First post, by ratfink
- Rank
- Oldbie
So this is a pet subject of mine, I posted about it a few years ago but was content I had solved the problem [ie. found a kind-of solution and moved on].
Warcraft 1 plays on my Athlon/Voodoo5 box ok. Except that I get little flashes appearing on certain graphics, and building outlines flash too fast. The latter is due to computer speed it seems [though the game itself does not play too fast] as can be proved by playing it on a slower box.
But the little flashes of white look crappy, I want to get rid of them. I tried these cards:
Voodoo 5
Voodoo 3500
G200
all show this symptom. This is running under DOS or Windows. Today I tried on my 486, arghh! I notice them on an S3 Trio and an S3 Virge, though not as bad as the Voodoos.
So I try them on a Wildcat VP760 card - this is an old workstation openGL agp card [dx8.1 compatible too, but try playing Diablo in 800x600, runs at like half speed], which has excellent quality for some things. Wow, warcraft 1 is glitch-free, none of those damn flickerings.
I don't get it, what can be going on here? They are all using the same monitor and kvm cables . The fact the wildcat works shows its not the kvm or monitor[or any interference with the cabling - I did find that my Phenom box caused interference in nearby computer graphics once upon a time, but it was off during this testing], nor the athlon box itself as thats what I tried the Wildcat in. Is there some signal strength issue, some tolerance somewhere that consumer-level cards are a bit looser with?
Makes a difference to me because I rank visuals greater than crappy music [and I think warcraft 1 music is pretty naff whatever I play it through - gus, roland, yamaha, whatever]. So the 486's days could be numbered here, as I am starting to value space over recalcitrant equipment 🤣.
Dosbox incidentally is glitch-free [even on the voodoo 5 on the athlon] but the slight input lags make me want to also be able to play the game natively.
So far I haven't seen this effect with anything else but this is the only game I play that's from the pre-486 era as far as I know.
Update: I muffed up my graphics card swaps and ended up leaving the Virge in my 486. Now I get these same glitches in Heretic, all over the place. Haven't seen that elsewhere, Heretic is usually fine.
