Folks,

Guess what I'm getting on my 3dfxZone personal message?

QuoteGood day my dear,
In confidence,I have to introduce myself for I am Amanda Danni,21 years
old,I am the only child of late Chief and Mrs.George Danni.I prayed
before contacting you,please for God sake do not see my mail as
embrassment as we do not know each other.
I wish to request for your assistance in my efforts to procure the
transfer of my inherited money for investment ventures under your care and
directive,while I continue my education of there in your country.I
inherited Two Million,Six Hundred Thousand Dollars ($2,600,000.00) here in
my name with one of the prime bank in my country and I will require
your assistance in receiving the transfer of the money in your local
account for investment purposes. As it is my desire to come over to your
country to further my education while you take care of the investment of
the money.

Please I am an orphane and I need your assistance to transfer my
inherited money to your country and also your assistance to secure a nice
school for me in your country,where I will contiune my education.

I will be very appreciative if you can return to me with urgent
response to enable me hear from you.I am awaiting for your immediate
response.Please include your telephone number for an easy communication.

Thanks and may God bless you.

Yours sincerely
Amanda Danni

I see. Thanks again!

QuoteOriginally posted by ps47

correct except for this:

QuoteOriginally posted by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

Also, which version is Voodoo1 GLide? I suppose glide2x.dll and glide2x.ovl are Voodoo5 GLide, while glide1x.dll and .ovl is only for Voodoo1 (ergo, you cannot use glide1x for Voodoo2 or Voodoo3)..

voodoo1 glides are named glide2x and glide3x as well (some drivers include the first version of glide too,named glide.dll).the ovl files are dos drivers,I think.

I see. How do we tell what GLide version is for Voodoo1, then? Maybe the minor version number? (the "x")

EDIT: I think I should take a look at driver installation package to tell the difference. The file glide2x.dll that comes with Voodoo1 driver installation package is 211kb, while glide2x.dll that comes with Amigamerlin installation package (Voodoo5) is 235kb.

Also, the version of each file is visible when looking at the files in Tile mode (Windows Explorer). The glide2x.dll that comes with Voodoo1 drivers is version 2.48.0, while the one that comes with Amigamerlin (Voodoo5) is version 2.60.0.

Am I being correct so far?



By the way, you said we're supposed to put the Voodoo1 GLide on the game's own folder to play the game with Voodoo1 instead of Voodoo5. Now, if I want to revert to Voodoo5, what should I do? Should I delete the Voodoo1 GLide from the game folder (so that the game will look for the system folder), or should I replace the Voodoo1 GLide with later version of GLide?

QuoteOriginally posted by ps47

for the rest of the cards,its just a matter of managing glides.

I see. Am I correct if saying that the game will try to find the GLide on its own folder first, and if it doesn't find it, then it will search the system folder for GLide?

Well you said in order to use Voodoo1 for a GLide game, then I need to copy Voodoo1 GLide to the game's own folder. Now, if I want to use Voodoo5 again for that game, then I can do either of the following, am I correct?
(1) delete the Voodoo1 GLide from the game's own folder so that the game will look at the system folder and find the Voodoo5 GLide.
OR
(2) delete the Voodoo1 GLide from the game's folder and copy the Voodoo5 GLide to the folder.

Am I correct so far?


Also, which version is Voodoo1 GLide? I suppose glide2x.dll and glide2x.ovl are Voodoo5 GLide, while glide1x.dll and .ovl is only for Voodoo1 (ergo, you cannot use glide1x for Voodoo2 or Voodoo3), am I correct?

Well, it needs the right environment variables to run DOS GLide games on Voodoo5, am I correct?

Alas, I don't have a comprehensive list of environment variables, let alone what do they mean, and mostly, and what their supposed values are to play old GLide games on Voodoo5.

Let's take a look at the following 3dfx 'transitional variables' (here, just scroll down).

Quoteset SST_GRXCLK=90
set SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4
set SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6
set SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6
set SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1
set SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0
set SST_TMUMEM_SIZE=2

Those environment variables above are called 'transitional variables'; that is, to play Voodoo1 games on Voodoo2. Yet, there are still lots of unanswered questions:

(1) Why are they using SST instead of SST_V2? Those are the variables we're supposed to use with Voodoo2, not Voodoo1, so why, SST? Will they work on Voodoo5? And should we use SSTH3 instead of SST? And if I recall correctly, Dracman uses SST to run Tomb Raider 1 on Voodoo5? Why is that?

(2) What is SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4, for instance? Why do we need to set the value to 0x4 when playing Voodoo1 games on Voodoo2? And how about Voodoo5? Do we need to set the value to 0x4 as well, or some other value?

(3) The 'transitional variables' above includes SST_TF0_CLK_DEL
and SST_TF1_CLK_DEL. Now, if I'm not mistaken, SST_TF0 is for texture chip 0 and SST_TF1 is for texture chip 1 (because Voodoo1 and Voodoo2 came with two texturing chips, am I correct?). How about Voodoo5, which comes with different architecture altogether? Do we still need to use SST_TF0 (or SSTH3_TF0) and TF1, or something else?

(4) What is the environment variables to enable V5 FSAA on DOS games? Fortunately, DBorca shared the answer few years ago. However, first thing first we need to make the game run, and worry about FSAA later, right?

QuoteOriginally posted by ps47

this will work.just install the voodoo1 driver and dont overwrite the voodoo5 glides (and opengl) in your system folder.if you need to run a game on the voodoo1,drop the voodoo1 glides to the game folder and it should run fine.

I have a similar test machine,voodoo1 running with a voodoo3,no problems or conflicts.

I see! Many many thanks!

I suppose that should also work with Voodoo5 and Voodoo2?

I don't know why, but many old games with such excellent gameplay happen to be GLide games, like EF 2000V2.0, Deus Ex, Archimedean Dynasty, Jane's Longbow 2, and Dungeon Keeper. That's why I keep a legacy system with Voodoo5 5500 on board --to play those GLide games with FSAA.

Alas, there are pesky 3dfx-supporting games that simply need Voodoo1 card to play. It seems that they're hard-coded to use Voodoo1 card instead of using GLide.

Thus, what if I add a Voodoo1 card to my system, putting Voodoo5 and Voodoo1 together on the same system? I imagine those "Voodoo1-only games" will run now, but what happens to GLide games that runs on Voodoo5? Will they run separately (and simultaneously) on both cards, or will they cause error?

Anyone has ever tried this stuff before? Thanks.

Well I'm talking about early GLide games; games of Voodoo1-era that need environment variable tinkering to play with Voodoo2. Some of them are DOS games like EF2000 V.20 and The Elder Scrolls: Red Guard, some others are Windows games like Mechwarrior 2.

Nonetheless, what early GLide games that you successfully play with Voodoo5, and what are the settings of your V5's environment variables?

Is modding V5 5500 from 64M to 128M technically more difficult than V4 4500 from 32M to 64M?

Just found this article on MSNBC:

QuoteSome bravery as a side dish
Forget liver: Here are 7 foods that truly require a fearless stomach

It was Jeffrey Steingarten, author of "The Man Who Ate Everything," who most recently insisted that we should embrace the universe of foodstuffs around us. You've heard variations on this spiel: Try everything once because (this part gets repeated in your most motherly tone) if you don't try it, you won't know if you like it.

Those principles are fine for Brussels sprouts and sweetbreads. But seeing as it's the time of year when grossing people out gets semi-official sanctioning from a semi-official holiday, now is the moment to consider foods that push the envelope of edibility.

We're not talking about haunted-house, peeled-grapes-as-eyeballs gross. We're talking about food that can churn your stomach without the aid of a blindfold.

and

Quote7) Spiders. Entomologists might disagree, but the practice of eating insects doesn't seem nearly so bad as it sounds at first.  

But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and arachnids seem to be a good place to draw it.  Spider-eating is practiced in a number of places, but Cambodia seems to be the place where it has drawn the most attention, thanks to a practice of eating meaty finger-sized tarantulas known in Khmer as a-ping. For about a dime per arachnid, you can get a cheap, ample meal of the critters fried up with salt, pepper and perhaps a bit of garlic. (Keep in mind that a full restaurant entree can be found in Phnom Penh for under $2.)

And of course, there's pic as well. Look at the size of the spider.




Also found some interesting pics here.





The question is how does spider actually taste? Anyone have ever tried spider before? I haven't tried it myself, but since Chelicerates and Crustaceans belong to the same phylum (Arthropoda, ,that is), then I guess spider should taste quite similar to crab or lobster, shouldn't it?

Well, I'm talking about the 16x Fragment Anti-Aliasing originally used by Matrox Parhelia. The AA method only takes "fragment pixels" (pixels on the edge of an object) and then collects 16 sub-pixel samples for AA purpose.

Theoritically, this method means way bigger sample size with less fill rate penalty, especially since fragment pixels typically account for less than ten percent of the total amount of pixels displayed on the scene.

So theoritically, the Fragment AA method allows bigger pixel size with less performance drawback.

Judging from the picture below, this method produces razor sharp edges, which is very clean. I think this is because sample size is always more important than sampling pattern when it goes to AA quality, and edge AA allows way bigger sample size (16x compared to typical 4x or 8x used in conventional FSAA method).


(image copied from First Look: Matrox's Parhelia-512 graphic processor article on Tech Report (Page 9)).

The question is..... why neither ATI nor nVidia uses this AA method? Today's video cards have much more processing power than those of Parhelia's era, so imagine the beauty of 64x Fragment AA or such. Or how about enabling AA with very little performance penalty?

What are the problems with this 16x Fragment AA method, so neither ATI nor nVidia have adopted it? Okay, granted Fragment AA does not eliminate texture shimmering (unlike conventional FSAA, which elminates both edge aliasing and texture crawling), but there is Anisotropic Filtering for such purpose.

I have to admit that I missed Parhelia the first time it came around, but did anyone ever have that card? Based on your experience, did you find many problems with Fragment AA so it's actually not worth it?


EDIT: I also wonder why didn't 3dfx use this method with Voodoo5?

QuoteOriginally posted by Obi-Wan Kenobi

hmm it would of worked with some DOS games for sure, since most Glide games work on it as far as I know of

How about trying the following variables?

SSTH3_SLI_AA_CONFIGURATION
OS: all
HW: VSA100-based cards
Desc: SLI/AA setup
Note: (*) (!) works only at Glide-level?
Value:
   1, 2, 4 chip cards
"0" - SLI & AA disable
"1" - SLI disabled, 2 sample AA enabled
   2, 4 chip cards
"2" - 2-way SLI enabled, AA disabled
"3" - 2-way SLI enabled, 2 sample AA enabled
"4" - SLI disabled, 4 sample AA enabled
   4 chip cards
"5" - 4-way SLI enabled, AA disabled
"6" - 4-way SLI enabled, 2 sample AA enabled
"7" - 2-way SLI enabled, 4 sample AA enabled
"8" - SLI disabled, 8 sample AA enabled

Those are environment variables to set FSAA (thanks, Daniel!). Thus, theoritically, we can enable FSAA in DOS games through environment variables.

Alas, I haven't got the chance to try them out myself, since my GLide DOS games, EF2000 V2.0, fails to run with Voodoo5. It is not related to FSAA, though. It seems to be compatibility problem. See, EF2000 V2.0 does not use glide2x.ovl; instead, the glide is hard-coded into the game's engine. It seems that EF2000 V2.0 is a "Voodoo1-only" game.

Except, of course, if there's a way to make our Voodoo5 card to "appear" like Voodoo1. Perhaps running it on single-chip mode? Perhaps reducing the TMU size to match the Voodoo1? Alas, I haven't found the right environment variables to do that.

But if you have "later" DOS GLide games (like Archimedean Dynasty, that IIRC uses glide2x.ovl, who knows you can enable 8x FSAA for DOS GLide games!

Well, I just browsed through the FAQ of each Voodoos, but what I found is quite surprising, if not shocking.

First, it seems that it's possible to combine Vooodoo2 and Banshee.

Quote10. Can I use a Voodoo Rush card with V2?

Yes. Any 2D card will work with V2. In the case of Voodoo Rush and Voodoo2 in the same machine you would choose Voodoo2 when the game begins.

And, according to this FAQ, it is possible to put Voodoo3 and Voodoo2 on the same PC.

QuoteQ: Can I use a Voodoo3 with a Voodoo2?

A: Yes, but why?. The Voodoo3 is a standalone product with 2D and 3D combined. No other graphics card will be required.

Now, many people says that it's impossible to put two different version of Voodoos on the same computer, but the FAQs above has shown two cases where it's possible: Voodoo2 with Vooodoo Rush, and Voodoo3 with Voodoo2.

Makes me wonder: have anyone tried putting Voodoo1 with Voodoo5? Is such thing possible? And at best, what do you get?

The reason being is that because some GLide games seems to refuse running on Voodoo5. I have EF2000 V2.0, which is a DOS GLide games. Alas, it refuses to work with my Vooodoo5 despite my tinkering with GLide Environmental Variables. And while I don't have Mechwarrior 2 - 3dfx Edition, I heard that the game will only work with Voodoo1 --it won't even run with Voodoo2.

So is it possible to put both Voodoo5 and Voodoo1 on the same PC? The Voodoo5 will handle GLide 2.x and 3.x games (mostly Windows GLide games, I guess), while the Voodoo1 should handle Glide 1.x games (games like EF2000 V2.0, Blood, and Jetfighter III).

Those are nice, Obi. 8xAA IS impressive. Too bad 3dfx never mass-produced the V5-6000.

I just wonder whether it worked with DOS GLide games, though.

4x AA? I thought V56K is capable of 8xAA.