idspispopd wrote:

you do realize that a lot of the games you listed will not profit from either the card you have or any 3D accelerator?

As noted prevously, I simply made a list of popular, mostly 3D games, between 1994-1998. I know little about computer gaming, but assumed some games would be software-only, some D3D, some OpenGL, and some proprietary API. My plan was to learn as I go. If you have some alternate recommendation for a 3D game which would normally be considered unplayable on a fast 486, but playable after the introduction of a more modern 3D accelerator, please let me know. A good example is Quake and Tomb Raider II.

These are my notes thus far,

DTK PKM-0033S - Cyrix 5x86-133/4x - 128 MB RAM - 1024 K cache - Voodoo3 3000 16 MB - AWE64G - Ultra2 SCSI - Win95c/NT4

Win95c
Doom I - Plays fine (no accel.)
Doom II - Plays fine (no accel.)
Final Doom - Plays fine (no accel.)
GL DOOM I - Plays fine (3dfx)
GL DOOM II - Plays fine (3dfx)
GL Final Doom - Plays fine (3dfx)
Descent I - Plays fine (3dfx patch)
Descent II - Plays fine (3dfx patch)
Raptor - Plays fine (no accel.)
GLQuake - Plays fine at 24.0 fps w/sound (3dfx)
Quake II - Plays slow at 11.1 fps without sound (3dfx)
Battlezone Demo - Plays fine (3dfx?)
Tomb Raider - Plays fine in software mode. 3dfx patch does not work.
Tomb Raider Unfinished Business - Plays fine (3dfx patch)
Tomb Raider II Demo - Plays fine (D3D)
Mechwarrior 3 Demo - Plays too slow (3dfx)
Need for Speed II - Plays too slow (3dfx)
MDK - Plays fine (3dfx)
MDK2 - Plays too slow at 3-4 fps (3dfx)
Magic Carpet II - Plays fine with high detail by pressing 'r' in game. (no accel.)
Destruction Derby - Plays fine, but does not appear to have a high detail setting (no accel.)

WinNT4
GLQuake - Plays fine, 23.x fps w/sound (3dfx)
Quake II - Plays slow at 11.2 fps without sound (3dfx)
Tomb Raider - I and Unfinished Business did not play
Tomb Raider II Demo - Works, but only in software mode. Playback slow. Need to install DX5 files.
Raptor - It will play, but you need to use the PC speaker sound. Is there a way to get sound out of an AWE64G from the command console in NT4?
MDK - Does not load.

Biostar MB-8433UUD - IBM 5x86-133/2x - 128 MB RAM - 1024 K cache - Matrox G200 16MB - AWE64G - Ultra2 SCSI - Win95c/NT4

Win95c
Doom I - Plays fine (no accel.)
Doom II - Plays fine (no accel.)
Final Doom - Plays fine (no accel.)
GL DOOM I - Does not start.
GL DOOM II - Does not start.
Descent I - Plays fine (no accel.)
Descent II - Plays fine (no accel.)
Raptor - Plays fine.
GLQuake - Plays fine at 14.8 fps without sound (D3D Wrapper)
Quake II - Plays slow at 7.7 fps without sound (D3D Wrapper)
Battlezone Demo - Plays fine.
Tomb Raider - Plays fine (no accel.)
Tomb Raider Unfinished Business - Plays fine (no accel.)
Tomb Raider II Demo - Play fine with acceleration (D3D).
Mechwarrior 3 Demo - Plays too slow
Need for Speed II - Plays too slow
MDK - Plays fine (D3D)
MDK2 - Plays too slow
Magic Carpet II - Plays fine with high detail by pressing 'r' in game. (no accel.)
Destruction Derby - Plays fine, but does not appear to have a high detail setting (no accel.)

WinNT4
GLQuake - Plays fine at 14.8 fps without sound (Matrox OpenGL)
Quake II - Plays slow at 9.7 fps without sound (Matrox OpenGL)
Tomb Raider - TR1 and Unfinished Business did not play.
Tomb Raider II Demo - Works, but only in software mode. Playback slow. Need to install DX5 files.
Raptor - It will play, but you need to use the PC speaker sound. Is there a way to get sound out of an AWE64G from the command console in NT4?
MDK - Does not load.

feipoa wrote:

idspispopd wrote:

you do realize that a lot of the games you listed will not profit from either the card you have or any 3D accelerator?

As noted prevously, I simply made a list of popular, mostly 3D games, between 1994-1998. I know little about computer gaming, but assumed some games would be software-only, some D3D, some OpenGL, and some proprietary API. My plan was to learn as I go. If you have some alternate recommendation for a 3D game which would normally be considered unplayable on a fast 486, but playable after the introduction of a more modern 3D accelerator, please let me know. A good example is Quake and Tomb Raider II.

OK, that wasn't totally clear. If the game is not accelerated there probably won't be a difference between most PCI cards on a 486.

feipoa wrote:

Win95c Tomb Raider - Plays fine in software mode. 3dfx patch does not work. […]
Show full quote

Win95c
Tomb Raider - Plays fine in software mode. 3dfx patch does not work.

WinNT4
Tomb Raider - I and Unfinished Business did not play
Tomb Raider II Demo - Works, but only in software mode. Playback slow. Need to install DX5 files.
Raptor - It will play, but you need to use the PC speaker sound. Is there a way to get sound out of an AWE64G from the command console in NT4?

Tomb Raider 1 has different 3dfx patches. Did you try the one for the Voodoo Rush? That might work, although people did have issues.
Regarding NT: Running DOS games on NT based systems is not fun, that's why VDMSound and DOSBox were developed. (TR1, Raptor)

TR2: As I wrote there seems to be no Direct3D acceleration in NT 4.0. W2K has Direct3D acceleration, but a 486 is below the requirements, I don't know if it is possible to get that working.

but a 486 is below the requirements, I don't know if it is possible to get that working.

It works. Just as long as you have at least 64 MB of RAM. Its not fast though. Especially takes a long time to boot up

Fascinating! All I need to do is install this magic VDMSound and I can play (hear) all the referenced DOS games in software mode from within NT4's command console? What performance loss is there compared to DOS and Win95c when run on a slower system such as this (~P90)?

I wouldn't use VDMSound or any form of soundchip emulation on a 486.

idspispopd wrote:

Tomb Raider 1 has different 3dfx patches. Did you try the one for the Voodoo Rush? That might work, although people did have issues.
Regarding NT: Running DOS games on NT based systems is not fun, that's why VDMSound and DOSBox were developed. (TR1, Raptor)

Thank you for the tip. After copying glide2x.ovl to the games directory and using the Voodoo Rush patch, the game runs silky smooth.

Will Glidos work with acceptably on a 486? What about with a Matrox G200? NT4?

I wouldn't use any form of Glide emulation on a 486.

Don't emulate on a 486.

vetz wrote:

Starcraft [Starcraft might run well if not so many enemies on screen.]

Heh, I dare you to try a zergling rush.

Starcraft's actually quite well optimized, 486 just gets caught up on the lookup tables for drawing the fog.

I am working on the game Outlaws now. The game play is a bit on the slow side, but tolerable. Apparently there was an v2.0 update, a 3dfx patch, and a D3D patch. When I run the executable files for these patches, it says it cannot find the game, to please install the game, then exits. The online files I found for the game were a zipped up pre-installation folder which I put into C:\games\Outlaws. Perhaps these patch installer executable files are looking for the the default Outlaws directory. What is the default installation directory? Or is there a registry file which gets flagged upon CD installation?

Install from your Outlaws CD and it will work.

As eluded to in my previous post, I do not have the Outlaws CD. Does anyone know the default installation path for this game? What about any registry changes made by the official installer? Thanks.

Would the Dos 3DFX version of Blood run okay on a 486 I never got it to work.

I was able to locate an Outlaws disc to install the v1.1, 2.0, 2.01, and 2.02 updates for this game. The game plays great w/Voodoo3 (3dfx patch) in Win95c and WinNT4 (640x480 max res. for 3dfx patch). The game also plays great w/MatroxG200 in Win95c at resolutions >= 640x480 using D3D patch.

The use of the term "great" is subjective. There was a night and day difference between DirectDraw mode and the 3D accelerated modes. I am not savy enough with games to estimate the frame rate, but it felt at or equal to that of GLQuake (>=24 fps).

If you insist on trying WinNT4 I'd look for more early Windows Glide games.

idspispopd wrote:

If you insist on trying WinNT4 I'd look for more early Windows Glide games.

Why do you suggest earlier Glide games when using WinNT4 with a Voodoo3? I did not notice any decrease in performance with NT4 over Win95c when playing Outlaws. Same for software mode. 640x480 was the maximum the 3dfx patch would allow for Win95c and NT4.

Not earlier, just more of the early ones, as opposed to Direct3D games. (There are probably not a lot of early OpenGL games asides from Quake.)

Before GLQuake, it was just a few VRML clients and screensavers that used OpenGL (Windows consumer-side speaking)

Hi,

You can use an Hercules 3D Prophet 4000 XT 64 Mo PCI but it's slow for me or use a GeForce 440Mx PCI (like a geforce2), i can boot and go to Windows 98se but i can't to run direct3d or OpenGL Windows games, bad driver perhaps?
I 've tried an Hercules 9200 Radeon PCI, no boot on a 486 or a Pentium with VX chipset, only boot on a Pentium II ...🤣

I never do dos bench game with theses graphics card, only 3d games on Windows like need for speed 2,virtua cop,quake 3, 3dmark99 , final fantasy 7 with 3dfx 3000.

My tactic was to try every driver I could find for a given graphics card, then select the one which yielded the best performance. In most cases, only 1 driver out of a dozen would work properly.