If you don't care about top tier performance, I happen to really like the GeForce 3. It's very similar to the GeForce 2 Ultra, but with very early support for shaders. I think it's a good pairing if you're not planning to play a lot of high end games from the 90s, like Morrowind, or if your CPU is already to slow for these kinds of games anyways.

There's also nothing wrong with the GeForce 4 MX series for a very solid DirectX 7 experience, similar to the GeForce 2. However, there is no shader support.

Got this ATi Rage XL today and I wanted to test its legacy feature set. It seems that support for paletted textures and table fog varies depending on the driver version. Avoid the latest driver from 2002, as that one supports neither of these things. I ended up using W98_RXL_4_12_2647.exe from November of 2000. It has proper support for paletted textures and partial (but broken) support for table fog.

Final Fantasy VIII configuration program

The Final Fantasy VIII configuration tool detects paletted texture support on the ATi Rage XL.

Final Fantasy VIII options menu

The in-game menu looks correct on the ATi Rage XL.

Thief II Mission 11: Precious Cargo

There does seem to be some support for table fog on the ATi Rage XL, but it's pretty broken. There are no tweaks in the drivers for any settings so this is all that you get. I wouldn't exactly call the end result functional.

That's very disappointing. I feel like the Rage XL had a lot of untapped potential, but all driver efforts were later transitioned over to later Rage chips without backporting any improvements.

I still think that it's a good early accelerator, and probably played contemporary titles just fine. It's an easy pick for a low spec retro machine on a budget.

Hopefully this isnt too much offtopic:

So been testing my x800 xt AIW lately after following this thread for max backwards compatibility and I noticed with Cat 7.11 I am getting a "CRT Invalid display type" error endlessly in my event log.

I did some googling and it says Cat 7.6 fixes the issue but does that break these legacy titles?

http://techsupport.thatoneplace.net/2008/01/

gooface wrote on 2023-08-07, 02:49:

So been testing my x800 xt AIW lately after following this thread for max backwards compatibility and I noticed with Cat 7.11 I am getting a "CRT Invalid display type" error endlessly in my event log.

I did some googling and it says Cat 7.6 fixes the issue but does that break these legacy titles?

While Catalyst 7.6 won't break table fog compatibility, I think @swaaye said that any version above 7.11 will cause problems with certain OpenGL games like Star Wars: KOTOR.

I'm not too familiar with this issue though, so someone else will have to provide more details.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-03-27, 11:25:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-03-26, 21:55:

I just tested Need for Speed II Special Edition in Glide mode. This game originally only used software rendering, while Glide support was added in the Special Edition release. The Glide version has several extra effects when compared to software rendering, including the use of table fog:

All weather effects, including rain and fog, are completely absent when the software renderer is used. Glide mode also has some extra shadows.

Did you notice the game looking washed out in Glide? I tested NFS2 SE few weeks ago with V3 3000 and while I definitely did notice the weather effects and some better textures, the image got so washed out it ruined the whole thing. Even main menu had way better color depth in software. I couldn't fix it by adjusting brightness or gamma, so just I assumed the game forces some way too high gamma value and there's nothing you can do about it?

NFSIISE 3Dfx has a gamma correction hotkey, which helps remove the washed out look. It should be F12 or so.

subhuman@xgtx wrote on 2023-08-09, 05:54:

NFSIISE 3Dfx has a gamma correction hotkey, which helps remove the washed out look. It should be F12 or so.

Interesting! Pretty sure I looked around the documentation but saw nothing like that, have to test that at some point. Thanks for letting me know, maybe 3d accelerated NFS2 with Voodoo3 isn't a bust after all.

I found another game which uses table fog: 1nsane from 2000.

Games tested:

• 1nsane - retail CD release + latest official patch version 1.0.1.2

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

1nsane - Ireland Morning track (practice free roam mode)

As can be seen in the screenshot, the fog is present on both 3DFX and Nvidia cards, while it's missing on the ATi card. Interestingly, this game was released in late 2000 (EU) and early 2001 (NA) and yet it still used table fog.

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/universal-f … support.394995/
"As you may know NVidia and AMD/ATI dropped support for the " 8-bit paletted textures" - much used in '90 / early '00 games - in their GPUs/driver suites long time ago, in 2003-2004. Intel still supports it in the first i3/i5 GPU Gen (i3 530, etc.), and maybe in actual GPUs too (I don't know 'cause I don't own a Sandy Bridge processor or later ones)"
"Tested now Mech3 on a HD4600 (i5-4200M) with lastest drivers. It still support 8bit paletted textures "

Looks like yet another game released in the year 2000 used table fog: Messiah by Shiny/Interplay.

Games tested:

• Messiah - retail CD release + latest official patch version 0.2

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

Messiah - Old Town

As can be seen in the screenshot, the fog in the corridor up ahead is present on both 3DFX and Nvidia cards, while it's missing on the ATi card.

The game Powerslide appears to use table fog, but only in Glide mode.

Games tested:

• Powerslide - retail CD release + latest official patch 1.04

Graphics cards tested:

• 3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00 (Glide renderer)
• Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23 (Direct3D renderer)

Under Direct3D, it will fall back to a different, more subtle type of fog rendering, regardless of which card is used. The upside is that this alternative Direct3D fog effect will work on cards which don't support table fog (e.g. ATi Radeon). The downside is that it will not look the same as on 3DFX cards, even if your card does support table fog (e.g. Nvidia, Matrox).

Weird question maybe.... but is it possible to disable the fog on Voodoo cards? I actually like the screenshots without the fog and I see it only as an artificial draw distance limit (in most games).

havli wrote on 2023-08-25, 22:23:

Weird question maybe.... but is it possible to disable the fog on Voodoo cards?

Not directly from the drivers, only if a game offers that setting from its Options menu.

I actually like the screenshots without the fog and I see it only as an artificial draw distance limit (in most games).

This may have been the case for some older games. But with newer ones like Thief 2 and NFS: High Stakes, the fog use was clearly an artistic choice, and not having it makes the environment overly barren IMO.

In earlier 3D games, the fog was largely used to disguise the smaller draw distances they actually had for performance reasons.

I should also point out that it's difficult to make fog comparison screenshots in games that don't allow saving at any time.

For example, I always had to use the start of the track in racing games to get the screenshots properly lined up. In such cases, the fog often looks like it's only affecting the horizon. But if you actually drive through the entire track, there are spots where the fog fully envelops the road, especially in NFS: High Stakes.

Mods, can we have this thread appended to the top of the forum?

@Joseph_Joestar Panzer Commander has support for palettized textures

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-01-15, 09:21:

@Joseph_Joestar Panzer Commander has support for palettized textures

Thanks for the heads up! I've done some preliminary testing and can confirm that this game does use paletted textures. Additionally, it uses table fog as well.

Games tested:

• Panzer Commander - retail CD release + latest official patch version 1.3

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

Panzer Commander - Paletted Textures (3D Accelerator Settings)

Interestingly, this game doesn't automatically detect the capabilities of your graphics card, unlike Final Fantasy 8 and Forsaken. For that reason, it will attempt to enable paletted textures even on cards that don't support them, which may potentially cause some issues. To summarize, in Panzer Commander you should manually turn off paletted textures from the 3D Accelerator Settings if using a graphics card which doesn't support them.

Panzer Commander - Table Fog (Training mission 1)

As can be seen in the screenshot, the fog near the horizon is present on both 3DFX and Nvidia cards, while it's missing on the ATi card. Additionally, the ground texture is missing some detail on the ATi card due to the game attempting to enable paletted textures by default, despite the card not supporting them.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-01-15, 12:14:

Thanks for the heads up! I've done some preliminary testing and can confirm that this game does use paletted textures. Additiona […]
Show full quote

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-01-15, 09:21:

@Joseph_Joestar Panzer Commander has support for palettized textures

Thanks for the heads up! I've done some preliminary testing and can confirm that this game does use paletted textures. Additionally, it uses table fog as well.

Games tested:

• Panzer Commander - retail CD release + latest official patch version 1.3

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

Panzer Commander - Paletted Textures (3D Accelerator Settings)

Panzer_Paletted.jpg

Panzer_Manual.jpg

Interestingly, this game doesn't automatically detect the capabilities of your graphics card, unlike Final Fantasy 8 and Forsaken. For that reason, it will attempt to enable paletted textures even on cards that don't support them, which may potentially cause some issues. To summarize, in Panzer Commander you should manually turn off paletted textures from the 3D Accelerator Settings if using a graphics card which doesn't support them.

Panzer Commander - Table Fog (Training mission 1)

Panzer_Fog.jpg

As can be seen in the screenshot, the fog near the horizon is present on both 3DFX and Nvidia cards, while it's missing on the ATi card. Additionally, the ground texture is missing some detail on the ATi card due to the game attempting to enable paletted textures by default, despite the card not supporting them.

Thanks. Can you elaborate more upon the palettized texture difference. I can't see much other than a color difference (which can often be distinguishable for different GPUs)

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-01-15, 13:59:

Thanks. Can you elaborate more upon the palettized texture difference. I can't see much other than a color difference (which can often be distinguishable for different GPUs)

It's mostly the color thing, as well as some slight differences in how the grass texture is rendered on the right side of the screen, just below that house.

Again, this only occurs because the game attempts to use paletted textures even on unsupported hardware (the checkbox is ticked by default). If you disable that manually, the differences are greatly reduced.

I'm trying to get table fog enabled on my Radeon 8500 LE under Windows 98, but I'm having no luck so far. I tried drivers from 2001-2003, also followed the guide from this thread where someone had enabled it on his Radeon 8500 using Rage3D tweak, but it did nothing for me. Did I understand this correctly:

- Under Windows 98, table fog doesn't work on Radeons by default, but it can be enabled with a registry setting. Can someone confirm this?
- Under Windows XP, it works out of the box with newer drivers

Could it be that it does not work on 98 at all and the registry settings are for Windows XP only?

An easy way to test table fog is the Thief 2 demo. When you start a new game, you will spawn on the rooftops with the fog immediately visible. Make sure that fog is enabled in the advanced graphics settings, I can't remember if it's on by default.

And here's the DirectX 6 SDK that contains the dxview.exe to check if 8-bit paletted textures are supported. You don't need to install the SDK, use 7zip to extract "bin\DXUtil\dxview.exe" from the installer archive.