feda wrote:

It won't work in an emulator either.

Tsk tsk, that's not helpful.

So you tried XP in vmWare and VirtualBox? Did you enable 3D acceleration as necessary? Or does the game not work in XP, period?

Tried in XP in vmware and virtbox with 3d accel properly enabled. The result was either a total freeze or the screen kept flickering so bad that playing is out of the question. Also tried in 98, no dice 🙁

Oh, and I tried Microsoft's emulators too, both the old one and the "XP mode" one.

If that particular game supports Glide, a wrapper will always be a better option than fighting with different Direct3D versions, Windows Vista/7 incompatibilities, VMWare/VirtualPC/VirtualBox configuration and so on. But you must first make sure that the game actually supports Glide.

If the game executable is statically linked to a glide library, it will be listed in the DLL import table. Use Anywhere PE Viewer or a similar tool to view the import table: http://www.ucware.com/apev/index.htm (needs JRE).

If the game is dinamically linked to a glide library, its filename will appear in a LoadLibrary(Ex) or GetModuleHandle(Ex) API call. Open the executable file and look for "glide2x.dll" and "glide3x.dll" strings. There are dozens of suitable HEX editors to open binary files, just pick up one and go.

Panzer Commander don't use glideAPI. Unfortunately.

Indeed, there are no such strings in the exe. One wonders why it was listed here, then: Windows Glide Games List

Perhaps a 3dfx edition was released, but is now lost? All versions I've encountered are D3D.
Here is an indication that this could be true: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ci … L500_AA300_.jpg

Now if we could only find this lost edition, if it exists at all....🙁

One more mysterious indication. The patch 1.3 readme states: "Fixed: New VoodooII 3Dfx driver startup crash." If the game doesn't use glide, why is this mentioned?

feda wrote:

Indeed, there are no such strings in the exe. One wonders why it was listed here, then: Windows Glide Games List

Because that's just an unofficial list posted many years ago with lots of errors.

feda wrote:

Perhaps a 3dfx edition was released, but is now lost? All versions I've encountered are D3D. Here is an indication that this could be true: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ci … L500_AA300_.jpg

The 3dfx logo means nothing. It was usually added for the coolness factor.

feda wrote:

One more mysterious indication. The patch 1.3 readme states: "Fixed: New VoodooII 3Dfx driver startup crash." If the game doesn't use glide, why is this mentioned?

It refers to the D3D driver. 3dfx cards also support D3D and OpenGL.

Ah, OK. Getting an old PC is the only way, then 🙁

Not the only way, you can also try with an older card in a modern system. But yes, a retro system is still your best option, at least until we can have perfect software emulation of 3dfx hardware in DosBox, and/or hardware accelerared Win9x sessions under virtual machines.

What VM supports DirectX hardware acceleration under win98?

RoyBatty wrote:

What VM supports DirectX hardware acceleration under win98?

No one.

DOSBox with gulikoza glide patch is the only one that supports hardware acceleration with Windows 9x.

batracio wrote:

Not the only way, you can also try with an older card in a modern system.

By putting a PCI or AGP card into a PCI-Express slot? 😁
Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I do have an old Pentium 3 machine lying around, but the AGP slot is busted and the integrated GPU is too slow, I think. Can anyone tell me what's the most powerful video card for PCI? Maybe I can find one somewhere.

Edit: Actually, I do have free PCI slots in my modern PC, of course! Old PCI video cards probably wouldn't work in W7, but I could dual boot with XP. Hmmmm!

feda wrote:

By putting a PCI or AGP card into a PCI-Express slot? 😁 Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Yes, that would be wonderful. But you can also put a PCI card into a PCI slot, or a PCI-e card into a PCI-e slot. Not so wonderful, but works. Really.

feda wrote:

I do have an old Pentium 3 machine lying around, but the AGP slot is busted and the integrated GPU is too slow, I think. Can anyone tell me what's the most powerful video card for PCI? Maybe I can find one somewhere.

For a Pentium 3, I would say a Voodoo5 PCI. Prepare to pay $100 or more. A GF4 MX PCI or a Radeon 9000 PCI would be cheaper and easier to find.

feda wrote:

Edit: Actually, I do have free PCI slots in my modern PC, of course! Old PCI video cards probably wouldn't work in W7, but I could dual boot with XP. Hmmmm!

Don't forget Radeon X1300/X1550//HD2400/HD4350/HD5450 and GeForce 6200/7300/8400/8500/9400. All of them have both PCI and PCI-e models, but finding a Windows 7 driver may be troublesome. I think the oldest graphics chipset with official Windows 7 support is Matrox G550 PCI-e, the latest member of Matrox G400 series (1999). If the driver has D3D and OpenGL support, it could be the ultimate "Very Old Card On New System".

batracio wrote:

If the driver has D3D and OpenGL support, it could be the ultimate "Very Old Card On New System".

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=56613

Shit.

batracio wrote:

batracio wrote:

If the driver has D3D and OpenGL support, it could be the ultimate "Very Old Card On New System".

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=56613

Shit.

I'm not sure you would even want a Matrox card in a vintage gaming rig or a modern system that runs vintage games. They weren't very fast, even in the days of the G200 and G400. They were always known more for their sparkling crisp 2D quality and for being the first cards with dual head capability but they didn't hold that distinction for very long. Their 3D performance was always lacking compared to most of their competitors. Then after the Parhelia disaster, I think they probably lost whatever gaming fans they still had.

You can use Windows 2000 and Windows XP drivers in Windows 7. 7 supports both XPDM and WDDM driver models.

DosFreak: Thanks, I'll see if I can get 98SE to install in that build.

gamecollector: judging from the last few posts I've seen you make, they are generally negative and contribute nothing to the thread you're replying in, or otherwise completely useless... do you have anything useful or positive to say?

RoyBatty wrote:

DosFreak: Thanks, I'll see if I can get 98SE to install in that build.

gamecollector: judging from the last few posts I've seen you make, they are generally negative and contribute nothing to the thread you're replying in, or otherwise completely useless... do you have anything useful or positive to say?

There's one other member who does that. He lurks, waits until he sees someone post something that pisses him off, then he zooms in and makes a series of insulting posts to the thread then you don't see him again for weeks or months. Very rarely has anything useful to say, just likes to insult people. I wish the mods would boot him. I'm sure he knows who he is and if he's reading this he'll chime in soon enough.

sliderider wrote:

I'm not sure you would even want a Matrox card in a vintage gaming rig or a modern system that runs vintage games. They weren't very fast, even in the days of the G200 and G400. They were always known more for their sparkling crisp 2D quality and for being the first cards with dual head capability but they didn't hold that distinction for very long. Their 3D performance was always lacking compared to most of their competitors. Then after the Parhelia disaster, I think they probably lost whatever gaming fans they still had.

OK, but the point is to make the game work, not to get optimal performance. I wouldn't care much about speed if the game shows major graphic artifacts or it does not run at all. I would only care about compatibility and stability. And G400 MAX was not that bad, by the way. Only TNT2 Ultra performed better in D3D (OpenGL was another story). I replaced a G200 with a G400 MAX in my 440LX rig, and both were perfect matches for my Voodoo^2 SLI.