vorob wrote on 2021-11-19, 11:32:

I've installed Catalyst 10.2. I'll try 7.xx driver but it can be tricky since it's a laptop card and such old driver maybe won't work even with modding.

No problem, it was sufficient to see how the fog looks under WinXP. This confirms what the TTLG forum people have been saying, table fog renders correctly on ATi cards under WinXP when drivers 7.11 or newer are used.

From what I can see in your screenshot, ATi's fog rendering under WinXP perfectly matches the 3DFX, Nvidia and Matrox cards. This is significantly better than what can be achieved using registry tweaks under Win98.

I don't understand. If FFVIII has dirty interface it means card is not displaying 8-bit palette colors properly, right?

Yes, that's the direct result of not having 8-bit paletted texture support.

But Thief works perfectly.

The stars in Thief do not use paletted textures. According to TTLG forums, they are always missing on Nvidia hardware, but that's a separate issue. I've already confirmed that the stars render correctly even on cards which don't support paletted textures, such as my Matrox G400, so it's no surprise that they show up fine on ATi as well.

And other games from my list on nvworld.ru work perfectly.

It's best not to assume that a game uses paletted textures unless you see it specifically mentioned in the game options, or somewhere in its manual and readme file, or in an external config program. So far, Final Fantasy 7 (unpatched), Final Fantasy 8 and Forsaken are known games where we have clear confirmation that paletted textures are used. Also, with regards to paletted texture support, a distinction needs to be made between the following categories:

• Category 1 - games that simply won't run in 3D accelerated mode on cards without paletted texture support. Example: unpatched Final Fantasy 7
• Category 2 - games which do run in 3D accelerated mode on cards without paletted texture support, but have visual distortions as a result. Example: Final Fantasy 8
• Category 3 - games where paletted textures are an optional feature which can be used on cards that support it, but the rendering engine can utilize other texture formats as a substitute on cards which don't support paletted textures. Example: Forsaken

Most games on your list probably belong to categories 2 and 3.

I wonder if there are also color anomalies in FF7 but they are of such low resolution to be indistinguishable. They may have originally been meant as a performance optimization that ended up as a casualty in FF8 if it is in fact responsible for color problem.

Textures were used sparingly throughout FF7 when compared with FF8 for things like interface elements and polygon surfaces.

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-11-19, 22:09:

I wonder if there are also color anomalies in FF7 but they are of such low resolution to be indistinguishable. They may have originally been meant as a performance optimization that ended up as a casualty in FF8 if it is in fact responsible for color problem.

Perhaps there are some parts of FF7 (not necessarily tied to the UI) where the lack of paletted textures makes a visible difference as well, and we just haven't found them yet.

Likewise, it's possible that the menu in FF8 is not the only place where such differences are present. It was just the one instance which particularly stood out for me.

wuser wrote on 2021-09-08, 22:00:

Does anyone know how Kyro/Kyro II handles Thief II?

G200 PCI shows TableFog in Shadows of the Empire but seems not to support pal-textures.

How does the G200 render menus in Final Fantasy 8?

More on the Kyro, Here's Dino Crisis. The fence looks properly blocky for the alpha channel while the RGB is filtered, and the text looks fine. There is no paletted texture support, so i'm 100% anticipating that Final Fantasy VIII will look as crappy as the others (especially when dithering's forced off by the game, nullifying Internal True Colour™️).

I like the dithering on the Kyro. The clouds in the Thief 2 screenshot look great.

Regarding paletted textures, I'm starting to wonder if there are any cards aside from 3DFX (all) and Nvidia (GeForce 1-5) which support this feature.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-12-30, 08:06:

Regarding paletted textures, I'm starting to wonder if there are any cards aside from 3DFX (all) and Nvidia (GeForce 1-5) which support this feature.

Would me much shorter to name cards without some support for palleted textures.

SiS 651 has no paletted tex support either.

I doubt they would drop paletted textures so soon- it is SiS 315 tech.
SiS 305 certainly does support them, but there are compatibility issues with Thief 2.

I didn't have any problems with Thief II stars on most cards while I think lately I've never seen its fog working.. maybe back in the old times but most early AGP cards I'm testing seems to not work with it. Even the fog emulation in Riva drivers I think didn't make any differences or it should work?
Still this game it's heavy and not easy to find a perfect config to play on (maybe the Kyro II I'd agree). Interesting the Rage IIC can run it at slow fps (like 15fps) @ 400x300 low details but without gfx errors (but the fog not working of course).

I have to mention that Kyro 2 DOES have a secret "EnablePalettised" switch but it just makes corrupt gray everything for FF8 in both the oldest and newest drivers.

What are the latest cards that support the early 3d-features?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-01-14, 12:22:

What are the latest cards that support the early 3d-features?

The GeForce FX line, aka GeForce 5.

leileilol wrote on 2022-01-14, 11:18:

I have to mention that Kyro 2 DOES have a secret "EnablePalettised" switch but it just makes corrupt gray everything for FF8 in both the oldest and newest drivers.

Is there any difference running at 16-bit colors?

Trident Blade3D test:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-14, 13:02:

dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-01-14, 12:22:

What are the latest cards that support the early 3d-features?

The GeForce FX line, aka GeForce 5.

any ATI, MATROX, or intel IGP ?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-01-14, 18:02:

any ATI, MATROX, or intel IGP ?

Matrox and ATi both lack paletted texture support, based on currently available information and testing.

Not enough data on Intel, as of yet.

386SX wrote on 2022-01-14, 17:51:

Trident Blade3D test:

Looks great, cheers!

It's interesting how the budget oriented Blade 3D has proper paletted texture support, while much more expensive Matrox cards from the same time period don't. The lack of table fog on the Blade 3D is somewhat surprising though.