VOGONS

My games for the S3 ViRGE

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First post, by vvbee

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This is where I make small games for the S3 ViRGE using its S3d API. Whatever niche game I feel like making. Available from https://leikareipa.github.io.

First game, Cards. Flip cards to find the matching pairs. Contains mild nudity courtesy of AI. Requires a Pentium and a ViRGE w/ 2 MB, runs in 24-bit 640 x 480. About 30 FPS on my 80 MHz ViRGE, 60 FPS using lower quality rendering.

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Next game may be something else, at some point. Feel free to suggest but probably I'll do something else.

Reply 2 of 6, by AncapDude

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Cool!

Reply 4 of 6, by vvbee

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Second game, UFO. Zarch-style hover shooter without enemies, land five alien eggs as fast as you can. Video. Relatively difficult, I haven't actually finished an attempt but I assume it all works. No sound. Win95, Pentium, ViRGE w/ 2 MB. A normal ViRGE should get 30+ FPS at 640 x 480.

The attachment ufo.jpg is no longer available

This time the game uses 16-bit color by default, 24-bit is selectable. There's something the hardware does in 24-bit mode that isn't fully compatible with this codebase, both this game and the previous one. I know from experience this should work, but something about it isn't playing well. Could be a Windows thing with S3d. Upside is there's a bug in 86Box 4 where the ViRGE emulation runs at full 60 FPS in 24-bit mode, faster than 16-bit.

Reply 5 of 6, by vvbee

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I ported UFO to DOS as a test but same issue in 24-bit mode. On the ViRGE it freezes for a few seconds every few seconds and on a ViRGE/DX it's much more broken. So it's not the platform and it's not the compiler. I don't clip terrain polys horizontally so it could be that, but I think I did a test earlier where clipping them had no effect. Y clipping has to be done or the hardware flips out, even when setting S3DTK_VERIFY_XYRANGE or S3DTK_CLIPPING_AREA. The render calls themselves aren't the problem since it works in 86Box and with my S3d-software wrapper.

In 16-bit color there ends up not being a performance benefit for DOS over Windows in this direct port, even though I know all things equal S3d is faster in DOS. Here the Windows version is faster, so I'd say MinGW for Windows is good enough at optimization vs. Watcom for DOS that this comes about. Then again most performance benefit in S3d in DOS's favor is in bilinear filtering and this game uses none of it.

Reply 6 of 6, by vvbee

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Game 2.5, UFO Special Edition. Video.

- Higher difficulty
- Doubled render performance to 60 FPS, if your CPU is good
- 16-bit color only
- PC beeper sound effect
- Some bug fixes

The attachment ufo-se.jpg is no longer available

Still haven't finished a single attempt at this game, with this version probably never will.

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