The problem with the Amigerlin 3.0 seesm subtly different than I first thought, in that it runs all the DirectX 8.1 demos, but only in a 16bpp colour depth. I was trying it in 32bpp depth and they all failed. I can't get the driver to report any 32bpp modes to a game that I am testing with called Gunship, a DirectX 7 game, which lets you select the resoultion to use for DirectX. Is this a known problem, with Amigerlin 3.0

I agree that the Directx runtime, can only emulate certain bits of the functionality, not all of the possible supported functionality. It seesm odd to me that the Amigerlin 3.0 seems to not bother reporting some of the things that it can do, when the Dx App is DX8 or greater. You can only go so far with an old card. Although the voodoo 5 seesm to still hold up quite reasonably.

Paul

I am just having a play, testing various driver and application combinations, more out of curiosity than anything else, I just noticed it and thought it was worth raising, if no-one reports probkems how do people know to fix them.

Paul

Unfortunately with Amigerlin 3.0 the opposite situation appears to be true, it simply reports that it can't do anything, this has to be wrong. It seems to be a problem with DirectX Apps that are compiled for verion 8 or later. It seems to report its capabilities correctly to DX7 and earlier apps. You don't need a DirectX 8 driver to run on DirectX 8 anyway, you can run a DX7 driver, and DirectX 8 maps the differences for you.  simply think that Amigerlin 3.0 has a problem, I don't have a problem, with the idea of emaulating new functionality in a driver, when the runtime won't do it for you.

Paul


Paul

I am not sure what you mean by DirectX 7 compliant, as I understand it,the DirectX versions simply incorporate support for more functionality with later versions, you don't have to support all of the functionality to be that version complient, you simply have to correctly report the bits that you do support. So that the runtime, can emaulate any functionality that is requested by an App in the runtime, if it isn't supported by the driver, at least were possible. The problem semms to me to be that Amigerlin 3.0 claims to be a valid DIrectX 8.1 driver but actually isn't, it doesn't seem to report it's capabilities correctly when a Directx 8 app is being run. In conclusion you don't need to invent new hardware compabilities for the card for a new version of DirectX, you simply need to report what the card does correctly. DirectX 8 is a redesign of DirectX, it does the same things in slightly different ways, I suspect that this is were the problem lies.

Paul

I probbaly could use OpenGl, but I would like a DX8.1 driver that works properly.

Paul

I think that you are wrong there, I am talking about running the sample apps supplied with the DX8.1 SDk, and them refusing to run, because they claim the card doesn't support the required level of acceleration, if you run the same apps with the original W2k Voodoo 5500 i.e. DX7 driver, but running under DX8.1 runtime, they run ok, and obviously use hardware acceleration, it looks like the Amigerlin 3.0 drivers to me, if the driver fails to report what acceleration features it has, when running with an app comiled for DX8.1, I am surprised that the apps work. I think that all of the Direct3D samples fail.

Paul

Well It seems to work with Amigerlin 3.0 although it does tend to hang when I quit the opening video. Why does Amigerlin 3.0 not report any hardware acceleration capabilities to the DX 8.1 SDK applications, although it does seem to wrok with a DX 8.1 game.

Paul

Can someone recommend a driver for Il2 Forgotten Battles, running on a Voodoo 5500, on W2k, in DirectX Mode.

Paul

I tried a Voodoo 5500 in a multi-processor PIII, it failed to run some of the DX7 samples properly, that ran on a uni-processor machine. I am not sure that the driver synchronisation is up to it myself. You would need to verify that your appplication was multi-threaded although you could get a performance increase for a single threaded app, as the OS and other processes could run in parallel, without stealing processor time from the foreground app.

Paul

If the game is using DirectX, I would suggest going back to an earlier driver, try the last 3dfx genuine 3dfx supplied driver, assuming that they will work with DX 9, the DX 7 drivers, work with DX 8.1, which is more than Amigerlin 3.0 seems to do. If the game is compiled for a DX version later than  DX 7, I think that you will encounter serious problems with Amigerlin 3 on Win2k. Its worth a try to see if it improves things.

Paul

No the problem decribed is seen using a Voodoo 5500. I was just wondering about DX8 support.

Paul

I have tried Amigerlin 3.0 on W2K DX7 using the Space Bots DXSDK 7 Sample, and the driver appears to be drawing on the screen in the Vertical Blank interval?. I get sprites with intermitent large black horizontal bands through them. Did someone forget to check the OS version when passing that new structure to VideoPortDDCHelper. Is there a DX version 8 driver that works for W2K aprt from the Microsft Voodoo3 version.

Paul

I have tried AmigerLin 3.0 for W2K/XP, and it has not fixed my problems with hardware acceleration being disabled in DirectDraw and no Direct3D adapter being available. This is on W2K with service pack 4  DirexctX 8.1 with SDK installed, using a SuperMicro PIIIDME Board with 2 * 533 Mhz pentium III's, with 1 gig SDRAM, and AGP Voodoo 5500. The Card IRQ is being shared, by the motherboard with the Network card. Any thoughts anyone.

Paul

Just to confirm the problems described exist with the Amigerlin 2.5 Driver. I get hangs in the games, IL2 Forgotten Battles, tends to be unpalyable at any resolution and hangs.

Paul