DescentBB

Hey Zico. I finally got around to putting DXX v0.53 on my newer computer, a Pentium 3.2 Extreme Edition with 2G of ram and an Nvidia 7950GT videocard.

All I can is WOW! It looks fantastic, even better than the old Voodoo Glide version. With AA turned all the way up to 8X, I still get 60fps and wonderful graphics! I haven't run into the SDL.dll problem yet, I'll see what happens.

The menus work great, not slow and there's no palette flash. Best of all, the movies don't stutter like they did on my old Win 98 computer, it just was too slow. I just want to thank you for keeping Descent 2 alive and looking great!

Hey, thanks for your Feedback.

Actually we are moving a bit slow here on development, but I think with a bit of luck you may be able to play the next version on you old Win98 PC as well. Probably not with FSAA, but we are currently optimizing the whole sourcecode to work much faster.

Thanks for all your work, much appreciated. I'll give your next version a spin on the Win 98SE computer when it comes out and see how it works. But now I'm spoiled with FSAA in DXX and the old machine doesn't even have that option.

One question, can you move save game files between versions? My version 0.53 couldn't detect the save files from 0.51.

Normally I try to keep compability as good as possible. Primary to the Original games. If you could send me these files, I could take a good look at it. Thanks.

Sorry I haven't replied sooner. Been sunny and dry here for a few days and I needed to get caught up on yard work. We tend to make the most of the rare warm winter dry days here in Oregon, when we get them.

My fault on the save game transfers from different DXX versions. When I created DXX v0.53 on my other computer, I made up a new pilot name but forgot to notice that the save game file names were using the other version's pilot name. Ooooops!

Great work on this great modification Zico I also became a member of your site btw

I just love new idea's

I just installed D2 and D2x 0.53 and it works flawlessy. Great work.

Great news Zico DXX-Rebirth runs great on my ASUS X800 XT PE AGP & Dell/ATi M18 MR 9800 as well no bugs no crashes no nothing! I used reso's 1024 x 768 x 32 + FSAA x 6 & AF x16HQ, great work qua VGA support mate!

The Voodoo5 5500 PCI ran it as well game startup as game play went very fluid @ 1024 x 768 x16 + FSAA x4 & LOD Bias @ -8 @ 41 fps, only exiting the game made the system to crash, the dirvers I used were SFFT Alpha 58, I will use an older one and see what happens

The Gainward GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme AGP 256MB & Dual HD 2900 XT 512MB CF setup 1 x Sapphire + 1x Original ATi]are next, but I'm sure they will do well also.

with the 6800 UE I will use Supersampled FSAA x8 + AF x16HQ and with the HD2900 XT CF setup I will use Supersampled FSAA x16 + AF x16HQ

So far so good Zico!

So what I have found out is that nVidia & ATi support is perfect, I can also test my S3 Savage 2000 AGP 32 MB with your project as well see what that does

DXX is really good on a high end machine, isn't it? I'm spoiled, especially with a 19 inch display and a resolution of 1600 X 1200 and full 8X FSAA! Puts the Voodoo card to shame. I've got it framed on the wall right now.

tunnelcat wrote:DXX is really good on a high end machine, isn't it? I'm spoiled, especially with a 19 inch display and a resolution of 1600 X 1200 and full 8X FSAA! Puts the Voodoo card to shame. I've got it framed on the wall right now.

ugh no though Rotated Grid FSAA x8 on a 6000 is hard to beat qua image qullity

hesince 6000 costs about 1700+ in euro's if you can afford one, I'd say see for yourself, since one just got sold on ebay heh
http://cgi.ebay.nl/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... :IT&ih=008

The thing is, is that NewGen cards need software to adavnce their FSAA , the Voodoo4/5 series do this 100% hardware matic, the only disadavntage that this brings is a heavy performance loss, though for retro games like Descent3 this isn't the issue.

FSAA x8 on a 6000 is comparable to FSAA x 12 on a new gen VGA card from NV or ATi, I have the cards here my self and yes 3dfx has the best FSAA in the house, just basing the facts here, go and ask the other 12000+ 3dfx people and you'll truly get the same kind of answer, as this discussion has been discussed on many different 3dfx fora for many of times.

The advatage of FSAA done partually software matic is that the lesser impact is of the total performance loss thereby using greater FSAA modes with similar image quallity or better depends on which setting ofcourse.

I have been testing 3dfx prototypes among my other 3dfxcollectors as ex-3dfx engineers as friends and yes 3dfx still holds the number one FSAA image quality if compared to the same FSAA setting, so what you said isn't true to a certain degree.

Sorry, I was talking about my old Voodoo 1 card! First 3D card I ever owned and fell in love with. It did have beautiful graphics!

I agree that 3dfx did a fantastic job with their Glide-driven graphics cards. I never owned a later Voodoo card to compare to my Nvidia 7950GT, so I can't really judge the image quality differences between the two. I've heard that Glide is so much better than OpenGL, so it's sad that 3dfx bit the dust. It always seems that the first developers of a new technology are the first to die due to the resulting competition (or worse).

So, now we're stuck with OpenGL and have a wonderful game saved by dedicated coders that ported Descent for us to enjoy on our newer computers! Thanks all!

tunnelcat wrote:Sorry, I was talking about my old Voodoo 1 card! First 3D card I ever owned and fell in love with. It did have beautiful graphics!

I agree that 3dfx did a fantastic job with their Glide-driven graphics cards. I never owned a later Voodoo card to compare to my Nvidia 7950GT, so I can't really judge the image quality differences between the two. I've heard that Glide is so much better than OpenGL, so it's sad that 3dfx bit the dust. It always seems that the first developers of a new technology are the first to die due to the resulting competition (or worse).

So, now we're stuck with OpenGL and have a wonderful game saved by dedicated coders that ported Descent for us to enjoy on our newer computers! Thanks all!

Hey no probs man hehe sorry for my massive overwhelmed 3dfx V6K post there hehe but yeah you're dead on right too though

heh your 3dfx card on it's wall well cool to see you have kept it hehe here's my 3dfx collection till now


Well the 7950 GT can doe Supersampled FSAA x8 right? well good news is that nVidia used this type of FSAA in their 6 series and up so it is very well comparable with Supersampled Rotated Grid FSAA x8 of the 6000 and really OpenGL on a GeForce is still the best qua image quality with that type of API.

3dfx may be gone but you can always try to snag a Voodoo5 5500 PCI from ebay they don't go that high mostly and you can envy 3dfx Glide on the 5500 PCI and OpenGL on your 7950GT just an idea

@ 3dfxzone.it forum mates still make new drivers for Voodoo3/4 and 5 series so even now which is like a good 7,2 years since 3dfx's demerse we are still supporting as creating better API support for all the 3dfx'ers out there so to be honest 3dfx hasn't died yet it's only getting better qua API support which is still cool to have around even as of today

here is where you can download the just newly released SFFT Alpha 59 driver for Voodoo3/4/5
http://www.3dfxzone.it/news/puntatore.php?uid=7149

As you can see new drivers keep coming

It's still cool that DXX-Rebirth has multi VGA vendor support it's something always so positive about it

The geforce 8 series has a 16x coverage sample AA mode that probably does an end result just as good as 3dfx's rotated grid. Although they still can't beat 3dfx's 16 bit dithering patterns which I still think are the best in the business.

/me drooling at the wall of voodoo. I still have my Diamond Monster 3D II 8 MB Voodoo2 and its pass through cable down in the basement. I think I saw my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP down there too last time I was digging around for a cable.

Krom wrote:The geforce 8 series has a 16x coverage sample AA mode that probably does an end result just as good as 3dfx's rotated grid. Although they still can't beat 3dfx's 16 bit dithering patterns which I still think are the best in the business.

/me drooling at the wall of voodoo. I still have my Diamond Monster 3D II 8 MB Voodoo2 and its pass through cable down in the basement. I think I saw my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP down there too last time I was digging around for a cable.

Yeah true there the 8 series like the 6 and the 7 series do use the same type of FSAA technique 3dfx used 7 years ago, also an advantage that nVidia bought 3dfx back then

though that 9800 GX2 seems to be an interesting piece of hardware I wonder what FSAA it can do RG FSAA x32 maybe?

The thing is would that be so much different to FSAA x16.. heh I think that we can hardy see a difference when looking at an image with RG FSAA x16 or 32, maybe that an image with FSAA x32 might be a bit darker like I compared my dual HD 2900 XT setup can do Supersampled RG FSAA x16 with 3dfx's Supersampled RG FSAA x8 on the 6K and the FSAA difference was very small the image was somewhat darker on the 2900XT CF setup in Supersampled RG FSAA x16 mode.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, my 7950GT does supersample at 8X, so DXX does look good on it. I WAS playing DXX on an older Win98SE computer that had only a Riva TNT2 card, so NO FSAA or texture filtering there at all. You can see why I was impressed with DXX on my other newer Dell rig with the 7950GT, a vast improvement in appearance of the graphics. Unfortunately, the Dell has only an AGP graphics slot, and the 7950GT was the best I could upgrade to about six months ago.

I tried to install my Voodoo 1 card in the older computer and it actually worked but with a major problem. That computer is an 1998 OEM Hewlett Packard rig that has a VERY small case and HP located the power supply RIGHT ABOVE the PCI slots, putting it right on top of the Monster Card! The result was an injected 60Hz noise on my display! Nasty looking to say the least.

I do want to mod it eventually to move the PS away from the PCI slots, but right now I'm using the computer for older games and internet surfing. I don't want to deal with it until I get a new rig to replace the Dell later this year.