Voodoo 1 & DX6.0--A solution?? (somewhat long)
Michael Simone
my aging rig, just enough to let me keep playing 3D games without sinking a
lot of money into a whole new system. My current relevant system specs are:
Pentium 166MMX
64MB EDO RAM
3.4GB hard drive
S3 Virge DX video card w/4MB VRAM
Monster 3D 1 w/4MB
17" monitor
Windows 98 w/ DirectX 6.0
I've been reading a lot about how the Voodoo 1 cards have not been supported
for DirectX 6.0, how 3dfx may or may not come out with drivers, etc. I was
expecting lots of problems, since I'd upgraded to DX6.0 last month in order
to run the Rogue Squadron demo. I figured I'd just try it, and deal with
whatever problems popped up. I downloaded the newest drivers from Diamond,
and the newest drivers from 3dfx.
So I put the card in yesterday, rebooted, and got the standard Windows 98
New Hardware thing. It recognized it as a Voodoo card, asked for the Win98
CD, but I pointed it to the 3dfx drivers instead. It loaded one file, then
prompted for another which wasn't in the 3dfx folder, so I pointed it back
to Win98, and it finished installing the drivers. Of course, I thought I'd
screwed up, pointing it in two different places. I rebooted, and it was in
the System specs, working properly.
I ran several demos I have downloaded: Tomb Raider III, Quake II, and Jedi
Knight first. I was now able to select hardware acceleration in TRIII, and
could tell it looked better, but still not great. It lagged when the game
started, stuck on the intro screen, although it did eventually start. Quake
II wouldn't let me run 3dfx OpenGL, and Jedi Knight looked better (could
tell by the textures) but I knew it wasn't quite right.
So I went into System, selected the Voodoo card, and went to update the
drivers. I pointed it to the 3dfx folder, installed those new 3dfx drivers,
then rebooted.
Wow! It rebooted no problem, and I ran the same games, selecting hardware
acceleration for all. TRIII was smooth as silk, although it dropped a few
textures, being a poor demo and all. But just beautiful movement and water
effects. Jedi Knight looked good also. Then Quake II--woo-hoo! I know I'm
not getting the same resolution and FPS as better rigs, but the difference
was HUGE. I was able to run 3dfx OpenGL mode, although it was
temperamental, kept kicking me out to the console (what's the command to
restart the game from the console?), and it looked great! So much cleaner
and smoother, just great. Then I ran Rainbow Six, which barely worked
before. Now the action sequence was so smooth, great fog and textures.
Then I ran Thief, which is what I really want to start playing, and the one
I've heard people having problems with. It was a WORLD APART! Before, I
thought it was cool, but almost too dark and shadowy at times. Now it was
so much better. I could see the walls I couldn't see before, colored
lights, where the shadows actually fell. Just amazing!
So I finally checked the DXDIAG program, and under the Drivers tab, the 3dfx
drivers were listed as "Microsoft Direct X 5 for 3dfx", uncertified. So I
seem to have gotten around the DX6 problem. It installed the DX5 drivers
for that card, and all the tests run fine, and I still have DX6 for
everything else.
My advice would be to try this method if you like. If you already have DX6,
install the card (fresh!) with the generic Win98 drivers first, then update
to the 3dfx drivers. I know no two systems arre the same, but maybe it'll
work for you.
I'll post updates if I have any problems or successes running the full
versions of these games.
Mike Simone
jar...@dsp.net
Daggar
should grab up that message of yours and give it a new heading like "FIX FOR
VOODOO1 OPEN GL" or something and repost it.
Michael Simone
I didn't want to presume I'd made some breakthrough until I tried it out a
bit, but maybe you're right. It's worked great since I posted last week.
In fact, I bought "Thief", which requires DirectX 6.0 ("100% compatible"),
and it runs fine, no crashes or problems except the usual slowdowns expected
with a P166. I installed just like they said, and it never even asked about
DirectX, obviously detecting that I have DX6 on there, and the Voodoo driver
is still DX5 (even says so in the Video settings in Thief).
So the way I did it, which could be a fix, is to:
1) Remove your Voodoo card if you can and clean up the drivers (I did a
fresh install, so that's why I say this).
2) Install DirectX 6.0.
3) Download the 3dfx reference drivers for Voodoo I and unzip them into a
folder.
3) Install the Voodoo card, and when it prompts for the drivers, point it
to the 3dfx drivers. It will install some, but then tell you one file can't
be found, so then point it to your Win98 CD (or Win95 I guess).
4) Reboot when it says to, then go to the System settings and change the
drivers for the Voodoo card.
5) Now point it to the 3dfx drivers. It should install everything right
this time.
6) Reboot one more time, and now you should be all set with a Voodoo I DX5
driver, and everything else under DX6, so you can run newer games.
This obviously won't be foolproof, but I thought it was worth posting in
case anyone else can get lucky like I did. Good luck!
Mike Simone
jar...@dsp.net
Michael Simone
>This obviously won't be foolproof, but I thought it was worth posting in
>case anyone else can get lucky like I did. Good luck!
I meant to add the following warning/proviso:
Never having used a 3D card before, I wasn't sure what to expect, and I
wouldn't necessarily know if something wasn't working PERFECTLY. But this
does work, I get hardware acceleration, and certainly sufficient playability
to get me through till 3dfx releases its DX6 drivers this spring. When
running Quake II particularly, I would sometimes get dumped out to the
console when I switched to 3dfx OpenGL. I would just restart it, and
eventually, the right mode kicks in, and everything looks great. So I'm not
saying this will eliminate all problems, but it will certainly get you
playing for a while. My goal was to help those poor schlubs like myself who
can't afford PII-400 systems with SLI Voodoo IIs and a billion MB of RAM.
For us, things like 56 vs. 58 FPS and a dropped triangle here or there don't
really matter--we just want to play. Thanks again!
Mike Simone
jar...@dsp.net
Paul & Treash L.
No, really, check out powerslide at ratbaggames.com for a really cool driving
game. It's really fluid.