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656 lines
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656 lines
26 KiB
HTML
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<meta name="google-site-verification" content="4JMbYsGNl4-uZV9FEQvq56CQDND5NHcIPtMblynaH-Q" />
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<title>dgVoodoo2 DirectX Readme</title>
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</head>
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<body bgcolor="#D97600">
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<font color = "#FFFF00">
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<h2 align="left">
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===============================================================================<br>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">dgVoodoo 2.54</font>: DirectX emulation related stuffs<br>
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<br>
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===============================================================================<br>
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</h2>
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<p>
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<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
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Table of contents
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</u></font></h2>
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<b><h3>
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1. Important notes<br>
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2. General overview<br>
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3. Some technical info<br>
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4. Application resolutions and refresh rates<br>
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5. About fullscreen and windowed mode<br>
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6. DirectX Control Panel (CPL) options<br>
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7. Tips and known issues<br>
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8. Why doesn't dgVoodoo DX emulation start up?
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</h3></b>
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</p>
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===============================================================================<br>
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<br>
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<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
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1. Important notes
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</u></font></h2>
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<p><font color = "#FFFFFF">
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First of all: NEVER COPY DDRAW.DLL AND D3D8.DLL INTO SYSTEM FOLDERS!!
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ALWAYS USE A LOCAL INSTALLATION FOR A GAME!<br>
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DirectDraw and D3D8 are still existing and widely used system components in Windows.<br><br></font>
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For clarifying, let's see what dlls MS and dgVoodoo use for DirectDraw and
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Direct3D:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">
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MS:<br>
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</font>
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<table bgcolor = "#C96600">
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<tr><td width="30%">ddraw.dll</td><td>- Contains all DirectDraw implementations up to version 7</td></tr>
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<tr><td width="30%">d3dim.dll</td><td>- Contains all Direct3D implementations up to version 6</td></tr>
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<tr><td width="30%">d3dim700.dll</td><td>- Contains Direct3D 7 implementation</td></tr>
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<tr><td width="30%">d3d8.dll</td><td>- Contains Direct3D 8.1 implementation</td></tr>
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</table>
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</li>
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<br>
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<li>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">
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dgVoodoo:<br>
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</font>
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<table bgcolor = "#C96600">
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<tr><td width="30%">ddraw.dll</td><td>- Contains all DirectDraw implementations up to version 7</td></tr>
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<tr><td width="30%">d3dimm.dll</td><td>- Contains all Direct3D implementations up to version 7</td></tr>
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<tr><td width="30%">d3d8.dll</td><td>- Contains Direct3D 8.1 implementation</td></tr>
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</table>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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So, dgVoodoo packs all of its pre-D3D8 implementation into one module, d3dimm.dll,
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which differs in name from the MS one (note the extra 'm' in the name).<br>
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Thus, copying it to the system folder by accident won't cause any harm. In spite
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of that, it is not recommended.
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</p>
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<br>
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<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
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2. General overview
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</u></font></h2>
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<p>
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If you want to wrap an old DirectX stuff then just copy dgVoodoo's dlls to the
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application folder and launch that. DirectX rendering is configurable similarly
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to Glide. (See DirectX related CPL options)
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DirectDraw is usable without Direct3D but there are no 3D rendering capabilities
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exposed to the applications in that case.<br>
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Direct3D8 is a standalone component, no need for DirectDraw to use it. In spite of
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that it is a good idea to copy DDraw.dll along with D3D8.dll because a lot of movie
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playback system (e.g. DirectShow) rely on DDraw even in D3D8 games. dgVoodoo DDraw
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and D3D8 has the ability and internal support to cooperate if the situation requires.
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<br>
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<br>
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All the interfaces of old DirectX (that is, all DirectDraw interfaces and
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Direct3D 3/5/6/7/8 interfaces) are almost fully supported, and existing implementation
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is improved version by version by more and more reverse engineering and finetuning.
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<br>
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<br>
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Since DirectX is not a pure hardware-only rendering API, basically two types of
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virtual video cards can be used, like back in the old days, hehe. Four extra
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video card types are added to utilize different chipset features and provide correct
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vendorID/hardwareID.
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Available video card types:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">One that simulates an old SVGA with hw-capabilites only for 2D blitting</font>
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operations.<br>With such a card, only a software 3D rendering device can be used.
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</li>
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<br>
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<li>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">One (imaginary) video card that has its custom hw 3D rendering support.</font><br>
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This card provides support for full hardware acceleration including
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'Transform & Light'.
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</li>
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<br>
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<li>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">GeForce4 Ti 4800</font>
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</li>
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<li>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">ATI Radeon 8500</font>
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</li>
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<li>
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<font color="#FFFFFF">Matrox Parhelia-512</font>
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</li>
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<li>
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<font color="#FFFFFF">GeForce FX 5700 Ultra</font>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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For more detailed capabilities, see the technical info.
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<br><br>
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Software rendering devices does not use real software rendering in dgVoodoo. I
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think that a software rasterizer has no reason for existence nowadays and didn't
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want to write one just for fun so they use hw accelerated rendering in the
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background. The point is, towards the applications they logically appear as
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software devices.
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<br><br>
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DirectX renderer needs less GPU power (for general cases) than Glide renderer but
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it uses relatively complex precompiled shaders too (since whole of the fixed
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function vertex/pixel pipeline has to be mapped to pure shader functionality).
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<br><br>
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DX emulation has a method for fast CPU-access of locked surfaces. The current
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method is not the final version and going to be improved later.
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The reason of not using that one all the time but it is up to the user's choice
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is that this method is not 100% safe and can cause crashes under certain
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circumstances. It depends on the wrapped application.
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<br><br>
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Important to note that compatibility with MS DirectDraw is not completely
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guaranteed, especially with very old applications written in the win95/Win98 era.
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Those applications might utilize DirectDraw/GDI interaction which is not fully
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supported in dgVoodoo. I would like to improve that somehow, in later versions.
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</p>
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<br>
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<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
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3. Some technical info
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</u></font></h2>
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<p>
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I say 'almost fully supported' when talking about DX support because there are
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some functions on certain interfaces of which functionality is somewhat unclear
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or totally unimportant, so they either not implemented at all or just
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partially because I did not have time and patience to figure out their exact
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behavior. Think about a total of 5-6 functions of all the DX interfaces,
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I hardly believe that anything used them.
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<br><br>
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For DX8.1, the following features are not implemented but planned to be in the
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future:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Higher-Order Primitives (maybe some day)</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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................................................................................
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<br><br>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">
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Internal virtual 3D card has the following 3D hardware capabilities:
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</font>
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Supports transforming and all kind of lighting with flat, Gouraud and Phong
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shading, max 8 active lights</li>
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<li>Supports 6 clipping planes</li>
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<li>Supports vertex bending with 3+1 weights</li>
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<li>Supports matrix palette of 256 elements for indexed vertex blending</li>
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<li>Supports texture coordinate generating & transformation, projective texturing</li>
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<li>Supports all contemporary pixel formats for textures and render targets with
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four different RGBA order (altough the order is not yet exposed in the CPL app)</li>
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<li>Supports compressed textures (DXTC1-5)</li>
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<li>Supports volume textures with limited number of texture formats</li>
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<li>Supports Z-buffer (of course) and stenciling (but there is no W-buffer)</li>
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<li>Supports vertex and pixel fog</li>
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<li>Supports colorkeying with one texture (with colorkey blending or
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colorkey discarding)</li>
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<li>Supports all texture sampling modes</li>
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<li>Paletted textures</li>
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<li>Depth textures</li>
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<li>16 vertex streams</li>
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<li>Vertex tweening</li>
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<li>Supports point sprites</li>
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</ul>
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<p><font color = "#FFFFFF">
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* Additionally, if dynamic shader compiling IS NOT AVAILABLE then
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</font></p>
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<ul>
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<li>Supports 4 texture stages and all DX7-level texture blending operations and
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arguments on each of them including bump mapping</li>
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<li>DX8-level vertex/pixel pipeline is <font color = "#FFFFFF">UNAVAILABLE</font></li>
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</ul>
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<p><font color = "#FFFFFF">
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* if dynamic shader compiling IS AVAILABLE then
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</font></p>
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<ul>
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<li>Supports <font color = "#FFFFFF">all of the 8 texture stages and all DX8-level texture blending
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operations and arguments</font> on each of them</li>
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<li>All types of DX8.1 bytecode shaders are supported<br>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">
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vs1.0, vs1.1<br>
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ps1.0, ps1.1, ps1.2, ps1.3, ps1.4<br></li>
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</font>
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<li>256 vertex shader constants</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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The other 4 card types are not an exact emulation of the given chipsets with some
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real ATI/nVidia/Matrox driver version. They are just present to bias the available
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rendering capabilities and properties toward a real ATI, nVidia or Matrox card:
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</p>
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<p><font color = "#FFFFFF">
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GeForce4 Ti 4800 capabilities:
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</font></p>
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<ul>
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<li>Same as the internal virtual 3D card, except:</li>
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<li>No 32 bit z-buffer support</li>
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<li>Full cut colorkeying</li>
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<li><font color = "#FFFFFF">No</font> indexed vertex blending</li>
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<li>Maximum supported pixel shader version is <font color = "#FFFFFF">ps1.3</font></li>
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<li>Max <font color = "#FFFFFF">96</font> vertex shader constants</li>
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</ul>
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<p><font color = "#FFFFFF">
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ATI Radeon 8500 capabilities:
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</font></p>
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<ul>
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<li>Same as the internal virtual 3D card, except:</li>
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<li>No 32 bit z-buffer support</li>
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<li>Plain colorkeying</li>
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<li>Max <font color = "#FFFFFF">57</font> matrices for indexed vertex blending</li>
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<li>No paletted texture support</li>
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<li><font color = "#FFFFFF">8</font> vertex streams</li>
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<li>Max <font color = "#FFFFFF">192</font> vertex shader constants</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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<font color="#FFFFFF">
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Matrox Parhelia-512 capabilities:
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</font>
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Same as the internal virtual 3D card, except:</li>
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<li>No 32 bit z-buffer support</li>
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<li>Plain colorkeying</li>
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<li>No paletted texture support</li>
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<li>Maximum supported pixel shader version is <font color="#FFFFFF">ps1.3</font></li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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<font color="#FFFFFF">
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GeForce FX 5700 Ultra capabilities:
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</font>
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Same as the internal virtual 3D card, except:</li>
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<li>No 32 bit z-buffer support</li>
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<li>Full cut colorkeying</li>
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</ul>
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Since I cannot enumerate all the capabilities here, check them out with <font color="#FFFFFF">DXCapsViewer</font> if interested.<br>
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Also, those capabilities might be changed in the future if I get more accurate information about the hardwares in question.
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<p>
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................................................................................
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<br><br>
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DirectDraw and Direct3D objects supports all types of rendering devices that are
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supported in original DirectX.<br>
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Direct3D8 support HAL and software device types.
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<br><br>
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In MS pre-Direct3D8 implementations Direct3D7 is the only one that can be used with
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hardware vertex transformation and lighting, through a Transform & Light (T&L)
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device (but I guess it casually falls back to software vertex processing if the
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device driver does not support the complete vertex operation pipeline that is
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currently set).
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<br><br>
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In all other cases software vertex processing is used. In dgVoodoo vertex
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processing is always routed to the hardware when possible.<br>
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However, it's not so simple: software vertex processing is unavoidable in Direct3D
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in some cases, for example when an application wants Direct3D to do only vertex
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processing without rendering or to calculate visibility, or, when the rendering
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extent must be updated when drawing primitives through a non-T&L device (this is
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not too important in practice but I included it because of full compatibility).
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Also, vertex processing for Direct3D3 can only be done in software because of the
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execution logic of execute buffers.<br>
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It all means that dgVoodoo has a software T&L vertex processing engine like
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MS Direct3D for such cases, duplicating the hw functionality. However for
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transforming, bending, lighting, fogging and texture coordinate transforming
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calculations dgVoodoo uses fast vectorized SSE2 code instead of scalar FPU.
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<br><br>
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(It should be noted that in newer DX version like DX7 MS uses SSE2 too.
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What is more, for software emulation of vertex shader code in DX8, MS seems to
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apply an internal compiler, that compiles from shader code to x86 bytecode.
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Wow, what a nice feature!! I should do the same, but probably it all is not too
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relevant on modern CPUs.)
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<br>
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<br>
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Phong shading (per-pixel shading) is not supported by MS Direct3D, only
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Gouraud (per-vertex). However the internal virtual 3D card can externally be
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forced to Phong shading through the CPL app but keep in mind that it can cause
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heavy GPU usage because Direct3D lighting is quite complex, typical hardware
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implementations supports 8 active lights with a lot of properties and components.
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Also, Phong shading is only applicable when the application commits all its
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transforming and lighting calculations to the D3D runtime. Unfortunately it is
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very common that games do their own T&L calcs and use D3D as a lowlevel rasterizer
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for the rest. It is especially true when a game is written for multiple platforms
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or multiple 3D APIs like Glide, D3D, OpenGL, etc. Direct3D3 always uses software
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vertex processing so Phong shading cannot be applied there at all.
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<br><br>
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DX8 is a horse of another colour from the beginning of a new era. Applications
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written for that usually heavily utilize multiple vertex streams through real
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vertex and index buffers along with built-in hw T&L pipeline and/or shaders
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without any calculations done in software.
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<br><br>
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Phong shading is only applicable with full fixed function vertex/pixel pipeline
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usage. If an application is rendering through a vertex and/or pixel shader in DX8
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then Phong cannot be utilized.
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<br>
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</p>
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<br>
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<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
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4. Application resolutions and refresh rates
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</u></font></h2>
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<p>
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An application using DirectX can only detect available resolutions and
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associated refresh rates by asking DirectDraw/DX8 to enumerate them. There are two
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slight problems with it in practice:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Modern hardware does not necessarily report some low resolutions like 320x200,
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640x480, etc.</li>
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<li>Old hardware was not able to report refresh rates or query the current one in
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general, back then when 60/75Hz CRTs were the standard displays. Thus, most of
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the games/applications just used 0 for refresh rate when setting the resolution
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which means 'unspecified or default' refresh rate.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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To workaround the first case, dgVoodoo keeps a list of 'classic' resolutions.
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These are the following:
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</p>
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<font color = "#FFFFFF">
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<ul>
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<li>320 x 200 (X-mode is also supported in DDraw)</li>
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<li>320 x 240, (X-mode is also supported in DDraw)</li>
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<li>640 x 400,</li>
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<li>640 x 480,</li>
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<li>800 x 600,</li>
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<li>1024 x 768,</li>
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<li>1280 x 1024</li>
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</ul>
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</font>
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<p>
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If a resolution of that list is not amongst the ones that your modern adapter
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reports then dgVoodoo forces enumerating it to the application.
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<br><br>
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As for the refresh rates, if an application does not specifify one of the
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enumerated ones but specifies 0 (default) then dgVoodoo finds and applies the
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natively supported one that is most closest to 60Hz.
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<br><br>
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If you want to make sure or would like to use a custom refresh rate then
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you can override that through the resolution selector combo box (DirectX tab).<br>
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For details, see chapter 'Resolution and refresh rate overriding' in the general readme.
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</p>
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If the refresh rate is overridden then all resolutions are enumerated with the
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overidden value to the applications.
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</p>
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<br>
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<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
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5. About fullscreen and windowed mode
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</u></font></h2>
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<p>
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Choosing fullscreen or windowed working mode is part of the DirectDraw API. Some
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games or demoscene stuffs run only in fullscreen so one could think what cool it
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would be to have them running in windowed mode. I thought the same so wanted to
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enable by default the same method to switch between them as used for Glide.
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There are some problems however: the ways handling fullscreen and windowed mode
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via DirectDraw are totally different in the aspect of the driving code. So,
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forcing an application into an unexpected situation may cause glitches or crashes.
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Also, a game may have its on mechanism for mode switching with which dgVoodoo
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could conflict. Due to those theoretic things, and because I experinced some
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problems with some games, I decided to emulate the original DirectDraw behavior
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by default: when a fullscreen application loses the focus then its window gets
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minimized and when it regains that its window is restored and enters fullscreen
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again and no manual switch is available. Also, there are no changes applied on the
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app window like style and overridden messages, etc.
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<br><br>
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If you make sure that a given game does not conflict with dgVoodoo's Alt-Enter
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thing then you can enable that in the CPL app. Also, you can force it to windowed
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mode if 'app controlled fullscreen/windowed' option is disabled at the game
|
|
startup (and choose windowed mode in the general settings), without Alt-Enter.
|
|
Forcing a windowed application to fullscreen can only be done by manual switch
|
|
because there is no way to 1) detect when an application begins its rendering and
|
|
2) switch to fullscreen.
|
|
<br><br>
|
|
(But, think about it, windowed to fullscreen does not make any sense. The
|
|
resolution used comes from the window size but the window may get resized or
|
|
repositioned when switching mode, so..., it's confusing.)
|
|
<br><br>
|
|
What is more, since DirectDraw was a one-monitor-API <font color = "#FFFFFF">in practice</font>, integrating windowed
|
|
applications in a multimonitor environment is already a problem even for MS,
|
|
I think. If such an app is even forced to fullscreen mode then it may crash or
|
|
misworks for reasons I do not want to word here.
|
|
<br><br>
|
|
Lost mode is emulated in default DX emulation mode, namely when switching
|
|
between windowed/fullscreen mode by Alt-Enter is disabled. This is because some
|
|
DX applications count on losing their surfaces when their window loses focus and
|
|
their code paths can be mislead if they remain 'unlost'. (This is a result of bad
|
|
programming technique as DX SDKs clearly state that an application shouldn't
|
|
rely on window focus lost or any other circumstances.)
|
|
<br><br>
|
|
On the other hand, there are incomplete or buggy DX applications that can't
|
|
restore when they get reactivated and just get stuck. So, introducing lostmode
|
|
emulation is up to a potential feature loss, as such applications likely worked
|
|
well with older dgVoodoo versions. In order to keep this feature dgVoodoo applies
|
|
auto-restore for the needed elements when such a situation is detected.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<br>
|
|
<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
|
|
6. DirectX Control Panel (CPL) options
|
|
</u></font></h2>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Disable and passthru to real DirectX</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
As it says, if you want to disable DirectX without
|
|
removing dgVoodoo's DLLs then use this option.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Videocard</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
You can select between the internal virtual 2D (SVGA)
|
|
and 3D accelerated cards.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>VRAM</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Onboard videomemory of the selected videocard.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Filtering</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Various texture filtering modes can be forced here, starting from simple point sampled to high level anisotropic.
|
|
Keep in mind however that forcing other than the application default can result in rendering glitches, or it can
|
|
completely break some visual effects!
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>No mipmapping</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Disabling mipmappig (forcing largest mip texture level).
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Resolution</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Here you can override the application resolution and
|
|
refresh rate. See detailed explanation of static/dynamic
|
|
resolutions in the general Readme.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Antialiasing</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
For 3D rendered surfaces you can force MSAA.
|
|
Option 'Application controlled' is meaningful only for DX8. For DDraw/DX it is equivalent to 'Off'.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Application controlled fullscreen/windowed state</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Since choosing this state is part of DirectDraw, you
|
|
must disable this option to control that via general
|
|
settings.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Disable Alt-Enter to toggle screen state</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
To prevent conflicting with an application built-in
|
|
Alt-Enter handler.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Bilinear blit stretch</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
2D bitmap copying can involve stretching in DirectDraw.
|
|
However the applied stretching filter cannot be controlled
|
|
via the API and early hw used simple point sampling.
|
|
It can result pixelated appearance here and there but
|
|
you can force bilinear filtering which looks cooler for
|
|
most cases. But, it can also introduce various artifacts
|
|
especially when colorkeying is also applied during
|
|
blitting.<br>
|
|
Try forcing bilinear texture filtering for achieving similar
|
|
effects for D3D8 games.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Apply Phong shading when possible</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
See technical info.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Force vSync</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Forcing vertical retrace.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>Fast video memory access</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Provides an alternative method for accessing video memory
|
|
of DX surfaces by the CPU. Try this one if an application
|
|
renders at a low frame rate.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
<li><font color = "#FFFFFF"><b>dgVoodoo Watermark</b></font>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Similarly to 3Dfx watermark in Glide, you can use
|
|
dgVoodoo's own one to see if something is driven through
|
|
dgVoodoo's DirectX.
|
|
</li></p>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<br>
|
|
<h2><font color = "#FFFFFF"><u>
|
|
7. Tips and known issues
|
|
</u></font></h2>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>Always try to run an application with 'application controlled fs/windowed state'
|
|
and disabled 'Alt-Enter' for the first time. If 'Alt-Enter' is enabled then
|
|
the wrapper makes some changes to the application window which can cause some
|
|
applications to miswork or even crash.</li>
|
|
<li>Also, always try an application without enabling 'Fast video memory access' for
|
|
the first time as that method may be unsafe for the application in question, and,
|
|
unortunately can cause inappropriate working.
|
|
</li>
|
|
<li>
|
|
Upscaling (forcing resolution) for old 8 bit paletted DDraw applications are not
|
|
recommended. Paletted things and forced resolution don't work well together,
|
|
but I want to fix it in the future.<br>
|
|
Upscaling scenes by forcing resolution, where no 3D-rendered objects are presents,
|
|
has no sense anyway.
|
|
</li>
|
|
<li>Forcing vertical retrace is not always a good idea. There are games of which
|
|
loaders refreshes the screen at maximum speed (without vertical sync) while
|
|
loading textures, meshes, etc. If vSync is forced to on then it can take ages
|
|
while it all gets over.</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<br>
|
|
<h2>
|
|
<font color="#FFFFFF">
|
|
<u>
|
|
8. Why doesn't dgVoodoo DX emulation start up?
|
|
</u>
|
|
</font>
|
|
</h2>
|
|
<p>
|
|
I got reports about cases with dgVoodoo DirectX emulation not starting up.
|
|
The story is simple, one copies the DX dll files into the given application folder,
|
|
next to the executable, makes sure that DX emulation is enabled on the CPL, and in
|
|
spite of that, when starting the application dgVoodoo isn't utilized at all, dgVoodoo
|
|
watermark doesn't show up in the corner if the app starts at all.
|
|
Thanks to the Guys on Vogons, who are helping me a lot, they come out with 2 reasons:
|
|
</p>
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li>
|
|
Some of the DX dlls (ddraw.dll, d3d8.dll) are registered in the KnownDLLs section of
|
|
the Windows registry. When they are then the operating system always loads the system
|
|
versions of those dlls. Removing the entries from<br><font color="#FFFFFF"><b>
|
|
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\KnownDLLs"</b></font><br>
|
|
is undangerous and can be safely done with <font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Regedit</b></font>.
|
|
This issue causes the majority of the problems.
|
|
</li>
|
|
<li>
|
|
A bit marginal but existing problem with DirectDraw is that it can be initialized through
|
|
Windows' OLE mechanism which identifies objects with GUIDs. The 'GUID-dll name' pairs are
|
|
also stored in Windows registry but Microsoft switched to absolute dll paths in Windows 8(?)
|
|
instead of the relative ones present in Windows 7, so the OLE-accessed DirectDraw is always
|
|
the system one in that case. The registry entries in question can be changed back to relative paths,
|
|
but since <font color="#FFFFFF"><b>Regedit requires TrustedInstaller privilege level for that</b></font>, and you have to search for
|
|
the entries yourself, it is a complicated process, I don't recommend you to experiment with it.
|
|
Luckily most of the old programs access DirectDraw directly, bypassing OLE.
|
|
</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p>
|
|
I know that these details are technical like hell, and I don't at all expect an average user to
|
|
tinker the operating system registry by hand. I just write this info here because I think it's useful for
|
|
advanced users and experts to begin with. A dgVoodoo tool doing it all would be fine but currently doesn't
|
|
exist one.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<font>
|
|
</body>
|
|
|
|
</html> |