All the fog in Quake3 - in case anyone attempts it, is an alpha blended texture projection that only looks like fog. It's kind of a vertex fog. I don't think any table setting will mean anything to it as it's intentionally intended to look consistent down to GL1.1 compliance. If its rendering messes up, then there's probably bigger problems with the GPU...

Some licensees may have implemented other fog techniques(i.e. RTCW has nVidia 'distance fog' use)

Similar goes for UnrealEngine's "volumetriclights" or "fog balls" as they're real-time software calculated textures overlaid on polys.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-05, 15:38:

Still weird how the fog doesn't work on a Radeon 9250 but does work on an X800 even if both cards are using the same driver.

BTW, I tested the Nvidia table fog toggle in Unreal Tournament GOTY with vertex fog turned on in the advanced options. Still with the TNT2 and 12.41 drivers. No change in fog rendering whether the toggle is on or off.

Maybe the way that ATI emulated their new fog made use of DirectX 9 features, only the Radeon 9500 and newer have that.

That's a great find regarding UT. It's nice to have a game that specifically uses vertex fog, I wasn't sure which games did that. Could be useful for testing some more obscure graphics cards that do not have table fog support. I have also missed one card in my collection, a Trident Blade3D. This would have been an interesting test case for Insane because that card does not have table fog support at all, so I might dig it up later and try it. Edit: Aaand it's dead.

leileilol wrote on 2024-03-05, 16:52:

Similar goes for UnrealEngine's "volumetriclights" or "fog balls" as they're real-time software calculated textures overlaid on polys.

But the Unreal Tournament fog is regular Direct3D vertex fog, right?

I made a compatibility matrix spreadsheet with the findings of this thread so far:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u0cHL … vw85E-SCC8Gs_QE

I was really impressed by the S3 Savage4 here. Not only is it very compatible, it also has superb VGA output quality and the rendering quality in D3D games is often superior to that of a Voodoo.

I have not tested some of the games from this thread yet (Flight Unlimited II, Need for Speed 4). If they behave any different on one of the cards, please let me know.

asdf53 wrote on 2024-03-08, 14:17:

I made a compatibility matrix spreadsheet with the findings of this thread so far:

Looks good! I'd possibly remove those demos from the table as they are not representative of how the final game behaves. Also, I don't see an entry for the Rage XL which I've tested here.

asdf53 wrote on 2024-03-08, 14:17:

I was really impressed by the S3 Savage4 here. Not only is it very compatible, it also has superb VGA output quality and the rendering quality in D3D games is often superior to that of a Voodoo.

It's a very nice card indeed. Be sure to check out S3 Metal and S3TC in action if you haven't done so already. Relevant thread: S3 Savage MeTal API 3D Accelerated Games List

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-08, 15:02:

Looks good! I'd possibly remove those demos from the table as they are not representative of how the final game behaves. Also, I don't see an entry for the Rage XL which I've tested here.

I agree that the demo shouldn't be relevant for testing, I only left them in because it might save someone else from wasting countless hours of testing without knowing that the demo simply won't work on a card and you need the retail version. I'll be sure to add the Rage XL, thanks for pointing that out.

Actually, I think it's good to include the demo. It's another data point and also points out that they're different. I would have done my testing with the demo, if I didn't know this otherwise.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-06-21, 14:49:

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.

Why only ATi RageXL listed as support for paletted textures? I did quick test today with RageXL and Rage Pro cards with my 3DCIF compatibe driver and Driver 1999 game paletted textures are working well for both @ Direct3D, All Rage3 based cards seems to support paletted textures, table fog is another question and that did not work if i last time tested it.

marxveix wrote on 2024-03-16, 19:17:

Why only ATi RageXL listed as support for paletted textures? I did quick test today with RageXL and Rage Pro cards with my 3DCIF compatibe driver and Driver 1999 game paletted textures are working well for both @ Direct3D, All Rage3 based cards seems to support paletted textures, table fog is another question and that did not work if i last time tested it.

I can add the Rage Pro cards as well, if you can post a screenshot from Driver's setup menu with paletted textures enabled (just for reference purposes).

As for the (broken) table fog, that is present on the Rage XL, but I'm guessing the functionality wasn't backported to the Rage Pro cards. You can test it by running the second level of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire or by playing through the Precious Cargo mission in Thief 2.

Note that features such as paletted textures is broken on Rage 3 with the latest drivers. Does table fog also not work with earlier drivers?

All Rage Pro cards probably work with paletted textures, i use v4.11.2582 or v4.11.2598 driver with direct3d v4.11.4033, later today i test it with Rage Pro Turbo and Rage LT Pro also, that i have.

So far two cards working @ 8bit textures, like here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHUquneKSak

marxveix wrote on 2024-03-17, 11:04:

All Rage Pro cards probably work with paletted textures, i use v4.11.2582 or v4.11.2598 driver with direct3d v4.11.4033, later today i test it with Rage Pro Turbo and Rage LT Pro also, that i have.

So far two cards working @ 8bit textures, like here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHUquneKSak

Paletted textures:
Tested 5xRagePro cards @ 4-8MB size, one was with 4MB edo memory, 1xRageXL 8MB, 1xRageProTurbo 8MB, 2xRagePro 4MB and 1xRageLTPro 8MB, only RageLTPro did not work at the moment, it did not start Driver game at all, just black screen and other Direct3D games worked at the same time. RageLTPro i test again, i have played Driver 1999 game with LTPro before as i remember, probably it works, just now it did not start the Driver game at any settings, Driver 1999 game version is 1.2.

Table fog:
4.11.2582 driver does not support table fog, but 8bit paletted textures are working, it is safe to use with rage xl agp and no fog output.
4.11.2598 driver supports fog and 8bit paletted textures are working, XL fog tested with Thief 2 (buggy fog show up @ 50% of times).
Is it possible to force fog to be enabled all the time for Thief 2, NFS 4 fog toggle works, it is not possible to play @ fog enabled settings.

4.11.2582 (XL AGP and others work with 3DCIF / D3D / OpenGL) + ATi-MiniGL works
4.11.2598 (XL AGP OpenGL does not work, other R3 OGL are OK) + ATi-MinGL works

marxveix wrote on 2024-03-17, 18:01:

Paletted textures:
Tested 5xRagePro cards @ 4-8MB size, one was with 4MB edo memory, 1xRageXL 8MB, 1xRageProTurbo 8MB, 2xRagePro 4MB and 1xRageLTPro 8MB, only RageLTPro did not work at the moment, it did not start Driver game at all, just black screen and other Direct3D games worked at the same time. RageLTPro i test again, i have played Driver 1999 game with LTPro before as i remember, probably it works, just now it did not start the Driver game at any settings, Driver 1999 game version is 1.2.

Thanks, I've added ATi Rage Pro to the list of cards which support paletted textures.

Table fog: 4.11.2582 driver does not support table fog, but 8bit paletted textures are working, it is safe to use with rage xl a […]
Show full quote

Table fog:
4.11.2582 driver does not support table fog, but 8bit paletted textures are working, it is safe to use with rage xl agp and no fog output.
4.11.2598 driver supports fog and 8bit paletted textures are working, XL fog tested with Thief 2 (buggy fog show up @ 50% of times).
Is it possible to force fog to be enabled all the time for Thief 2, NFS 4 fog toggle works, it is not possible to play @ fog enabled settings.

4.11.2582 (XL AGP and others work with 3DCIF / D3D / OpenGL) + ATi-MiniGL works
4.11.2598 (XL AGP OpenGL does not work, other R3 OGL are OK) + ATi-MinGL works

Did you test table fog with the Rage Pro as well? It was already documented that the Rage XL supports it, albeit in a broken manner.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-18, 08:02:

Thanks, I've added ATi Rage Pro to the list of cards which support paletted textures. […]
Show full quote

marxveix wrote on 2024-03-17, 18:01:

Paletted textures:
Tested 5xRagePro cards @ 4-8MB size, one was with 4MB edo memory, 1xRageXL 8MB, 1xRageProTurbo 8MB, 2xRagePro 4MB and 1xRageLTPro 8MB, only RageLTPro did not work at the moment, it did not start Driver game at all, just black screen and other Direct3D games worked at the same time. RageLTPro i test again, i have played Driver 1999 game with LTPro before as i remember, probably it works, just now it did not start the Driver game at any settings, Driver 1999 game version is 1.2.

Thanks, I've added ATi Rage Pro to the list of cards which support paletted textures.

Table fog: 4.11.2582 driver does not support table fog, but 8bit paletted textures are working, it is safe to use with rage xl a […]
Show full quote

Table fog:
4.11.2582 driver does not support table fog, but 8bit paletted textures are working, it is safe to use with rage xl agp and no fog output.
4.11.2598 driver supports fog and 8bit paletted textures are working, XL fog tested with Thief 2 (buggy fog show up @ 50% of times).
Is it possible to force fog to be enabled all the time for Thief 2, NFS 4 fog toggle works, it is not possible to play @ fog enabled settings.

4.11.2582 (XL AGP and others work with 3DCIF / D3D / OpenGL) + ATi-MiniGL works
4.11.2598 (XL AGP OpenGL does not work, other R3 OGL are OK) + ATi-MinGL works

Did you test table fog with the Rage Pro as well? It was already documented that the Rage XL supports it, albeit in a broken manner.

For me no fog output @ rage pro / rage lt pro / rage pro turbo. Rage XL did get it @ broken level at the moment, drivers are the same, i used only 2582 and 2598 drivers now.

What is the easy way to check OpenGL paletted textures? All OpenGL versions are working with latest Macxw4 drivers, use what works the best for you pc, easy to change.

All available OpenGL versions that i have, are here for Win9x:
Re: ATi RagePro OpenGL files

marxveix wrote on 2024-03-18, 09:49:

For me no fog output @ rage pro / rage lt pro / rage pro turbo. Rage XL did get it @ broken level at the moment, drivers are the same, i used only 2582 and 2598 drivers now.

Thanks, I'll update the wiki page with that information.

What is the easy way to check OpenGL paletted textures? All OpenGL versions are working with latest Macxw4 drivers, use what works the best for you pc, easy to change.

Start Quake 2, enable 8-bit textures in the Options > Video menu and then open the console by pressing tilde (~). If paletted textures are supported, the console should state that GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette is detected and used. Relevant screenshot from a Voodoo 3:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-18, 09:59:

Thanks, I'll update the wiki page with that information. […]
Show full quote

marxveix wrote on 2024-03-18, 09:49:

For me no fog output @ rage pro / rage lt pro / rage pro turbo. Rage XL did get it @ broken level at the moment, drivers are the same, i used only 2582 and 2598 drivers now.

Thanks, I'll update the wiki page with that information.

What is the easy way to check OpenGL paletted textures? All OpenGL versions are working with latest Macxw4 drivers, use what works the best for you pc, easy to change.

Start Quake 2, enable 8-bit textures in the Options > Video menu and then open the console by pressing tilde (~). If paletted textures are supported, the console should state that GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette is detected and used. Relevant screenshot from a Voodoo 3:

Not tested all Rage Pro OpenGL versions yet, Q2 paletted textures are turned off, even if i enable it from menu. Bilinear filtering, multitexture i can turn on and off with other performance settings for OpenGL thanks to atidbg.ini at c:\Windows\atidbg.ini. ATi maybe not implemented this option for OpenGL, at least Direct3D option works great.

Turok1 uses fog for ATi Rage Pro version of the game (3DCIF):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeg6nmfQKEU&t=945s

marxveix wrote on 2024-03-18, 16:45:

Turok1 uses fog for ATi Rage Pro version of the game (3DCIF):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeg6nmfQKEU&t=945s

Turok doesn't use table fog for that effect. There are several types of fog used by Win9x games, and some of those do work on cards which don't support table fog.

Thief 2 and Shadows of the Empire are the best test cases for table fog, since we know with certainty that they use that particular fog implementation, as that is stated in their documentation.

Am I missing something here? I just started experimenting with my GeForce FX 5600 and FF8 and, while it does support 8-bit paletted textures, the texel origin is wrong. The texel origin cannot be modified in anything later than the GeForce 2.

Are people just using the game as a benchmark for feature support and not actual playability?

This problem exists as tested on Windows XP driver 43.35 and up. It gets worse through the 80-series drivers, which fixes support for FF7, but is even worse for FF8. There is also no 8-bit paletted texture support in the 80-series driver, so this is not an ideal solution anyways.

Edit: I just realized that there is a special patch for GeForce cards to fix the FF8 graphical errors. Nevermind!

Should I upload the demo rendering results of the Alliance aT3D? 😁 While the menu is broken the 8bit palette feature seems enabled for some reason if I remember correctly.

EDIT: all tests "Pass" included 8-bit Paletted Textures but "Destination Blend Mode 1" does not.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-03-24, 19:11:

Are people just using the game as a benchmark for feature support and not actual playability?

Pretty much this. FF8 is an easy and reliable test for paletted texture support. But no one ever claimed that it's fully playable on every single card which supports that feature.

As far as I can tell, GeForce 2 cards (and possibly GeForce 4 MX, I haven't tested it on those) are the last ones from Nvidia which allow for texel origin adjustment. In some games, this can indeed make a bigger difference than paletted texture support as documented here. Still, those two features are unrelated, and should be considered separately when it comes to the playability of such games.

386SX wrote on 2024-03-24, 19:17:

Should I upload the demo rendering results of the Alliance aT3D? 😁 While the menu is broken the 8bit palette feature seems enabled for some reason if I remember correctly.

A Final Fantasy 8 screenshot from the external config utility and the in-game menu would be good.

If it checks out, I can add that card to the wiki.