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First post, by jklaiho

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Here's a problem Google failed to assist me with.

I've got a P3 550MHz retro rig running various things, DOS 6.22 among them. It's currently equipped with a Voodoo3 3000 (IIRC) AGP card, bought second-hand, brand unknown.

I installed Tomb Raider and augmented it with the Voodoo Rush patch and the glide2x.ovl and .dll files from the Voodoo3 installation CD. The game starts up fine and the graphics look fine in-game, but pressing Esc to bring up the inventory hangs the game right there. The inventory is never drawn.

I tried using different Glide patches (only the Rush patch worked) and different .ovl and .dll versions (only the Banshee era Glide and the Glide from the V3 CD worked) to no avail. I played around with some Glide environment variables, also to no avail.

TR seems to be quite flaky with its hardware support all in all, and this could be a combination of a whole lot of things. I'm in the process of trying to get my hands on Voodoo and Voodoo2 cards as well, and already have a PCI version of the Voodoo3 as well, and one or more of those might work, but I'm still curious if someone has some ideas how this inventory hang might be remedied.

Reply 3 of 23, by batracio

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Usually you don't need to copy either glide2x.ovl or glide2x.dll to the game's folder, but they won't do much harm if your files are compatible with your actual card. I mean, V1 files with V1 card, V2 files with V2 card, V3 files with V3 card, and so on. It seems pretty straightforward, but some people fail at following even the most basic and obvious recommendations.

Glide2x.ovl is a DOS-only driver for 3dfx cards. You will need it if you want to play Tomb Raider with the Voodoo Rush patch. It is usually located at C:\WINDOWS folder. If your path includes C:\WINDOWS, then you're done. If not, then you can copy your glide2x.ovl file to the game's folder.

Glide2x.dll is a windows-only driver for 3dfx cards. Tomb Raider is a DOS game, so you will never need any glide2x.dll file in pure DOS. And by never I do mean never. Period. Well, actually you may need glide2x.dll if you use some workaround to play Tomb Raider in Windows. More on this later.

Voodoo Graphics patch for Tomb Raider is a DOS executable file that directly accesses Voodoo1 for hardware acceleration. Therefore you should only use it if you have a Voodoo1, or maybe a Voodoo2 with heavily tweaked Glide environment variables. Any other card just won't work.

Voodoo Rush patch for Tomb Raider is a DOS executable file that uses glide2x.ovl driver for hardware acceleration. It should work with any valid glide2x.ovl for your 3dfx card, but unfortunately Tomb Raider tries to read the linear frame buffer when you press the ESC key, and the game crashes because it is unable to lock 3dfx frame buffer on any non-Rush 3dfx card.

What can you do then? Well, a PCI Voodoo3 won't work any better than an AGP Voodoo3, that's for sure. Same goes for Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo4 and Voodoo5. You'd better save your money for a Voodoo1, a Voodoo Rush or a Voodoo2. And the last one isn't even guaranteed to work.

Or, alternatively, you can use a Glide wrapper to run Tomb Raider. There are only two Glide wrappers for DOS games that we know of: Glidos and dgVoodoo. Try both and use whichever works best for you. Glide wrappers are Windows programs and will need both glide2x.ovl and glide2x.dll files, but not the 3dfx versions. They use wrapper libraries instead. Glide2x.ovl wrapper translates DOSGlide calls to WinGlide calls, and glide2x.dll wrapper translates WinGlide calls to either OpenGL or Direct3D calls. You won't need a real 3dfx card anymore, just an OpenGL or Direct3D compliant card. But actually only GeForce and Radeon cards are supported, just like with most other Windows games.

However, if you insist on playing Tomb Raider on your Voodoo3, there's still another Über trick you can also try: a half-only wrapper. You would install either Glidos or dgVoodoo wrapper, but replacing its glide2x.dll wrapper with a native 3dfx glide2x.dll library. This setup will only translate DOSGlide calls to WinGlide calls via glide2x.ovl, but WinGlide calls will run natively on your 3dfx card's glide2x.dll library. You may or may not suffer again the same crash when the game locks the frame buffer for read - it's been ages since I last did it. But you don't lose anything for trying.

And finally, the Super-Über trick: playing Tomb Raider inside Gulikoza's or Ykhwong's DosBox builds with Glide support. It is basically the same thing as using a DOSGlide wrapper, because those special DosBox builds also come with a glide2x.ovl file that internally translates DOSGlide calls to WinGlide calls. Then you can use any suitable glide2x.dll library, either a WinGlide wrapper or a native 3dfx driver. it has been reported to work with OpenGLide, psVoodoo (Glidos-compatible wrappers), dgVoodoo wrapper, Zeckensack's wrapper and 3dfx Voodoo2's native glide2x.dll library.

Expect this last option to be slower than the previous ones because Tomb Raider will run emulated inside DosBox, while the other workarounds allow it to run natively inside Virtual DOS machines. The performance hit on a low-end Pentium III will be noticeable. At least Glide calls will still run with hardware acceleration. There's an even slower but more compatible workaround: Kekko's full software implementation of Voodoo Graphics chipset. I can't recommend it because it's still under development and will be unplayable on a P3, but it will probably be the way to go in the future.

Reply 4 of 23, by jklaiho

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Thank you for your comprehensive answer, batracio.

My attempts are mostly based on http://www.smokeypoint.com/banshee.html, where there are reports of people having successfully played TR with Voodoo3 using the Rush patch, even without the use of GliDOS. The page is geared towards people playing the game from Windows though, while I've got a pure DOS install going. What difference that makes, I'm not sure. Perhaps something to do with the presence of DirectX.

But no matter, this isn't a critical thing. I've got older Voodoo cards coming up that I can test later on.

Reply 5 of 23, by batracio

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The information you found on that page is very outdated (and wrong!!! Glide support in GeForce3 without a wrapper? No way).

Anyway, you're trying the hard way to run Tomb Raider with hardware acceleration, that is, native 3dfx Glide in pure DOS, and I like challenges. Here are the actually useful instructions you should follow:

- Use the Voodoo Rush patch (you already know this one).

- Forget about what version of Voodoo3 Windows driver, Glide2x.dll library or DirectX release you are using. It doesn't matter at all.

- Download as many Voodoo3 Win9x drivers as you can find. I always prefer this site for 3dfx-related downloads: http://falconfly.de/voodoo3.htm

- Does this sound contradictory to you? It isn't really. You need some driver, but you don't have to install it. Just unzip the archives to extract the glide2x.ovl file. That's everything you need. Try every glide2x.ovl you have found until the game doesn't crash when it tries to lock the frame buffer (check ESC, F5 and F6 keys). I think the older the driver is, the more chances you will have to run Tomb Raider without the LFB read bug.

I guess that's all for now. With a bit of luck, you'll have 3dfx Tomb Raider running on your Voodoo3. If not, forget about it until you have a Voodoo1 or Voodoo2 (I never liked the Voodoo Rush, and they are harder to find).

Reply 6 of 23, by jklaiho

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The information you found on that page is very outdated (and wrong!!! Glide support in GeForce3 without a wrapper? No way).

I had my suspicions to that effect (the page is nigh unreadable and has a hacky unreliable, anecdotal feel to it), but nothing to prove it with 😀

Forget about what version of Voodoo3 Windows driver, Glide2x.dll library or DirectX release you are using. It doesn't matter at all.

Well, being in pure DOS 6.22, those aren't a concern fortunately.

Download as many Voodoo3 Win9x drivers as you can find. I always prefer this site for 3dfx-related downloads: http://falconfly.de/voodoo3.htm

Whoah, that's a lot of stuff. It's going to take some time to try them all.

Before posting the original message, I tried glide2x.ovl versions 2.43, 2.53 and 2.61 (all from smokeypoint.com), none of which activated the Glide rendering, just displaying the usual 320x200 pixel porridge. Banshee-era glide2x.ovl (version unknown, from smokeypoint.com) and the glide2x.ovl from my Voodoo3 CD (version unknown) both rendered Glide just fine, but had the LFB bug.

Anyway, once I have some more time I'll try out those falconfly.de versions and report back.

Reply 7 of 23, by jklaiho

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Oh, another question for you, batracio (or anyone who cares to jump in):

When I get an original Voodoo card, is it possible to install it alongside the Voodoo3 card and have some games use Voodoo and other games Voodoo3, whichever works best for each game?

I'm not surprised if it's not possible, with Voodoo3 automatically bogarting any use of Glide it sees, but I've been wondering about this for a while.

EDIT: looks like it was possible on the Mac at least: http://www.g-news.ch/articles/v3plusv1.html

In Win98, I'd basically only use Voodoo3, but in pure DOS (I dual boot) I might prefer Voodoo.

This would make my use of the retro rig a lot more convenient in several instances.

(And if you're about to ask why don't I just try and make Tomb Raider work with Voodoo3 under Win98 instead of DOS, well, I like challenges too 😉)

Reply 8 of 23, by batracio

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Yes, it is possible, but both cards will try to install glide2x.ovl, glide2x.dll and glide3x.dll files to the same locations, so a driver conflict may arise.

If you will always use Voodoo1 for DOS and Voodoo3 for Windows, you can easily avoid any conflict. Install Voodoo3 driver first, and make a backup copy of both glide2x.dll and glide3x.dll files. Then install Voodoo1 driver, and replace overwritten Glide libraries with the ones in the Voodoo3 backup. That's all. Voodoo3 will run Glide in Windows, and Voodoo1 will run Glide in DOS.

Be careful with OpenGL and Direct3D games, though. With this setup, you will disable OpenGL in Voodoo1, while Direct3D will still detect both cards, but you will have to choose which one to use in games that allow D3D device selection. Games that do not allow this will only use Voodoo1 by default, and you will have to manually disable it in DxDiag, PowerStrip or any other similar tool.

Last edited by batracio on 2011-05-20, 15:02. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 9 of 23, by jklaiho

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Getting close...

So, I got my hands on a Voodoo card, an Orchid Righteous 3D. Just arrived in the mail (great timing).

I chained the Voodoo and the Voodoo3 and booted to DOS 6.22. There's no Windows installation on the same partition at all, so pure DOS.

Downloaded the Orchid glide2x.ovl from falconfly.de (based on 2.43 according to the readme) and also tested with a stock 2.43 from 3dfx, copied to the game directory.

Tried it with both glide2x.ovl files and two different 3dfx tomb.exes (not the Rush one) in different combinations from the TR CD (Sold Out rerelease), this is the result with each combination:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2287394/menu.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2287394/in_game.jpg

As is plainly obvious, all the accelerated graphics (including the spinning 3dfx logo at the start) have a wacky palette. It's not visible on the photos, but there's some dot crawl as well, some sort of mild interference pattern.

The intro videos and cutscenes have correct colors, though. Also, the LFB bug is gone, pressing Esc or F5/F6 no longer hangs the game.

Any ideas what to try next?

EDIT: ah, forgot that glide2x.ovl isn't necessary when using the 3dfx patches for TR. Took it out of the game directory, but the faulty palette remains.

Reply 10 of 23, by batracio

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Looks like a gamma issue. Copy and paste these commands to a text file:

SET SST_RGAMMA=%1
SET SST_GGAMMA=%1
SET SST_BGAMMA=%1

Save it as GAMMA.BAT to some folder in your path. Now try different gamma values from 1 to 2 before running the game, that is:

C:\TOMBRAID>GAMMA 1.3
C:\TOMBRAID>TOMB3DFX

or

C:\TOMBRAID>GAMMA 1.7
C:\TOMBRAID>TOMB3DFX

and so on. When you find the right gamma, you can add the commands to AUTOEXEC.BAT with the actual value instead of %1.

Glide2x.ovl is still needed by Voodoo Rush patch. But yes, you can delete it from game folder if you are using Voodoo Graphics patch right now.

Reply 11 of 23, by jklaiho

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Nope, definitely not a gamma issue. Gamma has to do with the luminance of the images after all, and this is definitely a case of the color palette gone wrong. I did try the batch file just in case Voodoo does odd things with gamma values, but all it did was affect the luminance.

I'm going to test with some other DOS Glide games and also by replacing the Voodoo3 with another, non-Glide primary video card to chain the Voodoo to and see what happens.

It's not inconceivable that I've received a faulty Voodoo card, but testing other Glide games should make that clear.

Reply 12 of 23, by batracio

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Sorry, it was a timing issue. Try to set these delays before running the game:

SET SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4 SET SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6 SET SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6 SET SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1 SET SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0 […]
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SET SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4
SET SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6
SET SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6
SET SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1
SET SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0

I've tried those settings on a Voodoo2 and they worked fine with the Voodoo Graphics patch. I also tried the Voodoo Rush patch and it didn't need any environment tweak in order to work. Besides, the LFB bug is absent, while I can perfectly remember having found the bug with this same card some years ago. I was probably using the last reference driver with DirectX 7 support, which I guess is the most popular Voodoo2 driver, though it has at least another serious bug. Now I'm using the old and trusty DirectX 6.1 driver.

Reply 13 of 23, by jklaiho

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You, sir, work miracles. I'm now running Glide Tomb Raider in pure DOS with the Voodoo card, correct palette and everything.

Those timing delay variables look arbitrary, but probably aren't. How did you arrive at those?

(Now, next thing is to try and make Carmageddon not hang after displaying the 3dfx logo...)

Reply 14 of 23, by gerwin

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jklaiho wrote:

I've got a P3 550MHz retro rig running various things, DOS 6.22 among them. It's currently equipped with a Voodoo3 3000 (IIRC) AGP card, bought second-hand, brand unknown.

I installed Tomb Raider and augmented it with the Voodoo Rush patch and the glide2x.ovl and .dll files from the Voodoo3 installation CD. The game starts up fine and the graphics look fine in-game, but pressing Esc to bring up the inventory hangs the game right there. The inventory is never drawn.

Since A few months I build a 150 to 400 MHz Pentium system running with a Voodoo 3. For now there are only DOS games on there, two of which do 3DFX Glide: Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto. T.R. worked fine with Glide after a little research on the right OVL file (smokeypoint).GTA worked fine after blindly selecting a supported resolution with F11 in the game. I ran the games quite a few hours without any instability. TombFX works with both the batch file Glide statements and without them. I never encountered the described inventory issue.. Oh wait there were some BIOS settings that spoiled glide a little, passive release and video RAM cachable IIRC. The Above is both with a Voodoo 3 2000 AGP and PCI, but I ditched the PCI card because of the heat of the VRM.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 15 of 23, by TheAdict

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Hello,

voodoo3 pci 3000 to my work with voodrush tomb raider 1 patch. The expansion of tomb raider 1 if I work with 3dfx patch.

Playing with Windows 98 SE, DirectX 8, 3dfx Voodoo3 V1.07.00, Pentium 3 700 mhz socket 370.

To me with defective cd, and I was not going to 3dfx, nor voodrush. Use with another cd and it works with me voodrush. No inventory hangs on me.

Optimize the bios, I use enable transmission delay with optimal bios settings. If you have 2.1 pci option, also enable.

The option geometry can hang voodoo3 of the team in some games. I have understood that it is because it conflicts if the game instructs the microprocessor to be responsible for it. This happens in pentium III, pentium II I think not..

Reply 17 of 23, by kjliew

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Guys, the simple answer is - stop using your retro rigs to play TR1.
Get the best CPUs - you can afford, Intel or AMD, even IGP/APU will work and use DOSBox SVN with 3Dfx/Glide support to play TR1.

Reply 18 of 23, by archsan

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^ would that sentiment even show up if this were a Marvin thread? 😜

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)

Reply 19 of 23, by vetz

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archsan wrote:

^ would that sentiment even show up if this were a Marvin thread? 😜

Reminds me of the experience with posting questions about old hardware on modern PC forums...

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