BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-11-04, 10:49:

Just to rule out any differences you confirm if table fog is working in NFSHS from the screenshot (and that it is not reverting to pixel fog by magic)? The game is usually very foggy and it's difficult to figure out a difference...

The track from the demo version of NFS:HS did use table fog. I haven't tested the full version of the game, but I imagine it would behave the same way.

That said, there are also some Win9x games which have a fog effect, but it is not rendered via table fog. An example of this would be Moto Racer 2. It's also possible that there are other games which do use table fog, but also have a fallback mechanism which can switch to vertex fog if the graphics card doesn't support table fog.

In any case, the games that are listed on that wiki page have been confirmed to use table fog exclusively, and have no fallback mechanism on unsupported cards. If such a card (e.g. ATi Radeon) is used to play one of those games under Win9x, the fog will not be rendered.

3DMark 99 also has a fog effect on the racetrack of the first benchmark. It must be using something other than table fog as well.

I just noticed that Ancient Electronics made a very nice video covering paletted textures, table fog and this forum thread as well. 😀

His experiences with the Rage 128 Pro are interesting. That card has dedicated options in the drivers for enabling paletted textures and table fog, but neither of those features worked when he was testing actual games. I wonder if maybe using older drivers could have made a difference?

Did anyone else encounter similar issues with the Rage 128 Pro? I don't have that card, and I'm not particularly interested in acquiring one.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-11-04, 18:26:

His experiences with the Rage 128 Pro are interesting. That card has dedicated options in the drivers for enabling paletted textures and table fog, but neither of those features worked when he was testing actual games. I wonder if maybe using older drivers could have made a difference?

I observed this with a few other products from different companies. I suspect some more complex software issues.

I happen to really like the Rage 128 Pro as a great budget card for retro gaming. The thing they bothers me the most about it though is the terrible 16-bit dithering. It truly ruins an otherwise good all-around card.

That dithering's how ATI rolled until the R300. It has its charm as being the only vendor in town to not do it exclusively ordered/patterned.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-11-04, 20:20:

I happen to really like the Rage 128 Pro as a great budget card for retro gaming. The thing they bothers me the most about it though is the terrible 16-bit dithering. It truly ruins an otherwise good all-around card.

If you have one, can you do the Final Fantasy 8 and Thief 2 tests on it? For paletted textures and table fog, respectively.

I think Ancient Electronics used the latest reference driver from 2001. If you have access to older drivers, I'd be interested to see if that changes anything.

leileilol wrote on 2022-11-04, 20:28:

That dithering's how ATI rolled until the R300. It has its charm as being the only vendor in town to not do it exclusively ordered/patterned.

You can change it to pattern in the display panel to pattern. It's a terrible implementation of it, though. The screen door effect is especially bad.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-11-04, 20:28:

If you have one, can you do the Final Fantasy 8 and Thief 2 tests on it? For paletted textures and table fog, respectively.

I think Ancient Electronics used the latest reference driver from 2001. If you have access to older drivers, I'd be interested to see if that changes anything.

I believe someone already looked at the Rage 128 Pro for these games.

Alright then, I will base the Rage 128 Pro compatibility tests on the video that Ancient Electronics posted. He begins testing that card around the 35 minute mark and seems to be using the latest reference drivers version 4.13.7192 from October of 2001. All screenshots are taken directly from that video.

Rage 128 Pro driver control panel

Evidently, the Rage 128 Pro drivers offer dedicated settings for utilizing paletted textures and table fog. These settings were properly turned on during the tests (he clarifies this in the video comments).

Final Fantasy VIII configuration program

The Rage 128 Pro fails the paletted texture check on the graphics configuration screen.

Final Fantasy VIII options menu

The menu colors look washed put on the Rage 128 Pro, indicating no paletted texture support.

Shadows of the Empire Mission 2: Escape from Echo base

I think I may see some very faint fogging in this screenshot, but it's hard to tell. In any case, this looks significantly different compared to how table fog renders on 3DFX, Nvidia and Matrox cards.

Thief II Mission 11: Precious Cargo

The Rage 128 Pro is attempting to render table fog in Thief 2, but it ends up distorting the textures on objects that were supposed to be covered by it. Again, this looks significantly different compared to how table fog renders on 3DFX, Nvidia and Matrox cards.

EDIT - The Rage 128 Pro does not support paletted textures when driver version 4.13.7192 is used. However, further research by @marxveix indicated that paltted textures are supported with older drivers from the 4.11.xxxx and 4.12.xxxx range. Additionally, this card may have some sort of partial support for table fog, but it renders the effect inaccurately, at least when driver version 4.13.7192 is used.

I see that most games with the table fog tests, have dithering enabled. On modern cards, dithering is not available (or not enabled by driver); but I wanted to know if you enabled any dithering filter, or if there's a way to disable the dithering filter on your card.

For example, here's how Phantom Menace looks nowadays, clearly dithering is not here. So that's why I am querying if dithering was a default feature for 16-bit colors

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-11-05, 16:30:

I see that most games with the table fog tests, have dithering enabled. On modern cards, dithering is not available (or not enabled by driver); but I wanted to know if you enabled any dithering filter, or if there's a way to disable the dithering filter on your card.

Nothing special was done on my end with regards to dithering. The driver settings were at their default values during all the tests.

That said, how good (or bad) dithering looks varies from card to card. From what I gather, it was best handled by 3DFX and Kyro cards. I think @leileilol is more knowledgeable on this subject and she could explain it better than me.

Dithering can only be explicitly disabled by games, and some video drivers ignore the disabling of that. One game that disables dither is .......Final Fantasy VIII. (i've mentioned that earlier)

and yeah every video card prior to the DX10 gen (GF8/RadeonHD) had their own ways of dithering. 3dfx had two ways (4x4 and 2x2 ordered dither depending on game/API/driver/card (i.e. Unreal used 2x2 on GlideDrv)) and a subtraction of that. ATI had the noise and the 2x4 pattern. Nvidia had a messy 16x16 pattern. PowerVR dithered in post rather than the texture units (Kyro can't give blend overdrawn dither fuzz). S3 had a 4x4 ordered dither and Matrox had the same too IIRC. Probably the last to dither is Intel HD Graphics IGPs, where it does it in a PowerVR-like way.

I have finally found a visual difference resulting from the lack of paletted textures in Final Fantasy 7. Take a look at the savepoint object on the right side of the screen (the thing with the question mark):

Notice how the base of the savepoint glows brightly on the Voodoo 3 and the GeForce FX, while being very faint on the Radeon and the TNT2. Coincidentally, the first two cards support paletted textures while the last two do not. Here's the full rundown of the hardware and software used:

Graphics cards tested:

• 3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00
• Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23
• ATi Radeon 9250 using ATi Catalyst reference drivers version 6.2
• Nvidia TNT2 using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23

Games tested:

• Final Fantasy VII - retail CD version + official patch version 1.02

I'm attaching a savegame which can be used to replicate this issue. Note that every savepoint object in the game is affected by this, so you don't actually need to use this save. The area is simply convenient since the savepoint is prominently displayed there. Also, it's unlikely that this is the only visual difference resulting from the lack of paletted texture support in FF7, it's just the most noticeable one.

That's interesting! How does it look on the PlayStation, for comparison?

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-11-20, 21:06:

That's interesting! How does it look on the PlayStation, for comparison?

I wondered about that myself, but my PS1 and my CRT TV are both currently in storage so I can't check right now. However, I did look at some of the PlayStation FF7 longplay videos on YouTube, and the savepoint effect seems to be somewhere in between the paletted and non-paletted texture version on the PC, not quite looking like either one.

What I can say with certainty is that the software renderer on the PC looks exactly like the paletted texture version.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-11-20, 20:07:

Notice how the base of the savepoint glows brightly on the Voodoo 3 and the GeForce FX, while being very faint on the Radeon and the TNT2. Coincidentally, the first two cards support paletted textures while the last two do not. Here's the full rundown of the hardware and software used:

Is it just me, or the last two actually look better? 🤣

bloodem wrote on 2022-11-21, 06:02:

Is it just me, or the last two actually look better? 🤣

It's not just you, I double checked and the PlayStation savepoint looks a bit closer to that version (though not exactly so). This made me curious so I did some additional testing. Turns out the issue is slightly more complex than I originally thought.

With unpatched FF7 (version 1.00) my Voodoo 3 also shows the savepoint base as faded/transparent. After applying the official 1.02 patch, that same Voodoo 3 now shows the savepoint as glowing. It looks like not ticking the "Nvidia TNT" button (which the patch added) on the config screen causes this. Unfortunately, I can't tick that checkbox with my Voodoo 3 nor with my GeForce FX since doing that gives me a black screen on either of those cards. In fact, the config warns you that this checkbox should only be used for "Nvidia Riva" cards.

For reference, ticking that button allows you to bypass the paletted texture check, and instead of "Fail" the value becomes "-". So yeah, it looks like the developers changed something with that patch, possibly affecting the rendering on cards which actually do support paletted textures. It's certainly not as clear cut as FF8 where having paletted texture support gives you objectively improved visuals.

So I dug out my old PlayStation, RGB SCART cable and Sony Trinitron CRT TV out of storage. This is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of image quality on a consumer TV.

And here's how the savepoint looks on that setup:

Like I said, somewhere in between the paletted and non-paletted texture versions on the PC, but maybe slightly closer to the latter.

I agree, it looks somewhere in between. That's very interesting. Maybe it has something to do with how that blending mode renders on DirectX.

Another comparison would be in software mode. My guess is that it should probably be the closest to the PS1, I think. Hardware acceleration will only improve the picture quality. I don't believe that the software render is any worse than the PlayStation at rendering anything.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-11-21, 10:42:

Another comparison would be in software mode.

Here it is:

To my eyes, this looks the same as the paletted texture version.