First post, by FFXIhealer
I spent a good 20 minutes performing searches on this forum for information on this BEFORE I created this post/thread, so please be aware that I may not have found the exact answer already here, but I'm posting anyway. Good discussion.
I downloaded Tomb Raider "Gold" (It installed as "Unrestricted Business). It has a software renderer executable and ONE 3dfx renderer executable, but only for Voodoo1 cards.
I have a Voodoo2 card.
Now, I know a number of people have gotten Voodoo1 Glide games to work on their Voodoo2 cards, albeit with a few hiccups here and there. I ALSO know from the afor-mentioned search that people get it working on their Voodoo3 cards using the Voodoo-Rush patch (which I do not currently have). I am asking for assistance in trying to get this to work if I can. If I can't, well that's life.
The current system being used for this "debugging" is my Windows 98 First Edition retro gaming PC. The current specs are as follows:
CPU: 600MHz "Katmai" Pentium III
MB: ASUS P2B (Intel 440BX) Revision 1.02 (AGP 2x, 100MHz FSB)
RAM: 256MB PC-100
AGP: Diamond Viper V770 (nVidia RIVA TNT2) 32MB (using standard Diamond drivers for this card)
PCI: 2x STB V2-1000 Voodoo2 12MB 3D Accelerator cards in SLI (using the FastVoodoo2 4.6 drivers obtained on this forum)
AUDIO: Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 (512KB version) ISA (full native Creative Labs drivers and software installed)
So what I've done SO FAR is to create a BAT file to launch the 3dfx version of the game so I can add environment variables that might otherwise be missing. The following lines are already in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file and run with every boot of the system:
SET SOUND=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
Rem Added for Voodoo2
set SST_GRXCLK=90
set SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4
set SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6
set SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6
set SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1
set SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0
set SST_TMUMEM_SIZE=2
SET GRIP=C:\PROGRA~1\GRAVIS\CORESO~1
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\PROGRA~1\GRAVIS\CORESO~1
This is my Tomb3dfx.bat file says:
SET SST_SCREENREFRESH=60
SET SSTV2_FASTMEM=1
SET SSTV2_FASTPCIRD=1
SET FX_GLIDE_ALLOC_COLOR=3
tomb3dfx.exe
I JUST downloaded Tombrush.exe from Phil's Computer Lab and tried using it with this BAT file (replaced the final line with tombrush.exe) and my system crashed directly to a reboot - like a full blown reboot with memory testing and a C: scan at Windows start and everything. I'll next test using tombrush.exe without that bat file, but I expect similar.
Am I supposed to copy a glide file over to the folder? I'll attempt that as well before I post back. Please, any thought that might help OTHER THAN BUYING SOME NEW CRAP. I really get tired of these on forums - there's always some ass-hat who, instead of trying to troubleshoot or answer a question, they say something stupid like "buy a new video card" or "buy a new motherboard", "buy this..." "buy that..."
Ok, I tried Tombrush.exe by itself - same thing. It restarted the computer.
I also tried disabling my SLI in the control panel, limiting the texture memory space to 2MB, and a few other things in the control panel, but please feel free to suggest things, even if I've already done them.
If I can't get it working on the Voodoo2, then so be it. At 600Mhz, the software renderer is perfectly smooth anyway, just no nice mipmapping, smoothing of textures, image dithering, etc. Would have been nice to have those.
I guess it should also be noted that when I run the BAT (with tomb3dfx.exe), when it tries to execute the SET FX_GLIDE_ALLOC_COLOR=3 line, I get an Out of Environment Space error...or something like that. But the game starts, the opening two videos play, then when it gets to the part the 3dfx card has to activate, I get a black screen with no response and the CD-ROM starts playing track 2 (the background music for the main menu). I can ALT+TAB back into Windows where it says the executable is still running and I can force-close the program from there. I then use Windows CD Player to stop the cd-audio from playing.
Ok, found the Glide2x.ogl file in my C:\Windows directory and copied it to my Tomb Raider folder, then tried the BAT file again - this time instead of being able to ALT+TAB out to Windows, there was NO CD-Audio and I had to CTRL+ALT+DEL 3-4 times to get the system to actually restart.
So...that's where I'm at now. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys can come up with.