Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-06, 07:40:

Respectfully, I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "debunked".

You were right, I just woke up an hour ago. Corrected my text now...

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-25, 14:17:

asdf53 wrote on 2024-02-25, 13:55:

One interesting thing left to try is: Will the fog work in the Thief2 demo using Windows XP and the newer drivers? I'm really curious if that fixes it. I might try that in the following days and post the result here.

...
BTW, I remember not being able to install Catalyst 7.11 on my Radeon 9250. The card was unsupported on the account of being too old. Newer Radeons like my 9550 and X800 worked fine with those drivers.

Yes, Catalyst 6.5 or alternatively the Radeon Omega Drivers 3.8.252 (based on Catalyst 6.5) are the last versions to support Radeon 7k, 8k , 9k-9250 Series according to Omega drivers readme.

bloodem wrote on 2022-07-21, 10:49:

I remembered that NFS High Stakes had issues with Catalyst 6.2 (it crashed to desktop immediately - just like with newer nVIDIA drivers), so I've decided to pursue this further to see if I can find a solution.

A bit late to the party, but I've been testing NFS: High Stakes on my Radeon X800 XT and encountered the same issue: it crashes at launch with Catalyst 6.2 drivers. However, I found a fix of sorts. You can take dx7z.dll from the "Drivers" subfolder of NFS: Porsche Unleashed, rename it to d3da.dll and copy that file over to the NFS: High Stakes main folder and its "3DSetup" subfolder. The game will then run fine with Catalyst 6.2 and even display fog on the Celtic Ruins track. 😁

I've attached the d3da.dll file below, in case someone else needs it. Just copy that over to the relevant NFS: High Stakes folders as instructed earlier.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-08, 15:03:

A bit late to the party, but I've been testing NFS: High Stakes on my Radeon X800 XT and encountered the same issue: it crashes at launch with Catalyst 6.2 drivers. However, I found a fix of sorts. You can take dx7z.dll from the "Drivers" subfolder of NFS: Porsche Unleashed, rename it to d3da.dll and copy that file over to the NFS: High Stakes main folder and its "3DSetup" subfolder. The game will then run fine with Catalyst 6.2 and even display fog on the Celtic Ruins track. 😁

Great find! Thank you, Joseph! 😁

Can anyone confirm if a Sky Detail -> High -> Low -> High makes all stars go missing in Thief 2? This looks to be the case in modern cards even if the driver is supporting large vertice data. Either its a game bug or another hidden mystery

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-06-19, 14:20:

Can anyone confirm if a Sky Detail -> High -> Low -> High makes all stars go missing in Thief 2? This looks to be the case in modern cards even if the driver is supporting large vertice data. Either its a game bug or another hidden mystery

I had some free time, so I gave this a try.

It happens on real hardware as well. Tested on my Radeon 9600XT using Catalyst 6.2 drivers under WinME. This was with the retail CD version of Thief 2 + latest official patch 1.18.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-22, 09:01:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2024-06-19, 14:20:

Can anyone confirm if a Sky Detail -> High -> Low -> High makes all stars go missing in Thief 2? This looks to be the case in modern cards even if the driver is supporting large vertice data. Either its a game bug or another hidden mystery

I had some free time, so I gave this a try.

It happens on real hardware as well. Tested on my Radeon 9600XT using Catalyst 6.2 drivers under WinME. This was with the retail CD version of Thief 2 + latest official patch 1.18.

Alright, thanks. I thought it was some modern Intel/Nvidia bug but its fine

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-08, 15:03:

A bit late to the party, but I've been testing NFS: High Stakes on my Radeon X800 XT and encountered the same issue: it crashes at launch with Catalyst 6.2 drivers. However, I found a fix of sorts. You can take dx7z.dll from the "Drivers" subfolder of NFS: Porsche Unleashed, rename it to d3da.dll and copy that file over to the NFS: High Stakes main folder and its "3DSetup" subfolder. The game will then run fine with Catalyst 6.2 and even display fog on the Celtic Ruins track. 😁

That gave me an idea: I took the modified Direct3D 7 renderer from NFS3 modern patch, renamed it to d3da.dll and sure enough it also works just fine with both NFS3 and NFS4. It fixes the blurry text issue these games have with D3D renderers and makes the menu screens as sharp as with Glide.

Unfortunately it doesn't fix fog with NFS3, I suppose the game doesn't know to enable it with D3D without the help of modern patch. Still way better than the original D3D 5 renderer which I gave a quick spin for the first time ever. Apparently it has some visible bugs in addition to the graphical downgrades at least with my X700 card, smoke and dust look super dithered and I noticed texture holes/seams in some parts of the track. No such issues with the D3D 7 renderer.

Also 3dSetup.exe stops working after you swap the d3da.dll files, so better set it to D3D before mucking around with them.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-06-23, 07:19:

That gave me an idea: I took the modified Direct3D 7 renderer from NFS3 modern patch, renamed it to d3da.dll and sure enough it also works just fine with both NFS3 and NFS4. It fixes the blurry text issue these games have with D3D renderers and makes the menu screens as sharp as with Glide.

Interesting. I haven't paid much attention to the menus this time around, since I was testing the fog. Didn't realize the text issues were also present on ATi cards.

BTW, I think you might be able to copy over the d3da.dll file from Porsche Unleashed that I attached earlier to NFS3 as well. It won't fix the fog in that game, but maybe it will have fewer graphical glitches than with the DLL from the modern patch.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-23, 07:51:

BTW, I think you might be able to copy over the d3da.dll file from Porsche Unleashed that I attached earlier to NFS3 as well. It won't fix the fog in that game, but maybe it will have fewer graphical glitches than with the DLL from the modern patch.

The modern patch dll doesn't have any graphical glitches, I was talking about the original NFS3 D3D 5 dll.

I wouldn't be surprised if the modern patch D3D 7 renderer is actually that Porsche Unleashed dll, just with fixed text.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-06-23, 08:34:

The modern patch dll doesn't have any graphical glitches, I was talking about the original NFS3 D3D 5 dll.

I wouldn't be surprised if the modern patch D3D 7 renderer is actually that Porsche Unleashed dll, just with fixed text.

Ahh, I misunderstood! 😀 Good find!

Out of curiosity, is it possible to select resolutions higher than 800x600 (for NFS3) and 1280x1024 (for NFS4) with that DLL? For some reason, the games won't let me go higher than that on my Radeon cards.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-23, 08:51:

Out of curiosity, is it possible to select resolutions higher than 800x600 (for NFS3) and 1280x1024 (for NFS4) with that DLL? For some reason, the games won't let me go higher than that on my Radeon cards.

Nope, I noticed the same thing. Actually in fact NFS4 tops out at 1024x768 with that dll on my system.

That a radeon thing or an engine D3D thing? Pretty sure NFS3 could go at least 1024x768 with Voodoo3 Glide, while it now tops at 800x600 with X700 D3D.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-06-23, 09:08:

Nope, I noticed the same thing. Actually in fact NFS4 tops out at 1024x768 with that dll on my system.

I think it's an arbitrary limitation that EA imposed when using an "unknown" (to the game) Direct3D device.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-06-23, 09:08:

That a radeon thing or an engine D3D thing? Pretty sure NFS3 could go at least 1024x768 with Voodoo3 Glide, while it now tops at 800x600 with X700 D3D.

I just tried NFS3: Hot Pursuit on my TNT2 M64, and it has the same resolution cap, since it's an unsupported card in that game. However, I then tried NFS4: High Stakes on the TNT2 and it allowed me to go all the way up to 1600x1200 because this game does recognize that card:

Pretty weird, but that's what the "geniuses" at EA decided I guess. Not a whole lot of future proofing by the programmers.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-06-23, 09:08:

That a radeon thing or an engine D3D thing? Pretty sure NFS3 could go at least 1024x768 with Voodoo3 Glide, while it now tops at 800x600 with X700 D3D.

I found a workaround for the resolution limit. Relevant steps:

1. Install NFS3 from the disc (choose Maximum installation)
2. Apply the official Banshee and Voodoo 3 patches, in that order (download both from Soggi's website)
3. Run the game's 3DSetup.exe and select Direct3D Device 1
4. Download the NFS3 Modern Patch, extract the archive contents, go to the drivers/dx6 folder and grab dx6a.dll
5. Rename dx6a.dll to voodoo2a.dll then copy it over to the NFS3 folder
6. Edit the NFS3 desktop shortcut to add the -voodoo2 parameter
7. Run the game using this edited shortcut

You can now select up to 1600x1200 for the resolution from the game options menu. Fog will also work, even on Radeon cards. And of course, you can play the game under Win9x with fully functional EAX. 😀

P.S.

This also works without using the DLL from the modern patch, and simply renaming the game's own d3da.dll to voodoo2a.dll. However, this will limit the resolution to 1280x960 and won't have working fog. The in-game fonts will also be more blurry.

Similar steps for NFS4: High Stakes

1. Install NFS4 from the disc (choose Full installation)
2. Apply the latest official patch 4.50
3. Run the game's 3DSetup.exe and select Direct3D Device 1
4. Download the NFS3 Modern Patch (it's newer than the NFS4 Modern Patch), extract the archive contents, go to the drivers/dx7 folder and grab dx7a.dll
5. Rename dx7a.dll to d3da.dll then copy it over to the NFS3 main folder and its 3DSetup subfolder

You can now select 1600x1200 (and higher) for the resolution from the game options menu. Fog will also work, even on Radeon cards, and of course you get fully functional EAX under Win9x. 😀 As a special bonus, this will prevent the game from crashing when ATi Catalyst 6.2 drivers are used. Same goes for Nvidia 45.23 drivers.

P.S.

This also works without the DLL from the modern patch, as you can instead use the NFS Porsche Unleashed d3da.dll that I've attached earlier. However, this will limit the resolution to 1280x960 and the in-game fonts won't be as sharp.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-23, 12:29:

I found a workaround for the resolution limit. Relevant steps:

I don't understand at all how you can just swap a glide dll to a d3d dll and I understand even less how on earth did you even figure all that out, but it works great! Nice job!

Had a little trouble first, turned out it doesn't work with 1.02 version of NFS3. Don't know why, maybe the 1.02 patch does something to the -voodoo2 parameter functionality or something. Figures, I just literally days ago found out there even is a 1.02 patch for the game that someone put together ages ago since EA didn't release stand alone patches and expected people to use the auto updater to fetch patches. Installed it hoping it would fix the odd crackly noises I get with EAX sound occasionally with this game, but no go.

At least now I don't have to choose between fully issue free EAX and high resolution and can go back to version 1.0 and use this trick. Don't know what that 1.02 patch does but since I haven't noticed any difference between it and 1.0 I doubt it's anything major.

I actually wouldn't take the credit (if it is) but the NFS5 d3da.dll works well with both NFS3 and 4. Discovered when I was 12 years old

Sombrero wrote on 2024-06-23, 18:23:

I don't understand at all how you can just swap a glide dll to a d3d dll and I understand even less how on earth did you even figure all that out, but it works great! Nice job!

Heh, it wasn't exactly my idea. Someone figured this out way back in 2002, I just slightly refined the process. 😁

Installed it hoping it would fix the odd crackly noises I get with EAX sound occasionally with this game, but no go.

Does replacing EACSND.DLL with the version from NFS4 help with that? I don't remember encountering any crackling on my system, but I haven't played the game extensively (aside from testing) in quite a while.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-24, 00:45:

Does replacing EACSND.DLL with the version from NFS4 help with that? I don't remember encountering any crackling on my system, but I haven't played the game extensively (aside from testing) in quite a while.

Unfortunately no, complains about version mismatch. Wants version 18.3 and the version from NFS4 is 18.5. Good idea though, I should have realized to try that myself after all that renderer swapping. Oh well, the crackles aren't too obnoxious. They sound like someone would physically twist my headphones a little every now and then, giving off that kind of crunchy snap sound.

That's been happening on every system I've tried, with SB Live! and SB Audigy 2 on Win98SE and even SB X-Fi Titanium on WinXP with the modern patch, all with completely different driver versions. No idea why, I've been assuming it's a bug in the game but if no one else is having that issue then beats me?

But I did get the 1.02 version to work with the voodoo2a.dll trick, looks like my hunch about the -voodoo2 parameter not working was right. I found out that you can get a list of available parameters by nfs3.exe -?, which does absolutely nothing with version 1.02 but prints out a long list of parameters with version 1.0.

The solution was to swap the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Electronic Arts\Need For Speed III\Thrash Driver to voodoo2 in registry.

Anyone interested in the 1.02 patch can find it here
Note that it only installs on US version of NFS3, I haven't been able to find an european version. It just doesn't like the EU exe so you just can swap that to 1.0 US exe and you are good to go. Also the update.bat seems to have formatting issues so either edit it on Win98 before running it or run patch.exe nfs3wm_101.rtp followed by patch.exe nfs3_102.rtp manually in MS-DOS Prompt.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-06-24, 06:21:

Unfortunately no, complains about version mismatch. Wants version 18.3 and the version from NFS4 is 18.5. Good idea though, I should have realized to try that myself after all that renderer swapping. Oh well, the crackles aren't too obnoxious. They sound like someone would physically twist my headphones a little every now and then, giving off that kind of crunchy snap sound.

That's too bad, I hoped it would have been an easy fix, just like with the renderers. On the plus side, I managed to get the fog working in NFS3 on Radeon cards:

I've edited the original post with the updated steps. The only change from the previous approach is that you use the dx6 renderer from the modern patch instead of the dx7 one. No extra fog-related tweaks are needed for Radeon cards, it works fine with all driver settings at their defaults.

At last, we can play NFS3 at 1600x1200 fully maxed out under Win98, with working fog and proper EAX. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2024-06-08, 18:14:

Great find! Thank you, Joseph! 😁

I figured I'd tag you again for the most recent NFS3 fog restoration. 😁 The game visuals now look great on Radeon cards, with high resolutions available if desired.