Flight sims

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3DFXSven
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Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:36 am

Flight sims

Post by 3DFXSven »

Hello Zeus,

many many thanx for your excellent piece of software. It's the best glide wrapper of all times!

I would told you that the wrapper till version 1.04 runs on Win98SE and WinME perfect too. You can add the 9X OS to your compatibility list of OS.

I'm a collector of all kinds of sims. Have a really huge collection. Many more than listed at Migmans flightsim museum. So I can test a lot of them. Since many old sims now run on the modern win sys (XP-W7 or maybe W8 & W10) generally there is no need to have a retro machine. But there are a few once that absolutely don't want to run on a modern system. The frontline fighters collection for example isn't really stable if you could get them to run at all (Hind, F-16, Apache from Digital Integration with 3DFX support).

For such a case I have my retro machine. You can avoid problems related to Direct Draw errors in menus or videos, in that case a ddwrapper won't help on a modern system. It runs an ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA with a Athlon II X2 250 CPU and a Geforce FX 5900 Ultra (Forceware 56.64 - for best compatibilty with old games). There are two Diamond Voodoo 2 12Mb at SLI on this board too.

Most of the time I use your nGlide wrapper with the old sims, cause you can use higher resolutions as with the Voodoo SLI. It runs perfectly (often better than the hardware) with most sims on this old OS.

There are only a few sims that don't want to run. They don't like relatively fast machines, I think, cause they crash with the voodoo 2 hardware (SLI, non SLI, 2MB texture limit - all tested) too. This is the above named frontline fighters. I tried them with nGlide and the original 3DFX Version (freeze at beginning of a flight). Same with the voodoo 2 patches. Only way to get those running in 3DFX is a system with max 100FSB (my old GA-BX2000+) with a real Voodoo 1 card. The software mode runs perfectly on all kind of PC. So it must be a 3DFX related problem at all.

Another wish could be: Will there be a way to get higher resolutions with Jane's Israeli and US Air Force Fighters (as you can get in Jane's F-15, Longbow 1-2 and FA-18) in use with nGlide's next release? Both run without any errors, but you can't set the resolutions higher. They simply ignore it. For USAF you could use D3D to get better resolutions and graphics, but it has some trouble with 8-bit palleted textures if you use any higher than Geforce FX (transparency errors - blue retangles around the wheels / errors with the instruments in 3D cockpit view). It's the only game makes me run the system with the FX card. A Geforce 6800 GT runs with all the other titles, in D3D directly or with the use of nGlide, too. So the use of nGlide for USAF would really make a sense in case of compatibility.

Regards Sven
Gamecollector
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Re: Flight sims

Post by Gamecollector »

3DFXSven wrote: Only way to get those running in 3DFX is a system with max 100FSB (my old GA-BX2000+) with a real Voodoo 1 card.
Apache: Longbow and F-16: Fighting Falcon run ok on my test PC. P4 3.2E + Voodoo2 SLI + WinXpSp3.
I will retest them in WinME later.
Hind freezes with and without the Voodoo2 patch.
Jane's Israeli and US Air Force Fighters
USAF not supports glide. D3d only. So - nGlide can't do anything.
Not works in WinXpSp3 for me. I have fixed the "Preferences" freeze (CorrectBitmapHeader ACT fix) but the game ctds when I start the real flight. And I can't select the resolution (the dropdown list not opens)...

I don't had Israeli Air Force but suspect this game not supports glide too.
ASUS P4P800 SE, Pentium4 3.2E/2 GiB DDR400 (3-3-3-8), Sapphire Radeon HD3850 AGP, 2 Voodoo2 12 MB (SLI), Audigy 2 ZS.
Windows XP SP3 Pro Rus (w/o the POSReady hack), Catalyst 14.4, Voodoo2 W2k 1.02.00 drivers.
3DFXSven
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:36 am

Re: Flight sims

Post by 3DFXSven »

Hello, back again from testing ;)

@Gamecollector

Yes you are right. USAF could run with a Voodoo card (you can choose it in the config) , but only in D3D mode. I've overlooked that fact. May be the same with IAF, cause it runs always the same resolution (640x480) no matter which you choose in nGlide. You could select a voodoo card in the graphic options menu as you can in USAF too, but maybe they always use DirectX7 D3D instead of glide (could nGlide run D3D as a voodoo card ?!?).

Israelli Air Force runs perfect with the Tackleberry Patch for Win 7 under XP. USAF's Tackleberry Patch crashes in XP. Don't know why. He must have used different method to make both run, although they are very similar and made by the same team. I think it has to do with the method to get the dropdown menus in USAF to run under W7. IAF doesn't have such menus.

I would like to play all my old sims on one rig, from DI Frontline Fighters age to the time of Falcon Allied Force. This pc only uses 140-180W power. The other one I have has a Phenom II X6 1100T with two GTX 660 and on GT640 for Physx. This is the rig for my highend sims. But it wants about 550-600w power. Here in Germany this is really expensive over the year. So since most of my sims are relatively old, the most time I don't need such a powerfull PC. Of course I could built a third old pc with voodoo 1 and max 1Ghz CPU for the oldest titles, but three sytems for simming, a little crazy! So that's my dilemma.

If I choose 9X all the oldest title are very happy, but the little newer once scream for XP. In XP the Geforce 6800 GT runs perfect with newer titles. The 5900 is a little to slow. But in 9X you have really problems with the 8 bit palleted textures using the 6800, cause of the few drivers you have for it (in XP with new 3XX.XX drivers 8 bit textures are no problem, but the OS itself is). The only option here is a FX card, that supports the 8 bit. Dualboot want be a problem, but to change the card every time is no option. So Voodoo an nGlide could be the salvation. Using the 6800 for XP and the voodoo 2 in 9X for persistent games. nGlide for titles that use 3DFX too, but not so bullheaded with the compatibility. Here you have the advantage to set higher resolutions for smoother graphics. That's my idea, at the moment. But this changes every hour, cause of new problems coming :mrgreen:

At the moment the only things I couldn't get to run in XP is the frontline fighters (they crash with voodoo 2 - only possible with a voodoo 1, 9X and max FSB100) and USAF cause of the XP problem in the menus (3D runs fine). So compatibility with the DI titles and nGlide would really be a great advantage. That's why I asked :lol:
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Zeus
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Re: Flight sims

Post by Zeus »

Hi 3DFXSven and thanks for your kind words.

I plan to take a look at Frontline Fighters when I find some time, but first I need to get the game... :)
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Zeus
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Re: Flight sims

Post by Zeus »

NightRunner
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Re: Flight sims

Post by NightRunner »

Excellent, many thanks for your work and for support of F-16 FF game in last release!

Small wish: I am still waiting for missing support of Apache game from Frontline Fighters collection. Can I help you with that in some way? I do not know if you already own Apache game :-)
3DFXSven
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Re: Flight sims

Post by 3DFXSven »

Hello Zeus,

thx so much for making F-16 compatible. Don't know if Apache is running. Have not much time to test at the moment, caused by illness. My cockpit project is on hold, too. Hope I can come back to my hobby soon as possible.

Once again, great work. Without your work old 3DFX games had to die! Not many people have the possibility to run an old machine as a second game gear.

It's real fun to see that things like old 486 boards, I threw away few years ago (after I have stored them nearly twenty years)
reach about 200$ on ebay. We have a big retro wave at the moment. Especially the younger once, which hadn't experienced the early computer days are very interested in this old stuff.
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Zeus
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Re: Flight sims

Post by Zeus »

3DFXSven wrote:Without your work old 3DFX games had to die!
I couldn't imagine such horrible scenario, that's why I started this project. :)
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