VOGONS


First post, by Trank

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So i am thinking about getting a Voodoo2/3 PCI card so i can use it along with this Geforce4 4400 as it has Texel Alignment issues,(Final Fantasy 7, Xwing Alliance. I may just get my hands on a Radeon 8500) and as far as i know its impossible to fix.

Now i have never used a computer that had two different brands of GFX cards in it before. Will i need is to do is hook up the monitor to the card when i tell the games to render with that instead? Is there a way to pass through the main card?

Reply 1 of 7, by Chewhacca

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Should be possible. A lot of old games allow you to change the rendering device in the graphics options. Not sure about those specific games though.

Reply 2 of 7, by Gamecollector

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Hardware - there is AGP/PCI switch in BIOS. You can select the primary videocard with it. And you need KVM switch/Dual input monitor to utilize both video signals.
Software - well, both dx and ogl support multiple devices. The only trouble is - IIRC Voodoo3 not registers itself in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\OpenGlDrivers (WinXp), you must add it manually. But maybe I remember this wrongly.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 3 of 7, by boxpressed

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I go through the fairly convoluted process of changing the adapter to "Standard VGA (PCI)" and then reboot into the BIOS settings. Then I switch to either AGP or PCI for the video card startup and then shut down. Then move the VGA cable to the other card. Once in Windows, I change the adapter to the connected card and reboot again. Takes a few minutes, but booting into Windows with one video card when it is expecting another can create some weird problems.

Reply 4 of 7, by Trank

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Thanks for the info guys. So the KVM Switch thing is a good idea, that way i wont have to move the cable/setup a second monitor with this old PC. And i wont have to worry about WinXP with the Voodoo3 as i would only use Win98se with it.

Like Chewhacca said, plenty of games like Unreal, Rainbow Six and even most of the Lucasarts games allow you to change the rendering device, though more importantly Final Fantasy 7, which im dying to play on old real hardware and i know hardware acceleration even works up to the Voodoo5. So i would be able to avoid doing what Boxpressed would be doing i believe. Just set the AGP card(Geforce4) as primary in bios, and then change the games i want to, to use the Voodoo3.

If only nvidia didn't disable Texel Alignment in cards after the Geforce2, makes no sense. Im lucky to own a Quadro4 NVS200 64mb which has great 2d quality and doesn't have Texel Alignment issue but it has horrible performance in 3d games. Even Quake 2 or Jedi Knight. Unreal and Quake 3 run very poorly.

Anyways thanks for the info. Maybe i should build a Pentium 2 machine? haha..

Reply 5 of 7, by gerwin

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Trank wrote:

So i am thinking about getting a Voodoo2/3 PCI card so i can use it along with this Geforce4 4400 as it has Texel Alignment issues,(Final Fantasy 7, Xwing Alliance. I may just get my hands on a Radeon 8500) and as far as i know its impossible to fix.

The Radeon 5xxx / 6xxx series videocards (and possibly others) have a "legacy pixelcenter" option, which improves texture alignment in quite a few games. Actually I am failing to find it in the normal options panel now..., I normally toggle it with a registry file.

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Reply 6 of 7, by Gamecollector

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Alternate pixel center still supported by Ati Tray Tool. Or you can force it with a .reg file.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 7 of 7, by Trank

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Yeah, i read about that, which is why i could just buy a Ati 8500 and use the Pixel Center feature. But i really love my 4400, just sucks that theres no way to force the same thing with a nvidia card. You can for the Geforce cards before the Geforce 3, but after that the Texel Alignment has no affect whats so ever.