Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-12-07, 08:56:

Quake 2 doesn't require this feature to render skyboxes. What happens is that if you have "8-bit textures" set to "yes", then th […]
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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2022-12-07, 08:05:

If that's the case, it seems odd that the sky boxes in Quake 2 would require this feature because the 8bit files are simply a PCX file, just like all of the other 8bit textures in the game that work fine. Or is it a matter of the "8bit textures" option using "GL_EXT_paletted_texture" to convert the smoother looking .tga textures to 8bit (with a full 256 color palette) so that they look better, where as all of the cards that don't support that feature are just stuck with the nasty looking .pcx versions?

Quake 2 doesn't require this feature to render skyboxes. What happens is that if you have "8-bit textures" set to "yes", then the game will use the hardware support for paletted textures of the graphics card to improve performance. This comes at the cost of reduced visual quality, as stated by the game's manual, which is why skyboxes look worse in that case.

As I've said before, setting "8-bit textures" to "yes" in Quake 2 makes the engine use GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette which, in term, calls GL_EXT_paletted_texture. This can be easily verified by pulling down the console and checking the output on a graphics card which supports paletted textures in hardware.

Is there also a Direct3D equivalent feature that isn't supported on these cards?

There is, but it isn't documented as well as the OpenGL extension. It is known that games like Driver and Final Fantasy 8 use paletted textures in Direct3D. This is evident from their documentation and/or config files. See screenshot below.

Also, it appears that Microsoft's dxview.exe sees the capability of graphics cards to support paletted textures in hardware as 8bit RBG PAL8.

Thanks for the explanation.

So, this has me thinking now... maybe the really really bad looking 8bit .pcx versions of the skybox files are only used when the game is in software mode, since the full 24bit skybox may be a bit too resource heavy and there would be no hardware available to perform the equivalent function of the GL extension to reduce it down.

no, those 8-bit pcx skyboxes can be used in OpenGL where the paletted extension permits. We have mentioned this several times.

24-bit skyboxes in software not happening is because....well, ref_soft only renders in 8-bit color. You'd probably have to do expensive pixel dithering to get anything out of that.

I tested Carmageddon 2 and Need for Speed 3 today, and I noticed something interesting. Both of these games seem to render fog in Glide mode, but don't have it in D3D mode (regardless of graphics card used). Here are a few screenshots:

Note that both of these screenshots were taken on the exact same graphics card - a 3DFX Voodoo 3. And yet, the fog only renders in Glide mode, but not in D3D. I also tried Carmageddon 2 on Nvidia and ATi cards and the fog didn't render on those either, as they only support D3D of course. Additionally, the skybox appears to have a bit more detail in Glide mode.

Need for Speed 3 is even more weird. It renders fog only if the Banshee patch is applied, but not if the Voodoo 3 patch is used. Of course, it doesn't render any fog on Nvidia or ATi cards in D3D mode. For reference, I found these instructions which allowed me to use the Banshee patch on my Voodoo 3. Based on the info in that thread, the fog does render correctly on Voodoo 1 and Voodoo 2 cards as well.

In summary, I think both of these games use table fog, but appear to do so only in Glide mode for some reason. So my question is, has anyone seen the fog render in NFS3 and Carmageddon 2 outside of Glide mode? Obviously, I'm talking about the retail CD releases of these games, with only the official patches applied. And without using any fan-made mods or fixes.

To be more precise -- the glide mode with the glide2x interface.
NFS3 Voodoo3 patch uses glide3x = no fog. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001 with voodoo2z uses glide3x = no fog.
IMHO this is a bug in the "Thrash" engine.

Gamecollector wrote on 2022-12-10, 19:03:

To be more precise -- the glide mode with the glide2x interface.
NFS3 Voodoo3 patch uses glide3x = no fog. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001 with voodoo2z uses glide3x = no fog.
IMHO this is a bug in the "Thrash" engine.

Thanks for the clarification!

I'm guessing there could be even more EA games from this time period that are also affected?

What a great timing! I've started to get the racing itch and NFS3 is pretty high on my list, would have just installed the Voodoo3 patch and have no idea whatsoever it's missing fog.

What a great Voodoo3 support patch, seems like another backroom intern job while others were working on the sequel.

I tinkered with palettes while using SiS300. It has the keyword 8Palettes in the registry which can enable RBG PAL4 and RBG PAL8.
The control panel however warns you, that enabling this disables gamma correction. I have a feeling this restriction was common to all cards and is a reason why it is disabled by default.

so this thread is pushing me over the edge to drop using my FX 5900 128MB and move over to a Radeon 9800 Pro I have laying around.

This PC has windows 98se and windows XP installed on it so I would be using the Cat 6.2 + the reg hack for 98se, and 7.11 for windows xp. (for table fog support) From what I am reading these drivers have great game compatibility for this era? which to me is odd since everyone including myself on my FX series card seems to praise older drivers for game support.

I also have a Voodoo 2 12mb in this rig that should handle games that need 8-bit paletted textures (that dont have patches that fix this in windows xp)

This is a P4 3.2ghz northwood setup and I have been itching for a little more performance out of this computer for later 2004/2005 games that like SM 2.0 support (which the FX 5900 crashes and burns on) I kinda built this pc to play most late 90s and early 2000s games and I think this would be a solid setup unless someone has some warning about what I am about to do....

Thanks!

gooface wrote on 2022-12-24, 08:07:

so this thread is pushing me over the edge to drop using my FX 5900 128MB and move over to a Radeon 9800 Pro I have laying around.

I'm not sure how the 9800 Pro would perform in non-DX9 games compared to the FX5900. One of those might be slightly slower, or they could be about the same. Wouldn't matter too much since both cards have more than enough power for that era of gaming. But if you also want to play some WinXP stuff on the same machine, consider a Radeon X800 series card instead, if you can find one cheap.

Anyway, pairing either of those ATi cards with your Voodoo 2 will cover any games which use paletted textures and/or table fog. And with Catalyst 7.11 under WinXP, you also get perfect table fog on the Radeon, so you're all set.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-12-24, 08:31:

gooface wrote on 2022-12-24, 08:07:

so this thread is pushing me over the edge to drop using my FX 5900 128MB and move over to a Radeon 9800 Pro I have laying around.

I'm not sure how the 9800 Pro would perform in non-DX9 games compared to the FX5900. One of those might be slightly slower, or they could be about the same. Wouldn't matter too much since both cards have more than enough power for that era of gaming. But if you also want to play some WinXP stuff on the same machine, consider a Radeon X800 series card instead, if you can find one cheap.

Anyway, pairing either of those ATi cards with your Voodoo 2 will cover any games which use paletted textures and/or table fog. And with Catalyst 7.11 under WinXP, you also get perfect table fog on the Radeon, so you're all set.

The "beta" note in the win9x driver I assume doesnt mean much correct? Should run games just as well/compatibility wise like a 9800 pro? I would be willing to get a x800 card if they arent too spendy (looks like theres x800 xt's for around $100 on ebay)

gooface wrote on 2022-12-24, 09:38:

The "beta" note in the win9x driver I assume doesnt mean much correct? Should run games just as well/compatibility wise like a 9800 pro? I would be willing to get a x800 card if they arent too spendy (looks like theres x800 xt's for around $100 on ebay)

There are posts by several people who are using X800 or X850 Radeons on a Win9x system without any issues. Some even had success with the PCIe versions of those cards, though that is a bit trickier

That said, I don't own an X800 card (yet) but I think @bloodem has a few, so he or someone else might be able to give you more detailed info on how to set everything up.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-12-24, 09:53:

gooface wrote on 2022-12-24, 09:38:

The "beta" note in the win9x driver I assume doesnt mean much correct? Should run games just as well/compatibility wise like a 9800 pro? I would be willing to get a x800 card if they arent too spendy (looks like theres x800 xt's for around $100 on ebay)

There are posts by several people who are using X800 or X850 Radeons on a Win9x system without any issues. Some even had success with the PCIe versions of those cards, though that is a bit trickier

That said, I don't own an X800 card (yet) but I think @bloodem has a few, so he or someone else might be able to give you more detailed info on how to set everything up.

Thanks! I just piccked up an ATI All-In-Wonder X800 XT from ebay for around $99! Cant wait to play with it!

gooface wrote on 2022-12-24, 09:38:

The "beta" note in the win9x driver I assume doesnt mean much correct? Should run games just as well/compatibility wise like a 9800 pro? I would be willing to get a x800 card if they arent too spendy (looks like theres x800 xt's for around $100 on ebay)

Indeed, even if it's tagged as being 'beta', the compatibility is very good, similar to the 9800 PRO in my experience. Of course, there will certainly be a few games that will innevitably have issues, but... this will ALWAYS be the case, no matter which graphics card or driver you go with. One game that I had issues with during my tests was "Incoming" (extremely slow, 2 FPS performance), but I haven't done any digging into it, it's very possible that there's an easy fix.
Anyway, if you also have a Voodoo 2 this is a non-issue. Most games (including Incoming) that have problems with the Radeon card should work just fine with the Voodoo 2 card.

Any X800/ X850 (PRO/XT) will be suitable and have:
- very good performance and compatibility in DOS (some older side-scrolling games might have issues with it, but it will generally be compatible and very fast). It's especially fun to play late DOS era games on it, which will run much faster compared to any of the later nVIDIA card.
- overkill performance in Win98: basically you can max out any game at 1920 x 1440 (most of the time with AA & AF).
- decent performance for early Windows XP gaming: as long as you have the CPU power (a fast Core 2 Duo being highly recommended), you can play most games up to 2004 - 2005 at decent resolutions and image quality.

Basically, it's the only GPU that can truly allow you to cover these three operating systems simultaneously without a lot of compromises. Of course, for DOS, a compatible sound card would also be needed, but that's another topic that you probably aren't even interested in. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2022-12-27, 15:45:

Indeed, even if it's tagged as being 'beta', the compatibility is very good, similar to the 9800 PRO in my experience. Of course […]
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gooface wrote on 2022-12-24, 09:38:

The "beta" note in the win9x driver I assume doesnt mean much correct? Should run games just as well/compatibility wise like a 9800 pro? I would be willing to get a x800 card if they arent too spendy (looks like theres x800 xt's for around $100 on ebay)

Indeed, even if it's tagged as being 'beta', the compatibility is very good, similar to the 9800 PRO in my experience. Of course, there will certainly be a few games that will innevitably have issues, but... this will ALWAYS be the case, no matter which graphics card or driver you go with. One game that I had issues with during my tests was "Incoming" (extremely slow, 2 FPS performance), but I haven't done any digging into it, it's very possible that there's an easy fix.
Anyway, if you also have a Voodoo 2 this is a non-issue. Most games (including Incoming) that have problems with the Radeon card should work just fine with the Voodoo 2 card.

Any X800/ X850 (PRO/XT) will be suitable and have:
- very good performance and compatibility in DOS (some older side-scrolling games might have issues with it, but it will generally be compatible and very fast). It's especially fun to play late DOS era games on it, which will run much faster compared to any of the later nVIDIA card.
- overkill performance in Win98: basically you can max out any game at 1920 x 1440 (most of the time with AA & AF).
- decent performance for early Windows XP gaming: as long as you have the CPU power (a fast Core 2 Duo being highly recommended), you can play most games up to 2004 - 2005 at decent resolutions and image quality.

Basically, it's the only GPU that can truly allow you to cover these three operating systems simultaneously without a lot of compromises. Of course, for DOS, a compatible sound card would also be needed, but that's another topic that you probably aren't even interested in. 😀

I'm coming from a FX 5900 so I hope the 9800 pro came close to that experience on 98se? but like you said I have a voodoo 2 12mb as a 2nd card so that should cover those bases (in the past I have used the fast voodoo driver for that, is there a general consensus on what driver I should use for it?)

- I ordered a AIW x800 XT (purple PCB) that should be here by Friday off eBay (I plan on using a 3rd party zalman cooling solution if the fan has any whine to it, and put some heatsinks on the ram on the top of the unit)
- I am not a dos purist if games dont work well (I have no problems using dosbox if needed)
- Regarding CPU power I am pairing this with a 3.2ghz northwood p4 (There are 3.4ghz northwoods on ebay for around $100 if thats worth upgrading to? I could sell my 3.4ghz Prescott for around that on ebay) I have an unused 3.4ghz Prescott cpu but I am hesitant to swap it out and use it vs my 3.2ghz northwood. (heat/power/performance issues) I'm using this on a 875i chipset industrial board (BC875PLG) I got off ebay last year (that has an ISA slot for my AWE64, and was new old stock) paired with 2GB of dual channel 400mhz CL 2.5 RAM
- I expect to be able to play up to 2005 with this setup (maybe some 2006 games if they aren't CPU bound?) I was playing some 2004/05 games with my FX 5900 (not super well but they ran, especially since SM 2.0 really started getting prevalent around that time) for later xp games I have a 3rd gen 8 core xeon paired with a 980 ti. (but I assume with this gpu upgrade I will take a little chunk away from needing that pc for xp gaming)

Regarding your soundcard comment I have a SB Audigy 2 ZS and SB AWE64 in this pc connected to eachother for max compatibility.

Thanks for the reply!

A little bit off-topic, I never heard about 4-bit palettized textures until I saw this:

More details on this?

Turns out my Win7 Intel HD machine has RGB PAL 8 as well as RGB PAL 4 cap. The 5900XT in comparision has only RGB PAL 8. So which was the earliest card to have supported 4 bit palettized textures?

Also there is DD Palette Caps section in DxView, however the demo in my previous posts queried for DDPCAPS_4BIT as well as DDPCAPS_8BIT, which is not available on my hardware. I am curious how this demo turns out on 5900XT, since my modern Nvidia also doesn't support both textures but manage to run it.

I am certainly not sure how Texture Caps and Palette Caps differ the visual quality.

There is also 1Bit and 2Bit Palette caps, and I haven't encountered an app using them.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-01-15, 13:18:

So which was the earliest card to have supported 4 bit palettized textures?

I checked my Voodoo 3 and it doesn't support it:

I also don't remember any games mentioning 4-bit paletted textures in their documentation, config or options menu.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-15, 14:11:

I checked my Voodoo 3 and it doesn't support it: […]
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BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-01-15, 13:18:

So which was the earliest card to have supported 4 bit palettized textures?

I checked my Voodoo 3 and it doesn't support it:

Caps_Voodoo3.jpg

I also don't remember any games mentioning 4-bit paletted textures in their documentation, config or options menu.

I remember Forsaken shows 8 bit palettized texture support in my modern pc.

If I look under texture formats in D3D RGB, D3D Ramp or MMX (use older DxView for it), the 8 bit palettized texture support is there. RGB device also supports 4 bit palettized textures.

Although I can't guarantee there's a good chance that your RGB D3D device supports 4bit palettes.

In the future I must keep in mind about the fact that such RGB palettes are available in non-HAL modes.

In case there's any anomalies (some game support 8bit palettes and other doesn't in the same driver) one should probably see what kind of device the game needs.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2023-01-15, 14:29:

I remember Forsaken shows 8 bit palettized texture support in my modern pc.

Not sure what that has to do with what I said. I specified that I don't remember any mention of 4-bit paletted textures in any game documentation, option menus or external config.

RGB device also supports 4 bit palettized textures.

That's Microsoft's software emulation from what I can tell, so of course it will support all the features that DirectX has.

I finally added the full version of Need for Speed 4: High Stakes to my physical game collection, so I did some more table fog testing. Note that the NFS4 tagline is "Road Challenge" in the UK rather than "High Stakes", but it's the same game nonetheless. In the full version, it's much easier to line up comparison screenshots with the fog effect, than it was in the demo. For testing purposes, both "Weather" and "Fog" must be set to "On" in the game options and track settings. FYI, the track "Celtic Ruins" makes heavy use of table fog, and that's where my screenshots are from.

Graphics cards tested:

• 3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00
• Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 56.64
• ATi Radeon 9250 using ATi Catalyst reference drivers version 6.2

Games tested:

• Need For Speed 4: High Stakes + latest official patch 4.50

Need For Speed 4: High Stakes (Celtic Ruins track)

It's easy to spot the missing fog effect on the Radeon card, while both the Voodoo 3 and the GeForce FX display it correctly. From what I've seen, this game makes much more use of table fog than its predecessors.