SFFT alpha drivers - V3/4/5 - Join to Testing

[cp8765]

Hi, I tried playing Sims 2 in hardware mode on my Voodoo 4 4500.

(To enable hardware mode open "\TSData\Res\Config\Graphic Rules.sgr" in an editor, find the lines that say

# force sw, swvp, and no aa
 boolProp forceSoftwareDevice        true

and replace true with false)



Amigamerlin 3.1 R1



SFFT Alpha 32

(The ground is constantly fading from black to red, that's why it's different between the two pics.)



This is how it's supposed to be.

[r21vo]

Seems there are problems with large scale textures, any other errors in game?

[cp8765]

Seems there are problems with large scale textures, any other errors in game?

you're right. Looks like only large textures are affected.



Besides a flickering mouse cursor I didn't notice any other errors so far.

[ps47]

check here: http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1848

[cp8765]

check here: http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1848

thanks for pointing me to that thread. So I now found out that I had to enable "force MIP map dithering" in V.Control to make the textures appear right.

[ps47]

..so everything is ok now?

[cp8765]

..so everything is ok now?

unfortunately there are still those artifacts also mentioned in the other thread:





when you move around in the scene there are some positions where the artifacts go away (like far away from the house). Also the state of the artifacts changed when I took some screenshots (all taken with the in-game camera) one after the other without moving:






it can also change when your sims move. But there was also at least one house (with two stages like the other ones) in the neighbourhood where there were no artifacts at all. So I have no idea what the reason might be.

[cp8765]

okay, I think I've found at least one reason for the artifacts: it was a bath tub! The one for $700 and the one for $1500 cause those artifacts, but only in hardware mode. Besides, the mouse cursor still flickers but that's not a major problem for me.

[Rick1]

Hi, I got an problem i have after i installed  JEdi Knight 2, MY whole screen gets strange, I mean the brightnes is really high, I checked monitor settings but that doesnt work, also if i make a screenshot, Its normall if I install another driver, but i need sfft32. Does anyone know a fix of this brightness thingy? Its really annoying. In game it is just noraml (the colours), But since after I played JK2 the brightness is screwed:S

Hope anyone can fix up this,

Rick

[Nightbird]

You played JK2 with SFFT driver ?
Did you setup your brightness from the setup in the game (video) ?

[Rick1]

I think so but ingame it didnt change.


*EDIT* Fixed, Reinstalled game, Brigntnes was still full there.
Now i turned back and its good:)

[mhanor]

the Electric! screensaver (you can get it from http://www.geocities.com/paris/leftbank/1140/electric.html) doesn't cycle the color palette when setting DirectX 256 color modes. The image is static, with a corrupted palette. I'm using SFFT32 under Windows2000SP4 fully updated, with DirectX 9C. The video card is a standard Voodoo4 4500 AGP card. Also, if I remember correctly, the last time when the screensaver worked properly, I was using the SFFT30 drivers. A sample image:


Another thing... I have tried Pontifex 2 (The Bridge Construction Set, http://www.chroniclogic.com/) but I couldn't even set the hardware configuration using the config utility. The game or config utility initialize a fullscreen graphic mode, but the screen remains black. It isn't very responsive either. By trying to switch back to Windows, there is a change that the game's/config's image will appear, but that's it, the interface doesn't respond.

Another issue is the corruption that takes place with the color palette in Windows after running/exiting a DirectX/OpenGL/Glide fullscreen application. The problem was present already with applications/games like Fallout, WinQuake, but now it's more acute then ever. Or so it seems to me.

I don't know if the last two issue are sfft related, but the first I think it is.

later edit: yep... there is something with the corruption of the Windows color palette... I tried the VoodooLights 1.2.9 rc2 screensaver and it corrupts the color palette; the color palette is not random... it's like the palette of an older version of windows (win95 maybe); I haven't seen this before with Electric! or VoodooLights; only with older DirectX games, like Fallout or WinQuake. Now that happens even with the two screensavers; sample images:

Normal color palette:

Bad color palette(after running an app/game):


later edit 2:
I have discovered that the color palette does get corrupt only when using OpenGL or Glide modes for fullscreen mode, in VoodooLights. When using Direct3D in VoodooLights, the color palette remains as it is.

later edit 3:
It seems that VoodooLights fails to initialize the OpenGL window mode in the VoodooLights Standard Control Panel (Normal) -> the About tab and in Control Panel -> Display -> Screensaver preview window (it doesn't have anything to do with the Preview button). The screensaver logged the error: "15:31 [21/8/2005]- OpenGL: Failed to create OpenGL context". This didn't happened with SFFT30 or older versions.

You can get the VoodooLights 1.2.9 rc2 from:
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/VoodooLights/965588381/1


A few questions/requests:
1. What happens with the uploaded pictures that are not used?
2. If anyone knows that there is a newer version of VoodooLights than the one I've mentioned, please tell
3. Did anyone tried the Voodoo Board FX? A link to it: http://www.voodoofiles.com/7523

[arablizzard2413]

Going back to The Sims 2... if I remember right, Voodoo cards always had a problem with color cursors in fullscreen mode. It was the same way with SimCity 4, if you run the game in Windowed mode, the color cursors would be fine (you can run the game in Windowed mode by adding "-w", without quotes, to the end of the shortcut).

Or you can try this:
go to the C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UI\Cursors folder and swap the numbers on the .cur files (ie: arrow_1.cur and arrow_8.cur, 1 is black and white, 8 is color and you swap the numbers on them; arrow_1 becomes arrow_8.cur but you'll have to move the 8 cursors somewhere else to rename them to avoid problems). The University expansion pack has the same folder, you just have to go there instead, but it's only one set you have to change. Some of them you'll have to use your best guess on.

[Rolo01]

I tested Panzers:Phase 1 with SFFT Alpha32. It runs very well on Voodoo4 AGP, Pentium4-2800 and WinXP SP1.
Slight texture flickering every now and then, except that fully playable.


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[samsmods]

Ok im a n00b to all this..

But... I need to run WoW on a Voodoo 3 2000, as you know it is a 16 mb card. My specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon XP 1800+
384 MB PC2100 Ram
Windows XP Professional SP1
S*** loads of cooling
And of course my beloved Vodoo 3 2000

Please give me the link and tell me how to install the drivers and make it let me run WoW. I NEED HELP!

I have tried 3 times now to install the driver twice it has came up with me rebooting when i do it says i can only run (on the desktop) in 640 x 480 with 4 bit colours. The last time it sort of worked... It let me view the desktop in 32 bit colours and 1280 x 960 resolution but still no luck running game. It still comes up with stuff about Dual TMU suport.

In Device manager it says that i have teh 3DFX VooDoo3

Please get back to me FAST! thanks in advance!