VOGONS


First post, by Parni

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Im struggling to find a solution so again I'm turning to the Vogon community 😀

I have installed GTA1 in Win95 but it launches only in SW-render mode, how the hell can I get it to launch in 3D-accelerated mode and utilize my Voodoo1?

You may wonder why I want to run in in Windows and not DOS mode, well the readme file explicitly mentions that the Sidewinder gamepad doesn't work in DOS mode. And I have a Sidewinder gamepad I would like to utilize.

Is the 3D acceleration only available in DOS mode?!?!? Seriously?

Please HELP! 😀

Last edited by Parni on 2022-01-28, 13:01. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 43, by Parni

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Hezus wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:00:

The Voodoo card doesn't use Direct X, but rather it's own Glide API. If I recall correctly you have to load the special 3dfx version executable to play the 3fdx version.

I can't find a 3dfx patch/executable for win anywhere, googled several hours 🙁

Last edited by Parni on 2022-01-28, 17:11. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 4 of 43, by Hezus

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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:09:

Googling a bit more, I found one comment in a old thread that the Glide acceleration is really available only for DOS ?? Can it be ???

Yes, this is quite likely. Around the time GTA came out, many games were still released primarily for DOS. The "Windows version" often only consisted of a shortcut to the dos executable.

Visit my YT Channel!

Reply 5 of 43, by chinny22

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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:09:

Googling a bit more, I found one comment in a old thread that the Glide acceleration is really available only for DOS ?? Can it be ???

Yep, Remember D3D and Glide are competing api's

Dos never really had a standardised acceleration api this page lists the varies ones that did exist with Glide been the most successful therefor most supported
3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)

DirectX made life simpler for developers, program your game for D3D rather then however many proprietary api's and became the defacto acceleration method pretty quickly.
This is why the Voodoo 3 and up also support D3D in addition to glide

Reply 6 of 43, by Meatball

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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:09:

Googling a bit more, I found one comment in a old thread that the Glide acceleration is really available only for DOS ?? Can it be ???

I own the Classics Collection Collector's Edition release version from 2004.

The Readme says:

Voodoo Graphics (3Dfx) Users
----------------------------
GTA supports 3Dfx Glide 2.42 and higher. Voodoo Graphics users must have
this updated version of Glide installed on their system.
Note that we recommend 32MB of RAM to run 3DFX GTA.

Last edited by Meatball on 2022-01-28, 13:41. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 8 of 43, by Meatball

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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:34:

So there is no way to run 3d acceleration and use sidewinder gamepad ?

I don't know; you probably need to install the Sidewinder software so you can program the buttons (for Windows). However, if you can get ahold of the 2004 version (which you can find in Archive.org), you can use the Sidewinder without a lot of fuss. In fact, it won't let you run the game without running setup first. When you run "GTA Settings.exe," you can pick "Sidewinder Game Pad" button, and it will automatically map the buttons.

This version runs on Windows 98 SE and later. DirectX 8.1

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Last edited by Meatball on 2022-01-28, 13:49. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 10 of 43, by Meatball

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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:49:

Im running win95 OSR2.5 🙁

You can always try, if you have DirectX 8 installed. (This version still might not be enough since it is not 8.1... but it doesn't matter sometimes. The Doom Collector's version requires DirectX 8.0a, but it installs and runs just fine on Windows 95 DirectX 6.1 - I have done this many times before.)

Otherwise, another option is to pick up a Gravis GamePad Pro.

Reply 11 of 43, by Parni

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Meatball wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:44:
Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:34:

So there is no way to run 3d acceleration and use sidewinder gamepad ?

I don't know; you probably need to install the Sidewinder software so you can program the buttons (for Windows). However, if you can get ahold of the 2004 version (which you can find in Archive.org), you can use the Sidewinder without a lot of fuss. In fact, it won't let you run the game without running setup first. When you run "GTA Settings.exe," you can pick "Sidewinder Game Pad" button, and it will automatically map the buttons.

This version runs on Windows 98 SE and later. DirectX 8.1

Yes I can map the sidewinder in windows, but 3D acceleration only available on dos where no sidewinder support. The windows launcher always launches in sw-render mode

Reply 12 of 43, by Parni

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The thing that puzzles me are what it read in the readme file:

Voodoo Graphics (3Dfx) Users
----------------------------
GTA supports 3Dfx Glide 2.42 and higher. Voodoo Graphics users must have
this updated version of Glide installed on their system. To install the
updated Glide runtime driver kit, run the grtvgr.exe file in the 3Dfx
folder of the GTA CD.
Note that we recommend 32MB of RAM to run 3DFX GTA.

Sidewinder Control Pad - In DOS GTA
-----------------------------------
The Microsoft Sidewinder pad is not compatible with DOS GTA. However, it
can be used with Windows (DirectX) GTA.

So is there a way to launch it in D3D (DirecX) mode in Windows and have the goddamn Sidewinder also working? 😀 Voodoo1 is Direct3D 5 compliant)

Reply 13 of 43, by Parni

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In the readme file the following is stated of DirectX:

Windows Drivers ( Grand Theft Auto DirectX )
---------------
GTA DirectX will only work correctly if you have the latest Windows 95 Direct
X Microsoft-certified driver for your video card. Your video card vendor
should be able to supply this.

Some of the latest versions of drivers will allow the use of
High colour / Low resolution screen modes (recommended). An example of this
is the Matrox Millenium.

I have the installed latest DirectX for win9x and the latest diamond voodoo1 drivers, still starts in sw-render mode..

However can one assume the game supports both glide and d3d?

Reply 14 of 43, by darry

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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 16:46:
In the readme file the following is stated of DirectX: […]
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In the readme file the following is stated of DirectX:

Windows Drivers ( Grand Theft Auto DirectX )
---------------
GTA DirectX will only work correctly if you have the latest Windows 95 Direct
X Microsoft-certified driver for your video card. Your video card vendor
should be able to supply this.

Some of the latest versions of drivers will allow the use of
High colour / Low resolution screen modes (recommended). An example of this
is the Matrox Millenium.

I have the installed latest DirectX for win9x and the latest diamond voodoo1 drivers, still starts in sw-render mode..

However can one assume the game supports both glide and d3d?

DirectX does not necessarily imply Direct3D. In this case, I would guess that neither Direct3D or Glide is supported (based on my interpretation of the README).

Reply 16 of 43, by Parni

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BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:03:

As far as I know, DOS version supports Glide and non-Glide.

Windows only supports DDraw (DirectX)

This is what I thought also, Now the question turn in to why doesn’t my voodoo1 wake up?

Reply 17 of 43, by Azarien

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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:03:
Hezus wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:00:

The Voodoo card doesn't use Direct X, but rather it's own Glide API. If I recall correctly you have to load the special 3dfx version executable to play the 3fdx version.

I can't find a 3dfx patch/executable for win anywhere, googled several hours 🙁

Forget Windows, run the DOS version 😀
In my copy of GTA, there are 3 executables in gtados directory:

GTA8.EXE - 256 color version
GTA24.EXE - truecolor version
GTAFX.EXE - Voodoo accelerated version

and there's also "GRAND THEFT AUTO.EXE" in gtawin directory. This one doesn't work for me ("Cannot find the default display mode"). But GTA8 and GTA24 work fine under DOSBox. They look slightly different, GTA24 being more colorful.
For GTAFX I use DOSBox-Daum. This fork of DOSBox is buggy and not supported anymore, I probably should migrate to DOSBox-X but I never managed to make Glide work in DOSBox-X.
Glide emulation is provided by nGlide which simply needs to be installed in the system. And it all works.

Reply 18 of 43, by Parni

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Azarien wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:55:
Forget Windows, run the DOS version :) In my copy of GTA, there are 3 executables in gtados directory: […]
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Parni wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:03:
Hezus wrote on 2022-01-28, 13:00:

The Voodoo card doesn't use Direct X, but rather it's own Glide API. If I recall correctly you have to load the special 3dfx version executable to play the 3fdx version.

I can't find a 3dfx patch/executable for win anywhere, googled several hours 🙁

Forget Windows, run the DOS version 😀
In my copy of GTA, there are 3 executables in gtados directory:

GTA8.EXE - 256 color version
GTA24.EXE - truecolor version
GTAFX.EXE - Voodoo accelerated version

and there's also "GRAND THEFT AUTO.EXE" in gtawin directory. This one doesn't work for me ("Cannot find the default display mode"). But GTA8 and GTA24 work fine under DOSBox. They look slightly different, GTA24 being more colorful.
For GTAFX I use DOSBox-Daum. This fork of DOSBox is buggy and not supported anymore, I probably should migrate to DOSBox-X but I never managed to make Glide work in DOSBox-X.
Glide emulation is provided by nGlide which simply needs to be installed in the system. And it all works.

As I explainen earlier, I would like not to run DOS Glide (GTAFX.EXE) because then I cant use my Sidewinder gamepad, however according to the readme file it support also DirectX and I would like to run the Windows executable so that it detects my voodoo and run the game in directdraw mode and have both 3D acceleration and use my sidewinder gamepad.

I’m using the real deal equipment (233MMX,128mb,S3 Trio64+Voodoo1,SB16)