I had Metal Gear Solid working on a PowerVR KYRO II and didn't have to enable any paletted texture bits. (no paletted textures allowed by default)

It had issues with the buffer effects (ninja) though. Some tiles would explode and the framerate tanks.

mgstrial.exe (demo) and cant see any settings for paletted textures from menu / advanced menu. Game worked fine for the RagePro 4MB at the beginning of the game, did not check further.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-11-06, 10:34:

At this time, there isn't enough evidence to support that claim. Especially with reports such as this one where the game apparen […]
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marxveix wrote on 2026-11-06, 10:22:

This game should have paletted textures, i have mentioned it also.

At this time, there isn't enough evidence to support that claim. Especially with reports such as this one where the game apparently worked fine with 3D acceleration on a Radeon 9800 Pro card.

If someone can prove that via testing on real hardware, I'll happily add this game to the wiki. For example, I suggest testing the game on an Nvidia TNT2 (doesn't have paletted texture support) and a Voodoo 3 (has palleted texture support) using period correct drivers to see if there's a difference. Until then, I'm thinking it's more likely that MGS was just poorly coded, as was the case with most console ports from that time.

marxveix wrote on 2026-11-06, 10:22:

Original 1998 Metal Gear Solid on the Sony PlayStation extensively used 4-bit paletted textures (16-color palettes) to save graphics memory and optimize rendering. Metal Gear Solid engine was modified to output 8-bit paletted textures (256 colors) to talk with PC graphics hardware. While the actual internal artwork and character models remained unchanged from their original 4-bit (16-color) PlayStation roots, the 2000 PC port rendered them and required an 8-bit pipeline.

That sounds like AI slop. Unless you have some proper sources to back it up.

Well, my personal experience may give a little support to this "Paletted Textures" thing...

I tried Voodoo3 3000 & GF FX5900XT to run this game with excellent hardware acceleration compatibility. 😄
The GF6800 just leads to software acceleration...-_-

I really don't know why. But maybe I can test with S3 savage 4 pro+/2000, G400MAX, TNT/TNT2 sometime.

BTW, it's shame I don't have a single Redeon graphic card ever. Do you have any suggestion for the win95/98 platform?

quigonhu wrote on 2026-11-07, 12:31:

Well, my personal experience may give a little support to this "Paletted Textures" thing...

I tried Voodoo3 3000 & GF FX5900XT to run this game with excellent hardware acceleration compatibility. 😄
The GF6800 just leads to software acceleration...-_-

Thanks! That matches the original report from 2006. What puzzles me are subsequent reports from that thread stating that MGS 3D acceleration worked on a TNT2 and a Radeon 9800, since neither of those cards support paletted textures.

quigonhu wrote on 2026-11-07, 12:31:

I really don't know why. But maybe I can test with S3 savage 4 pro+/2000, G400MAX, TNT/TNT2 sometime.

If the Matrox G400 and the TNT2 fail to run the game with hardware acceleration, that would confirm that it is indeed due to paletted textures, since those cards don't support that feature.

quigonhu wrote on 2026-11-07, 12:31:

BTW, it's shame I don't have a single Redeon graphic card ever. Do you have any suggestion for the win95/98 platform?

Maybe a Radeon 9600 XT, if you can find one at a reasonable price. That's a very nice card for a Win9x/WinXP dual boot system.

quigonhu wrote on 2026-11-07, 12:31:

Well, my personal experience may give a little support to this "Paletted Textures" thing... […]
Show full quote

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-11-06, 10:34:

At this time, there isn't enough evidence to support that claim. Especially with reports such as this one where the game apparen […]
Show full quote

marxveix wrote on 2026-11-06, 10:22:

This game should have paletted textures, i have mentioned it also.

At this time, there isn't enough evidence to support that claim. Especially with reports such as this one where the game apparently worked fine with 3D acceleration on a Radeon 9800 Pro card.

If someone can prove that via testing on real hardware, I'll happily add this game to the wiki. For example, I suggest testing the game on an Nvidia TNT2 (doesn't have paletted texture support) and a Voodoo 3 (has palleted texture support) using period correct drivers to see if there's a difference. Until then, I'm thinking it's more likely that MGS was just poorly coded, as was the case with most console ports from that time.

marxveix wrote on 2026-11-06, 10:22:

Original 1998 Metal Gear Solid on the Sony PlayStation extensively used 4-bit paletted textures (16-color palettes) to save graphics memory and optimize rendering. Metal Gear Solid engine was modified to output 8-bit paletted textures (256 colors) to talk with PC graphics hardware. While the actual internal artwork and character models remained unchanged from their original 4-bit (16-color) PlayStation roots, the 2000 PC port rendered them and required an 8-bit pipeline.

That sounds like AI slop. Unless you have some proper sources to back it up.

Well, my personal experience may give a little support to this "Paletted Textures" thing...

I tried Voodoo3 3000 & GF FX5900XT to run this game with excellent hardware acceleration compatibility. 😄
The GF6800 just leads to software acceleration...-_-

I really don't know why. But maybe I can test with S3 savage 4 pro+/2000, G400MAX, TNT/TNT2 sometime.

BTW, it's shame I don't have a single Redeon graphic card ever. Do you have any suggestion for the win95/98 platform?

I could be mistaken but maybe the software acceleration was coming because of too much VRAM?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-11-07, 12:57:

Thanks! That matches the original report from 2006. What puzzles me are subsequent reports from that thread stating that MGS 3D acceleration worked on a TNT2 and a Radeon 9800, since neither of those cards support paletted textures.

If the Matrox G400 and the TNT2 fail to run the game with hardware acceleration, that would confirm that it is indeed due to paletted textures, since those cards don't support that feature.

Maybe a Radeon 9600 XT, if you can find one at a reasonable price. That's a very nice card for a Win9x/WinXP dual boot system.

I tried G400 MAX and TNT2 this week.
The result is intresting. Both of them could active the hardware acceleration without any issue!
I also tried GF2MX400, not suprisely, it also actived the hard acc.
Sadly, my savage2000 didn't work, S3 validation was not complete. But I recently bought a Savage 4 Pro+ card, I'll try it again when I receive it.

Anyway, I think the result is convincing, the MGS doesn't depend on the 8-bit Paletted Textures, although what makes the hard acc solid is still mysterious.

BTW, it's intresting, IIRC, I actually run the MGS's hard acc with a SIS6326 25 years also. But the memory is hazy, I'm not quite sure about that.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2026-11-09, 04:57:

I could be mistaken but maybe the software acceleration was coming because of too much VRAM?

Well I really have no idea.
I thought it was caused by the 8-bit Paletted Textures feature, turns out it's not...

quigonhu wrote on Today, 03:13:

I tried G400 MAX and TNT2 this week. The result is intresting. Both of them could active the hardware acceleration without any i […]
Show full quote

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-11-07, 12:57:

Thanks! That matches the original report from 2006. What puzzles me are subsequent reports from that thread stating that MGS 3D acceleration worked on a TNT2 and a Radeon 9800, since neither of those cards support paletted textures.

If the Matrox G400 and the TNT2 fail to run the game with hardware acceleration, that would confirm that it is indeed due to paletted textures, since those cards don't support that feature.

Maybe a Radeon 9600 XT, if you can find one at a reasonable price. That's a very nice card for a Win9x/WinXP dual boot system.

I tried G400 MAX and TNT2 this week.
The result is intresting. Both of them could active the hardware acceleration without any issue!
I also tried GF2MX400, not suprisely, it also actived the hard acc.
Sadly, my savage2000 didn't work, S3 validation was not complete. But I recently bought a Savage 4 Pro+ card, I'll try it again when I receive it.

Anyway, I think the result is convincing, the MGS doesn't depend on the 8-bit Paletted Textures, although what makes the hard acc solid is still mysterious.

BTW, it's intresting, IIRC, I actually run the MGS's hard acc with a SIS6326 25 years also. But the memory is hazy, I'm not quite sure about that.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2026-11-09, 04:57:

I could be mistaken but maybe the software acceleration was coming because of too much VRAM?

Well I really have no idea.
I thought it was caused by the 8-bit Paletted Textures feature, turns out it's not...

Got some shotcut

quigonhu wrote on Today, 03:13:

I tried G400 MAX and TNT2 this week.
The result is intresting. Both of them could active the hardware acceleration without any issue!

Thanks for the detailed testing! That settles it then, the PC version of Metal Gear Solid doesn't require paletted texture support for enabling 3D acceleration. It's just a poorly coded console port.

This reminds me, I had a similar experience with Dino Crisis, another PlayStation port from around that time. It also had rendering issues on a GeForce 6200, while working perfectly fine on a Matrox G400 and even some Radeon cards. That too was completely unrelated to paletted textures. It's possible that Nvidia changed something else with their GeForce 6 series that caused rendering issues with some older games. Not surprising, as those cards are from 2004. At that time, most people were chasing the highest framerates in Doom 3 and Far Cry. I doubt old Win9x titles were much of a priority for Nvidia's QA department back then.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 05:28:

quigonhu wrote on Today, 03:13:

I tried G400 MAX and TNT2 this week.
The result is intresting. Both of them could active the hardware acceleration without any issue!

Thanks for the detailed testing! That settles it then, the PC version of Metal Gear Solid doesn't require paletted texture support for enabling 3D acceleration. It's just a poorly coded console port.

This reminds me, I had a similar experience with Dino Crisis, another PlayStation port from around that time. It also had rendering issues on a GeForce 6200, while working perfectly fine on a Matrox G400 and even some Radeon cards. That too was completely unrelated to paletted textures. It's possible that Nvidia changed something else with their GeForce 6 series that caused rendering issues with some older games. Not surprising, as those cards are from 2004. At that time, most people were chasing the highest framerates in Doom 3 and Far Cry. I doubt old Win9x titles were much of a priority for Nvidia's QA department back then.

Yes, I noticed that test years ago, since then I realized the Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures compatibility cound be a serious issue to the retro games.

I found an exactly same phenomenon on RE2, at the very beginning part, on the way to the police office, an iron fence gate besides an ambulance. Some graphic cards just show a dark flat board.

My personal experience is, tried to use some early era graphic cards, especially to nVidia's GPU.
The Voodoo 1/2 would be fine, none for 3 or later.
GF3 and before could be ok, but not for 4 or later. Plus, for the Geforce cards, select the Riva128 in the graphic card option , and keep the driver version older than v12.41.
ATI, didn't try at all since I don't have one.
G200/400 or later, be honest Matrox graphic cards have excellent compatibility to those early era 3D games, including RE1/2, good performance without issue. Espcially to the RE1, the G200/400 is one of the few graphic cards that perform almost no display issue at all. ( The other one which I tested was Voodoo1 )

It's too bad that the G400 broke paletted textures support. It actually worked find on the G200.

Palettes textures were used for the whirlwind maze area.

The trick with them is you could change how the texture looks by editing the palette directly. It’s a common retro trick. You can make something change colors by changing the color in the palette. In this case, changing the colors to brighter colors causes the wind to pick up. That’s why you had to go back to software mode to get past the whirlwind maze with an nvidia card. You couldn’t tell when the wind died down.