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Emulators For 'Old' Video Cards?

Discussion in 'Graphics Cards' started by xbeanx3000, 19 Feb 2006.

    19 Feb 2006 at 13:14
      #1
  1. xbeanx3000

    Associate

    Joined: 18 Jul 2004

    Posts: 84

    Hi,

    Recently I've been using what are known as 'glide wrappers' which work quite good, but for a few games (POD3dfxdemo says it can't find 'glide.dll' even though the glidewrapper is installed). Now I was wondering if such wrappers exist for cards like the Riva TNT and other very old cards. I'd very much like to play Resident Evil 1 + 2 in accelerated mode. DOSBox emulates some video and sound cards but only inside a dos environment, and for dos games only. I'm thinking middle eara here, where games used more than directdraw (dosbox mainly deals with 2d cards?), and which only worked with a few specifics (sometimes only 6 cards in the world were listed on a game's box).

    Final Note: Cards that didn't use Direct3D or OpenGL but were still '3D acceleraters'. Think early VR, Matrox, TNT1 + Riva TNT, that sort of thing.
     
    Last edited: 19 Feb 2006
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    2. 19 Feb 2006 at 13:36
      #2
  2. MAllen

    Wise Guy

    Joined: 24 Feb 2003

    Posts: 2,236

    Location: Brighton, UK

    Weird question....

    It would help if you told us what graphics card you are trying to use.

    All of the cards you have named are "3D Accellerators". Matrox's PowerVR, Diamond or STB's Riva-128, Various makes of TNT, 3DFX cards - these were all "classics" of their time which steered us into the uber-graphics we have now.

    I am curious as to why you are using a "Glide Wrapper". Do I assume you are using an old 3DfX Card of some form? "Glide" was 3DFx's answer to Direct-X and Open-GL. The 3DFX cards couldn't quite do all the fancy 3D tricks of the two main graphics APIs, so the company created their own API to make most direct use of their hardware. :)

    A bit of googling would soon take you to a few historic sites if you need more info on history....

    As to your original question - we still need to know what graphics card you are using, and therefore what type of emulator you are looking for.
     
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    3. 19 Feb 2006 at 15:18
      #3
  3. xbeanx3000

    Associate

    Joined: 18 Jul 2004

    Posts: 84

    I'm using a glide wrapper to play glide games that wouldn't normally work on todays direct3d/opengl cards. Simple really.

    I have a 6600GT btw.
     
    Last edited: 19 Feb 2006
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    4. 19 Feb 2006 at 15:26
      #4
  4. MAllen

    Wise Guy

    Joined: 24 Feb 2003

    Posts: 2,236

    Location: Brighton, UK

    Ahh.... I see. So the "Glide Wrapper" is faking the old 3dFX code for you. A very common card of it's day, and therefore lots of Glide-Only games at the time.

    As to anything else - it's going to be fairly game specific. Riva-128 followed by the TNT were right at the start end of the nVidia product line. These both support the relevant OpenGL and DirectX standards of the day. So your 6600 would just use it's modern OpenGL/DirectX driver for those games.

    From my understanding of it, you are correct about DOS Box mainly emulating 2D games. DOS was all 2D - that is why the 3D Accelerator was invented. To allow the hardware to take over the complex graphics processing.


    What game are you actually having problems with? Is there some specific graphics you are trying to emulate? Or is this a "theoretical" question?
     
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    5. 19 Feb 2006 at 17:40
      #5
  5. xbeanx3000

    Associate

    Joined: 18 Jul 2004

    Posts: 84

    Resident Evil 1 and 2 are just two examples. RE2 has a very short list of compatible g-cards, one of them being the Riva 128/TNT1 I think. There are also some mega old Savage and Matrox cards listed. If you're right that these cards use OpenGL and direct3d, then it's strange that they don't work when selected. Resident Evil 2 just forces software mode when I try selecting such video options.

    If you're wrong about the Riva and cards of the same eara supporting d3d and OpenGL, then I'll give another example of what I'm getting at. Cards 'outside' of direct3D, OpenGL and Glide - they don't use any of these methods to render games, instead games programmed specifically for certain 3D hardware ie: Riva 128 (only if you're wrong though).
     
    Last edited: 19 Feb 2006
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    6. 19 Feb 2006 at 18:10
      #6
  6. MAllen

    Wise Guy

    Joined: 24 Feb 2003

    Posts: 2,236

    Location: Brighton, UK

    My second PC graphics card was a Riva-128. Followed by a TNT. (Two very different cards). So my memory of history is correct. :p It's just that the cards are so old, that they only supported a much older OpenGL/DirectX. :)

    In those days, it tended to be a choice of "Glide" and "OpenGL or DirectX". Sometimes all three. "Glide" is purely for 3DfX built cards to work directly with their hardwre. Whereas cards like the nVidia Riva-128, nVidia TNT, Savage cards and Matrox cards were built around the two common APIs of OpenGL and DirectX.

    (Ah - there was also the Matrox PowerVR which had it's own API.... almost forgot that one. It would still do OpenGL as well.)

    You would still find options for differently names cards with some games as these could make use of extra features of the cards. Or to get around certain bugs.

    The theory says that you should be selecting the Riva-128 or TNT options as these are closest relations to your Uber-card. Problem is that the relation is now so old, I doubt there is much backward compatibility left in the drivers. I know that the Riva-128 was so different to other cards that it was never included in the combined Detonator package, and the TNT is now the oldest thing supported in there so it's unlikely they will bother with the oldest backward compatibilty now.

    Edit: For a laugh, I just grabbed my old Diamond Viper V330 manual. This was my Riva-128 card with the glory of 4MB RAM!! On the CD was DirectX 5 - which should show you how far back this is. 1995 :))

    If you have a good Glide emulator, then I'd stick with that. It tended to be what many games were written for anyway.

    You could try experimenting with slightly older versions of nVidia drivers for your 6600. Some of these may better support the older ways of doing things.


    OR - if you are really keen to play RE1 and RE2 I have a spare STB Riva-128 I can let you have. Though you will need an old PC to install it into as it's not going to work with XP as I doubt there are drivers. :D

    (Actually I also have TNTs, etc as well as other bits ot make up that old machine if you really need to play old games.... LOL)
     
    Last edited: 19 Feb 2006
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    7. 19 Feb 2006 at 19:54
      #7
  7. xbeanx3000

    Associate

    Joined: 18 Jul 2004

    Posts: 84

    Thanks for the offer mallen but it's ok, and all that info. I remember trying to use a TNT2 Ultra with RE2 and selecting both riva and tnt1 options, neither worked back then. It seems the only thing that has been emulated is glide, and that's it. Shame.

    I'll take your advice and try and use glide all the time, although games with 'Banshee' support don't seem to work with the wrapper. 'POD' might be a Banshee game.
     
    Last edited: 19 Feb 2006
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    8. 19 Feb 2006 at 20:02
      #8
  8. chaparral

    Capodecina

    Joined: 27 Nov 2005

    Posts: 22,191

    Location: Guernsey (In lockdown from 23.01.21)

    You could try picking up an old voodoo5500 pci card for cheap..
    You may be able to use this in one your pci slots at the same time as your main graphics card..
    There should be drivers for windows xp kicking around the net somewhere for the voodoo5500pci..

    someone here maybe able to confirm if this will work or not..
     
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    9. 19 Feb 2006 at 20:18
      #9
  9. TALON1973

    Mobster

    Joined: 28 Jul 2004

    Posts: 4,818

    Location: llanelli , south wales

    lol spooky stuff

    http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1322
     
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    10. 19 Feb 2006 at 20:30
      #10
  10. chaparral

    Capodecina

    Joined: 27 Nov 2005

    Posts: 22,191

    Location: Guernsey (In lockdown from 23.01.21)

    I can't remember for sure..But i think you could get the voodoo3 3000 & voodoo5 5500 in PCI as well as AGP
     
    Last edited: 19 Feb 2006
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    11. 20 Feb 2006 at 09:43
      #11
  11. AWPC

    Sgarrista

    Joined: 8 Dec 2005

    Posts: 9,852

    Resident Evil1 + 2 actually work on recent Nvidia cards with no tweaking whatsoever. Used to have both running perfectly under Windows 98SE with a 6800GT256. Just choose the Riva/TNT cards from the setup menu.

    Just tried it on XP SP2 + DX9.0C + Forceware 81.98WHQL with 7800GTX512. RE2 works fine with either Riva128 or TNT. You need to adjust the settings a bit in the RE2 launcher to get perfect gfx though.

    Same goes for a lot of older TNT/Riva/Rendition only games. Just choose one of those from the gfx menu and see if it runs.
     
    Last edited: 20 Feb 2006
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