Voodoo 5 and Neverwinter Nights?
Michael Mueller
Would love to buy Neverwinter Nghts, but now I got some bad news from
a friend of mine.
Is it true that Neverwinter Nights won't run on computers having a
voodoo 5 installed?
Or is there a workaround?
Michi
Mat128
method to make it to run.... just try America's Army... its wont run under
any voodoo or matrox cards i think (bah don,t work under Voodoo 5 5500 PCI
under winxp or winme)
M@T
"Michael Mueller" <newsg...@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:ot5piu8nhg38q37d8...@4ax.com...
FalconFly
UT2003 will naturally support 3dfx (even Voodoo2 I've heard), ever since it
was decided that 16bit will be implemented.
The leaked Beta Engine Build 927 (which is as well running America's Army -
Recon) was apparently heavily sponsored or supported by NVidia, which in
turn led to the 927 check for a 3dfx Card, and if present, (artificially)
fail running. Thanks NVidia btw, such a great company.
Proof of this can be found in the Engine Logfile, that is written to disk
when America's Army - Recon fails launching.
There are hacks that override this anti-3dfx Check (Vendor ID was simply
changed), and a Voodoo5 indeed runs the 927 Engine more or less fine (it's
still Beta anyway).
As said, newer Versions won't have this limitation anymore. UT2003 will run
20-30fps in 640x480 on a Voodoo3 without any tweaks. An optimized Voodoo3
with a good driver might do better.
For Neverwinter Nights, here's a Link to a Thread from someone who runs it
on his V5 :
http://3dhq.mine.nu:81/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3418
Note that he only gets about 10-15fps, but he said it works. I trust it he's
honest, since I don't have the game to test myself...
Fast CPU seems to help alot with this game...
Hope that helps :)
Greetings
FalconFly
============
Webmaster
www.falconfly.de
3dfx Archive
FalconFly
Direct Link in case the mentioned Forum is down :
http://www.acquerra.com.au/personal/bird/nwn.txt
Also scratch that 10-15fps part, I mixed it up with another 3dfx related
Game Problem...
In case the Textfile Link goes down, here's the entire thing (better safe
than sorry ;) :
--------------------------------------------
Neverwinter Nights WORKS on a v5/5500 and win98.
I have seen many people asking how to get NWN to run on the V5. There is
some
misinformation going around that it's not possible 'cause NWN needs openGL
1.2 and the V5
drivers only have opengl 1.1 ICD. THIS IS NOT TRUE. NWN runs fine with the
1.1 ICD, provided
you start it in just the right way... :-)
Here is a recipe that makes the game work for me - I hope it works for you
too.
However, I don't guarantee anything... If it doesnt work for you then I'm
sorry for getting your hopes up. However maybe you can use some of the
information here
to work out a solution.
The critical points when NWN starts up seem to be the transitions between
the splash screens
--> movie --> game screen. Under most situations, you end up with either
a crash or just a blank screen at the end. I see a lot of people here
reporting a "blank screen" after the intro. I was getting that too, until I
stumbled
on a recipe that works around it.
After some trial and error (about 2 days worth), I think I have a reliable
way that gets the game loaded and working. I have experimented
with variations on this recipe, and ONLY ONE METHOD WORKS. If I had access
to the
NWN source code, I could probably figure out why, but I don't :-(
This recipe is specifically for a V5/5500 on win98. It might work on other
systems, but I don't know. My CPU is an AMD duron 1Ghz (actually it's my
wifes machine :-))
Drivers
=======
You NEED the x3dfx-1.08.04 drivers. I mean it. I experimented with others,
and
they all failed except for this one. The filename is
x3dfx_V5_Win9X_1.08.04.exe,
available from any good voodoo site - try www.voodoofiles.com.
* You should leave the settings for this driver on their defaults until you
have
got it working - I have found that changing the driver settings can stop the
game
from loading. I'm looking into it now to see which settings are causing
problems.
Ok - got that driver installed and working? Good...
(ps I tried the "underground" beta 1.09 driver, and it didnt work - blank
screen
syndrome.)
I assume that you have directx 8.1 installed. NWN offers to install it, but
I didn't need
to because I already had it.
I have my desktop running as 1152x864x32. This may not be a factor, but I
thought
I'd mention it just in case there's something magic about starting NWN
from that resolution :-)
Install the game, up to the point where it has run the nwconfig program - it
will
probably suggest 800x600 mode. Accept this and then quit out without
starting the game.
This will create the nwconfig.ini and nwn.ini files.
This is the first hurdle to pass - if you don't have the 1.08.04 drivers
installed then
nwconfig will either crash or complain that it can't find any OpenGL
drivers.
(Sometimes I have seen the first game menu come up without text on any of
the buttons.
This seems harmless, and will be correct the next time you start the game.)
To get a working cursor, you HAVE to change the "Enable HardwareMouse=1"
line in
nwn.ini to "Enable HardwareMouse=0". Do that before continuing.
Now, to start the game... pay close attention.
Good and Bad
============
There are 2 different ways that NWN can start up - the "good" way and the
"bad" way.
If it starts the "good" way then you will end up with a working game. If it
starts the "bad"
way then you'll end up with either a crash-to-desktop of the dreaded blank
screen of death.
You can tell them apart because of the way the splash screens behave when
you start the game. I'll
descibe them both here so you know what to look for:
The "good" startup will NOT show the white ATARI splash screen, and it will
show the Bioware Dragon
and other splash screens off-centre. i.e. The game will still be running at
your desktop resolution
when it shows the splash screens, so they will be displayed as 800x600 in
the top left corner of the screen.
The "bad" startup shows all the splash screens (including the ATARI one)
centered properly, and
the game will have already switched resolution to 800x600 (or whatever you
have chosen).
When this happens you have no choice but to reboot. NWN will not start up if
you see this sort of behaviour.
When you see a "good" startup, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING until the movie starts.
If you press a key, or click the mouse prior to the start of the movie then
you will just end up with the blank screen syndrome or no mouse, and you'll
have to kill it
with CTRL-ALT-DEL and start again.
When the intro movie starts playing, press the SPACE bar. You should see the
game screen
come up, with a working mouse. The game is running successfully.
IMPORTANT! Don't let the movie play to completion, or the game will crash to
desktop, and you'll
have to reboot before you can try again. Obviously the V5 has had its
internal state scrambled
by something that happens at the end of the intro movie, and pressing SPACE
while the movie
is playing skips past it.
That's it. Hope it works for you. It's made me very happy.
*NOTE*
I have sometimes had the game quit to desktop after showing the bioware
dragon splash screen.
To fix this, try running the nwconfig.exe from the NWN directory, and make
sure you press
the "scan" button and then the "test" button. It should show a blank screen
and then return ok.
After accepting the suggested recolution, try running the game again as per
the instructions above.
It should be ok now.
If nwconfig complains that you don't have a valid OpenGL driver installed,
reboot and try again :-)
Clearly there is some part of the V5 which is not being reliably
initialised. I'm sure the correct
fix would only be a few extra lines of OpenGL / Glide startup code...
p.s. You'll have to turn off the shadows and stuff in the video config for
it to be
playable, but it still looks very nice. I'd suggest you get something faster
than my
1G duron though :-(
regards, Bird
-------------------------------------------------------------
fm
#
I got the hacked dll and find certain maps ok to play (vidona?) - but most
of them produce tearing lines / rainbow glitches then my PC crashes with an
infinite loop problem...
using voodoo 5pci - 3DFXU beta 1.09 4 drivers - win xp pro
I loaded up some maps in the editor and selected all actors and turned off
shadow casting and all the exotic stuff - I could then move around the
editor without it crashing - but on testing the map the crashes would
return.
Anyone with a voodoo 5 know a way to get around this?
Cant wait for the game to come out for sale - this will be the best game on
the PC for many years.
FM
"FalconFly" <falc...@ewetel.net> wrote in message
news:agibmn$lqgfr$1...@ID-75931.news.dfncis.de...
> Ah, I forgot :
>
> Direct Link in case the mentioned Forum is down :
> http://www.acquerra.com.au/personal/bird/nwn.txt
>
> Also scratch that 10-15fps part, I mixed it up with another 3dfx related
> Game Problem...
>
> In case the Textfile Link goes down, here's the entire thing (better safe
> than sorry ;) :
> --------------------------------------------
Michael Mueller
thanks for your great post on this.
Michi
On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:15:12 +0200, "FalconFly" <falc...@ewetel.net>
wrote:
[sollution snipped]