Direct 3d on XP

Post by **Lightfoot** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:44 pm

Yeah...we've known about (and banned) the use of that "trick" for about 6 years.

The best part is that if you use it in a game full of veteran players the signature lag spike (and you not dying when you should have) gives it away.

$0.02

PanekPL · Post by **PanekPL** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:59 pm

I know it's banned, but in Instant Melee it's a funny thing to do ;]

Edit: ...straight from the I'76NP help file:

Some guy that wrote the help file for Nitro Pack wrote:"I cannot change my resolution (F12) when playing in 3D acceleration."

3D acceleration only supports 640 X 480. Only software mode supports multiple resolutions.

Apparently no fix for that ;[

Another EDIT with a finding... Maybe it's a thingie you guys know about, but I thought I can share it. Today, I was playing Nitro Pack (the mission Mad Clown Disease), when a message came in on a communicator, so I paused the game and alt-tabbed to the desktop to see it. When I got back to the game, everything was white, no colours, hence the name Snow Mode (as I dubbed it). I could drive around and do everything I could as normal - only the Snow effect was there. It's kinda hard to describe really, you'll have to try it for yourself... In Software Mode everything works well - you can do this only in D3D. If anybody will tell me where the hell those CTRL+P screenshots save themselves I'll pull one up.

Second thing... In a file in the main game directory (gamekey.def, view it in Notepad) I found this line...

# Shift key modify eye position and orientation #
TOGGLE_WIREFRAME CTRL+W

Anybody knows how to turn it on? Maybe that's the way how to toggle Snow Mode without having to alt+tab? I tried shift+ctrl+w and other combinations, none seem to work...

BTW, it's probably one of my last posts before I go to Italy for vacation. See ya.

Magnum |HH| · Post by **Magnum |HH|** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:04 am

I have had this happen before except instead of all white I have seen textures from the cars(paint and /or tires) show up in the sky.

PanekPL · Post by **PanekPL** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:12 am

For me, the sky goes all white. And it seems like this thing is kind of random - one time you can see the car, and the other time you can't. The same goes for roads, ramps and buildings, also for the in-car view - one time you can see almost everything, besides the white terrain, the next time you can't see anything, as the car goes white along with the surroundings.

Ace English · Post by **Ace English** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:06 am

I think changing the screen res or going to the options menu and back out fixed crazy graphics in i76/nitro from my experience, but maybe not that specific problem.

PanekPL · Post by **PanekPL** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:02 am

Yeah... Only pausing the game then unpausing it fixes the Snow Mode...

KIV 6051 [SH] · Post by **KIV 6051 [SH]** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:02 pm

What happens is that for some reason the game forgets where all of the textures go, so they all become randomly placed. I forgot how to make it happen successively, though.

Fnork · Post by **Fnork** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:20 pm

I get the "snow mode" every time I alt-Tab out to check the server scope, ICQ, etc. It looks neat, but seems to make the game much more prone to crashing so I don't like to leave it that way for long.

Tapping the Escape (menu) key twice always fixes it.

It's possible that people are seeing different effects because of having different video cards.

Back when 3dfx cards were still around, someone (D1VER possibly?) noticed that the cacti would be different colors depending on your video card. One player would see them as brown, and another player on the same map at the exact same time would see them as green.

PanekPL · Post by **PanekPL** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:15 am

A little more playing, and I found out that due to proper shading some maps are darker. Also, using the Monitor Brightness option (turning it up) only brightens up the in-car dash... and the bullets you fire.

Lithium |HH| · Post by **Lithium |HH|** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:46 am

Ive been reading through looking for some answers to my latest install of Nitro, and have yet to find any. Whats with all these options? Only software mode and D3D work, but why are so many listed?? Check out the pic below to see.

My System Info
Oh yeah, im using a nVidia 5600 Ultra
Ingame D3D

Post by **Lightfoot** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:43 pm

"Back in the day" when Nitro Pack was released there were a bunch of competing platforms before most companies had settled on the current "standards" we have now.

3DFX, Rendition and Power VR were all proprietary emulation sets for thier respective manufacturers and were coded into Nitros 3D engine separately for "optimum performance".

I know you can run 3DFX with the right GL driver set (from around 1998) and that Power VR sort of works (sometimes) if you happen to have a 64 mb. PCI Matrox card. Aside from that I can offer little insight.

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 10:39 am

Regarding 3dfx mode (always the best if I remember correctly...)

Lithium, might I suggest looking up "voodoo wrapper" or "glide wrapper" even "3dfx wrapper"? I have found several of these, basically a dll you place in c:\windows that has a config program behind it. Anyway, of the two I have tried so far one totally doesn't work and the other works for about 3 minutes then starts glitching out. I kind of ran out of steam as there are endless numbers of these things floating around but maybe someone can find one that works, or configure one in such a way that it works.

PanekPL · Post by **PanekPL** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:08 am

As of now, I'm looking for my Nitro Pack CD to try adding various "-..." command to trigger those modes in the screen that Lithum posted. Even if it glitches the game, fun thing to see how it will do...

Lithium |HH| wrote:Only software mode and D3D work, but why are so many listed?? Check out the pic below to see.

Could be your game thinking that you can run those modes on your PC... Maybe. What graphics card are you running on? Maybe it's the game's "checker" screwing up with a new card, since the game itself is quite old.

Lithium |HH| · Post by **Lithium |HH|** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:24 pm

In all the years I?ve played this game, and all the countless installs I?ve made I don't believe I?ve ever seen so many play specials on the main splash screen.

Would be nice to see Nitro in all of its retro glory someday. Still have yet to see anything better then D3D in that game.

Later this week, when I get a few straight hours of uninterrupted PC time, ill see about what kind of "wrapper" I can find online. Or if anything else can be done to bring about these other play modes. It might be totally pointless, but its something worth checking out. I loathe software mode?

PanekPL · Post by **PanekPL** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:25 am

I think this wrapper could work. I think... Right now I'm going to see if "3DFx" would be selectable from the splash menu and if not, I'm gonna tweak around with the "-..." commands.

INTERSTATE76.COM

Direct 3d on XP

Uh...

Aye...