Dege wrote:
Man, you really seems to be a big fan of this wrapper! 😁 Thanks.
Of course I am...😉 How could I *not* be? You've gone to the trouble to write the wrapper and are still supporting it, so I think it would be very rude of me *not* to be a fan!...😁 I've corresponded with many folks who like dgV2 a lot and they've got me itching to to get it running. Thanks to you for taking the trouble and time to write and support the wrapper! I well remember those days when *all* my 3d games were Glide games and when the boxed screen shots were also grabbed from Glide. In one sense it seems like yesterday--in another, like ancient history...😉 I think these wrappers are important! (And I just like having them around!)
Let's wait a minute! KQ's 2d menus are rendered with either DirectDraw or Glide. If you select 3Dfx Glide in the Graphics submenu for the rendering then it switches to that immediately so you cannot enter from DDraw 2D to Glide ingame. I mean, it seems that 2d rendering works for you with dgvoodoo2.
Yes! Bad choice of words on my part--I should've said Glide software mode (2d)...😉 Yes, the 2d rendering when running in Glide renders exactly as it should under all the versions of dgv2 I've tested.
Yes, I have no doubt about that Win8 is basically a good system. I just don't like its look that's why I haven't upgraded. I don't like this forced integration of desktop and tiled metro UI and the lack of nice aero glass window borders. Also, each time I wanted quickly to click on the start button on Win8, I always felt as if I wanted to spring up from the chair but suddenly realized that I had no legs. 😀
No kidding! I really didn't think I was going to miss the start menu--that really makes me laugh at myself, as I turned out to really miss it--that vertical/side-scrolling monstrosity called a "start screen" with its dumbed-down options and so much wasted screen real estate made me *nuts* to get back the simplicity of the start menu--from which I could do *everything* I wanted from a single page--the desktop--no scrolling required. The start "screen" (that really should be plural) is just a hideous desktop, imo...😉 Classic Shell version 4.04 works really well with 8.1.x, though, and allows me to to turn off all the "charms" and hotspots, if I want (I want.) I leave the "start screen resident but I never actually use it for anything. (I'll have to think about why I'm doing that.)
This has got to be really embarrassing for Microsoft... Latest '014 spring update blog I read from them explicitly states they are bringing the start menu back to *8* RSN. Yea, great--but why have they taken so long? I'm sure you've noticed all the musical chairs going around inside the company--with the people at the very top who green-lighted Win 8's "Modern" or "Metro" or whatever they want to call the touch ui--now either permanently gone from the company (Sinofsky) or else banished to quarterly board meetings (Ballmer.) Also, Gates is coming back in a day-to-day capacity as "assistant" to the new CEO. Interesting times--but at least they aren't waiting until "Windows 9" to put a start menu back in for those of us who want it. Or, so they say. We'll see, right?
One thing I do like a lot about Win8 is the built in mounting of .iso's. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but really it is transparent in use--just right-click for a context menu on any .iso file and the first option available is mount....😉 It works really well and truly brings out the kludginess of Daemon tools, imo (which I had used since way back for the same purpose.) You can mount the .iso and run it--just as if it was a physical disk in a drive, install from it, etc. That's one other thing I didn't think would amount to much with Win8, but from which it turns out I get a lot of use! Go figure! (I wonder if I know my own computing habits as well as I think I do, sometimes...😉)
Anyway, if Microsoft ever gets 8 right so that it will appeal to us high-density mouse & keyboard folks (probably, oh, what, 95% of Microsoft's current installed Windows base?), it might just start selling much better. I prefer it to 7x64, but that's only after I worked to make it fit my habits and preferences--and I do think it was worth the $39.99 I paid to buy the Pro upgrade from 7x64, direct from Microsoft when they had that introductory sale for Win8! But compared to Win7 overall, I don't think it's worth another *penny* beyond that $39.99 price I paid for it back in Jan of '13...😁
They've done some weird stuff all around in '013. Lots of weirdness about giving folks stand-alone .iso images of Win8/8.1, too--want folks to go through that horrid Windows store mess...! Arghhhh, but that is awful. Anyway--I've gotten legitimate .iso's for 8 through Technet and then 8.1 through MSDN--but why Microsoft wants to make that so convoluted for its regular audience and market beats me!
OK, 'nuff said I guess about Win8. I like it a bit better than 7, but with several caveats, as you can see...!
Starting from a Windows update, DirectX SDK became part of the Windows7 (or 8?, can't remember now) SDK. I myself also used the old 2010 June version, it was the latest substantive version. But then a Windows update came and the DX11 debug layer didn't work anymore with that SDK version (not to mention DX9 64bit debugging) so I had to install the latest Windows SDK to get it to use again... 😒
Thanks for the info--I *always* enjoy hearing about details like this!
I think I'm going to compile a debug version of dgvoodoo using the DX11 debug layer. And then, by running DebugView, you could send me back the debug output to see what happening
It'd be my pleasure. Let me know when and what.
I think that there is a small bug somewhere in the ATI drivers but it works well generally with other applications otherwise. So it can be treated as a dgVoodoo problem. One ATI bug was revealed when I first tried this wrapper on ATI: GPU queries does not survive buffer swapping while it worked well with nVidia and Intel.
For the moment my 3D pixelshaders are the suspect. I don't know why but it seems as if the ATI driver (a given version, or for a given chip architecture) couldn't translate their bytecode to its own form and they didn't run. They are too long, or something...
Sounds very good! I remember way back in '02-'03 that ATi talked about using the maximum instruction length permitted by the early shader models, but don't know if that would have any bearing here, of course.
Thanks for the interesting conversation, Dege, and as I say, if you're game then I'll be happy to help any way I can!