written below was before this knowlegde.
Listed on Nvidias NV1 site as a OEM / forthcoming title and as released with support in a Nvidia press release on 6th of May 1996. Though this should not be taken as proof as the Mechwarrior 2 version which never came out (see above) are mentioned in the exactly same way on the Nvidia website/press release. What is encouraging with the port being mentioned in the same way as Mechwarrior 2 is that we have proof that a Mechwarrior 2 port did in fact exist, making the chance for the Daytona USA info to be true.
One person over at Assembler games mention this game running on the NV1, but he also speaks about Virtua Fighter 2 (which has to be VF: Remix). An explanation is that he could've mixed up Nascar Racing and Daytona USA. It is not bundled with the Diamond Edge 3D 3400XL, and I have found no proof that a special OEM version was bundled with any other brand.
The funny thing about the 6th of May press release is that the game didn't ship in retail until October of 1996. Most of the files on the retail CD along with press reviews confirm this. The retail version readme.txt file only claims support for the Saturn NV1 controller, but this only works if the controller is added as a Windows joystick. The game does not support the joystick natively like the other NV1 Sega games. Another point is that the retail release does not have any .dll files or any other indication (mentions in readme, double installers, etc) as Virtua Cop has, another Sega game that was released in retail with NV1 support.
In my opinion, support was probably included at some point of development, but it was pulled before release. It is unknown if they had a working demo as the other games on this list. In many regards the story from the Mechwarrior 2 NV1 port could be true for this game as well. The team maybe found out that the NV1wasn't the future and rather set to work on a Direct3D patch (which ended up being released for Daytona USA Deluxe). Nvidia also announced Direct3D support on 4th of March 1996 (which turned out to be useless when released), but with no Z-buffer support which the Direct3D patch required there were no way to run the game in accelerated mode on the NV1.
