Wrap Your Video Card For Better Effects (August 19, 2005)

[ChrisReid]

Theo let us know about Zeckensack's Glide Wrapper. The file pack will allow Prophecy and Secret Ops players without a Voodoo card to upgrade from Direct3D to 3dfx mode. It seems to work pretty well. Although some effects have been patched into D3D mode, there are some nice little touches that it leaves out. The polished look of the HUD is probably where you'll notice the first improvement, and fogging will also gradually phase in ships at a distance. We've got some comparison pictures here, but you should notice a few little things here and there once the game is in motion too. Playing around with FSAA and HCl's high res patches for Prophecy and Secret Ops will get you an even better looking game. We've mirrored the wrapper files here. Install and run the configurator, then make sure to set 3dfx mode in the game Launcher. The left image is the software renderer, the middle shot is standard Direct3D and the picture on the right is Secret Ops and Prophecy with a Glide wrapper applied.

​

Note that this doesn't enable the 3dfx Test. We've tried several wrappers without success. Anyone who can get the test running on a non-Voodoo machine should let us know.

--
Original update published on August 19, 2005

 

[Conrad]

looks good, i will have to try this tonight.

Will this also work for standoff and UE?

 

[PopsiclePete]

Only UE. Standoff is DirectX-only. I've tried UE on a Voodoo 3 in 1024x768 and it looks gorgeous.

 

[AD]

Wow. Untill now I had never actually played prophecy with glide, only D3D. The are so many subtle differences that really sell the game. The fog is the obvious one, but when aplied to the various parts of the game the effect is incredible. Like missile trails and how the end of the missile glows....

The only issue I have is that there is a wierd bar that crosses the bottom of the screen on a diagonal. its just faintly washed out looking but its distracting at times.

 

[ChrisReid]

Yeah, if I did the screenshots again, I'd grab one firing a missile to highlight the great lighting effect they produce in 3dfx mode.

 

[cff]

This isn't exactly news, but rather 'olds'. A good deal of people is already using that very wrapper here I guess. However I have to disagree with you, Chris. The 3dfx Test works FINE with that wrapper on my machine (XP SP2, GF6800GT). As does ANY other 3dfx game I ever tried as long as it is Windows based (no luck with DOS based ones).

 

[ChrisReid]

This isn't exactly news, but rather 'olds'. A good deal of people is already using that very wrapper here I guess.

I've heard very few people using glide wrappers here, and the percentage among people who just view the front page is even less. There's probably been about 2000 people who've seen that "olds" who didn't know anything about glide wrappers before the update.

However I have to disagree with you, Chris. The 3dfx Test works FINE with that wrapper on my machine (XP SP2, GF6800GT).

How odd to phrase that as a "disagreement." It certainly doesn't work here (nor did several others I tried), and it didn't work for Theo, whom I worked with the write that update. You're the first I've heard of anyone getting the 3dfx test to work with that.

 

[cff]

How odd to phrase that as a "disagreement." It certainly doesn't work here (nor did several others I tried), and it didn't work for Theo, whom I worked with the write that update. You're the first I've heard of anyone getting the 3dfx test to work with that.

I think I had to set Win95 or Win98 compatibility mode. But aside from that no problems. And it must have been this PC, because it is the first on in 10 years witout a native 3dfx card. I never realized that this was a problem for anyone, as it worked so flawlessly.

 

[Cpl Hades]

By "worked" do you mean it started? Or that it ran quite happily for several missions without crashing? Because the problem with the 3dfx test is that it runs for a little while but later crashes.

 

[Scrotor]

3dfx Patch info from Theo

Chris, you did a great job on presenting the new info. I'm just a fan that ran across something new that worked, thanks for letting the rest of the 'Maniacs' of the series know about it.

One thing that everyone should know (if they don't already), is that for better in-game visuals, install the 'High Resolution Prophecy Patch'. It works great when launched under 3dfx, but just to warn you, the movies will look much smaller.

Find the patch here at http://wcrevival.de/hcl/

And I don't have a cool looking avatar because I'm really bad at the posting thing, so I don't. I think I'm up to, um, 1 posts here (I do read alot).

Theo

 

[cff]

By "worked" do you mean it started? Or that it ran quite happily for several missions without crashing? Because the problem with the 3dfx test is that it runs for a little while but later crashes.

It never crashed for me. However I didn't test seriously either, so I might have been killed before it wanted to crash. The Glide test isn't exactly 'hot'. Its just neat to have it working for sake of completeness.

 

[Starkey]

Only UE. Standoff is DirectX-only. I've tried UE on a Voodoo 3 in 1024x768 and it looks gorgeous.

It´s not that Standoff *can´t* support 3dfx... It had some minor glitches (mostly with textures) and Eder decided to scrap both 3dfx and Software modes from Standoff´s regular options. It can be turned on by tweaking stan_cfg.dll, I think... I wonder if the game would work correctly with this patch.

 

[Cpl Hades]

The Glide test isn't exactly 'hot'. Its just neat to have it working for sake of completeness.

Screw you, that test is great. I have fond memories of playing it. Comparing and competing with the scores.. mocking those unlucky enough not to have a card. It even has Thrakhath sort of.. better days.

 

[Chernikov]

Thrakath?

 

[Edfilho]

Test? What Test?

BTW, I remember testing the wrapper with the hi-res patch, and I got a very weird bug:
That oval blue "frame" (quite visible in the Glide screenshots above) didn't resize to 1024 along with the rest of the screen, so I got a very weird blue oval on the upper left quarter of my monitor.

I'll try the latest version of the wrapper with my new and powerful GeForce 6600GT (not as powerful as CFF's, but very good nevertheless) and check if that annoying glitch is still there.

 

[ChrisReid]

Test? What Test?

The Test mentioned and discussed throughout this thread.

It never crashed for me. However I didn't test seriously either, so I might have been killed before it wanted to crash. The Glide test isn't exactly 'hot'. Its just neat to have it working for sake of completeness.

Yeah, Hades nailed it there. "Hot" would definitely be something I'd describe the 3dfx Test as. In the months leading up to Prophecy, people were going crazy trying to top eachother's 3dfx Test scores. It's a really cool gauntlet.

 

[Skanks]

I've never had any problems using Zeckensack's Glide Wrapper with the 3DFX Test. Been using dgvoodoo one with other games lately http://dege.freeweb.hu/ which allows you to choose what resolution you want to run things in (1600*1200 is nice ) I'll give the test a go with it tonight.

 

[cff]

It´s not that Standoff *can´t* support 3dfx... It had some minor glitches (mostly with textures) and Eder decided to scrap both 3dfx and Software modes from Standoff´s regular options. It can be turned on by tweaking stan_cfg.dll, I think... I wonder if the game would work correctly with this patch.

3dfx for Standoff was tested on that Glide Wrapper and a Frriend's Voodoo 3 by me. The game works fine in Glide mode besides 2 bugs:
a) The Stilettos cockpit crashes the game
b) There are some texture corruptions (fuel and weapon gauge and thrusters of some capships mainly.
All in all nothing that would seem impossible to fix. However at least #2 is EXTREMELY time consuming accoring to Eder as many textures would have to be redone. And when choosing to release Standoff 6 months late or to drop Glide - well...

As for Software - that is a different problem. Software mode does have problems when the number of ships exceeds a certain limit.

 

[cff]

T
Yeah, Hades nailed it there. "Hot" would definitely be something I'd describe the 3dfx Test as. In the months leading up to Prophecy, people were going crazy trying to top eachother's 3dfx Test scores. It's a really cool gauntlet.

It was extremely hot back then, no argument here. However considering that we now have a working simulator in the full version of WCP I don't exactly see having a working 3dfx Test as the holy grail of WCship. Its one mission that can be easily recreated in any game that uses the vision engine.

 

[Starkey]

a) The Stilettos cockpit crashes the game

Yeah, I forgot about that one... I think Eder did the right thing, 32-bit Direct3d is nice enough, no need for Glide.