Lewpy's 3Dfx/Glide3 Renderer
3. Disclaimer
4. Description
5. Installation
6.1 Keys
6.2 Menu System7. Problems
8. Greets
| Plugin Type | GPU |
| Plugin Name | Lewpy's 3Dfx/Glide³ Renderer |
| Plugin Version | 1.0.16 |
| Date | 20/2/99 |
| Author | Lewpy (based on Tratax's Glide plugin) |
Only contact me about things to do with this plugin.
General enquiries about PSEmu Pro will be ignored. Read the FAQ.
Yes, I do want to hear about bugs.
No, I don't want to be bombarded with mail!!
So, a compromise please :)
Before you think about reporting a bug, please check if there is an update for this driver. Try the PSEmu Pro homepage or my own Beta pages.
Email: psemu@arisen.demon.co.uk
Send me details of the problems you encounter with the following info:-
DO NOT include any screenshots!!!! If I need one, I may ask for one :) My mailbox does not need filling!!
*** READ THE VERSION NOTES FOR THE LATEST INFO ***
This plugin is a part of PSEmu and cannot be used in any other
software.
This program is freeware and cannot be sold. Also this program
cannot be distributed without written permission. This program
cannot be used for any commercial purposes.
Authors are not responsible for any damages that this program may
cause, and are also not responsible for anything this plugin will
be used for.
This is a hardware driver for 3Dfx graphics accelerators. This
means it will not run on any other
manufacturer's 3D card.
It *requires* Glide3 runtime libraries to be
installed for you 3Dfx card.
Download them either from your card manufacturers web site, or
grab the 3Dfx reference drivers from the 3Dfx web site.
Note: this driver is optimised for the latest range of 3Dfx cards. That is, it offers better visual quality on Voodoo² and Banshee cards. Voodoo¹ cards and Voodoo Rush cards should work with the driver, but they will suffer some transparency problems compared to the newer cards.
Copy this plugin to to "plugin" directory that
resides in PSEmu directory.
Use Configuration in PSEmu to choose this plugin, and select the
resolution you want it to run in and alter any settings you wish.
This settings can be changed at runtime as well.
DEL - Menu Cycle
This key cycles through the available configuration items
END - Change Menu Item
This key changes the configuration item between it's available settings
CTRL - Show VRAM
This is really for my benefit :)
It's not perfect, as it can't handle double buffer too well.
BGR is also displayed as RGB :( Seems to be a Glide bug. Oh well.
The Menu System is an On-Screen system: information is
displayed on the screen :)
There are two keys to use: one to select, one to activate.
The following options are available to play with:-
On-Screen Display Off - No display FPS - FPS is displayed FPS/PSX Mode - FPS and PSX Mode (NOT the 3Dfx mode you are running) Full Info - Lots of information
Frame Skip Off - Frame Skip not active On - Frame Skip active
FrameRate Limit
60 fps [or 50 fps] - Game FPS limited to 60fps or 50fps, depending on System Type setting
30 fps [or 25 fps] - Game FPS limited to 30fps or 25fps, depending on System Type setting
200 fps - Game FPS limited to 200fps (ie. no limit)
Auto - Game FPS is automatically set according to PSX modes, ignoring the
System Type setting [experimental!!]
System Type NTSC - Sets the FPS limits to 60/30fps PAL - Sets the FPS limits to 50/25fps
Draw Method
Bright - Bright display, but some colours not displayed correctly
Dim - Dim display, but colours displayed are correct relative intensities
MultiPass - Bright display, correct relative intensities,
better Alpha Blending accuracy, but slower (each poly drawn twice)
Alpha Blending Mode Basic - Transparent objects are drawn totally transparent Disabled - Transparent objects are not drawn transparent Advanced - AVAILABLE ONLY ON NEWER 3Dfx HARDWARE: Transparent objects drawn correctly
Bilinear Filtering
Off - Bilinear filtering off
(suppored: standard PSX-style display)
On - Bilinear filtering on
(not supported: non-standard PSX-style display, has problems)
FrameBuffer Writes Enabled - FrameBuffer writes supported (Splash screens, etc.) Disabled - FrameBuffer writes ignored (could be faster in some games)
Off-Screen Drawing Enabled - Off-Screen Drawing supported (rendered textures, clears, etc.) Disabled - Off-Screen Drawing ignored (could be faster in some games)
Polygon Mode Textured - Objects drawn normally Textured/WireFrame - Objects drawn normally, with Wire Frame super-imposed WireFrame - Objects drawn in Wire Frame only
Texture Windows Enabled - Enable the use of Texture Windows (may impact performance) Disabled - Disables the use of Texture Windows (worse graphical quality in some games)
VSync Disabled - Frame update is not synchronised to the vertical sync of the graphics card Enabled - Frame update is synchronised to the vertical sync of the graphics card
Settings are stored in the Registry automatically, and are loaded again at startup.
Don't try and use this driver if you do not have a 3Dfx
graphics card!!!
Also, make sure you have Glide3 installed: this will install a
file called GLIDE3X.DLL in your WINDOWS/SYSTEM
directory. If this driver is not present, expect it not to appear
in the list of plugins at all!
Really old 3Dfx cards (mainly sent to developers early on) will not be able to run with this plugin. This is due to the plugin needing a texture palette, and the early 3Dfx cards did not have this capability (Revision0 TMU's). I believe all production cards had later revision TMU's, so this should not affect 99.99% of people.
Greets to :-
IRC: mappy, moopy, stubbette, Ravian, Adept, Vastator, Gaffer,
Frenzy, Statix
IRCNet #coders, EFNet #3Dfx & #PSEmu!
RealLife(tm): Paul, Damian, Sarah (and all at Bizarre Creations),
Matt, Sue, Dunx, Tabs, Paula, Giles "Hoohah", Simon
"Delbert", Harry The Bastard, Jim, Rik, Pete.
* ver. 1.0.16 - 20.2.1999
- ***Prelimenary*** Texture Window support
This build contains Texture Window support, but the Texture Windows are not properly
cached yet. This means it will slow down games that heavily use Texture Windows, but it
does substantially improve the visual quality of the game.
Proper caching of the Texture Windows will be implemented in a future build.
- Revised Configuration Panel
All configuration items can be configured via the Configuration Panel (ie. outside of
a game).
- Change to InGame Configuration Menu Control
As soon as you configure an item, the next press of the Menu Cycle key will exit the menu
system.
- Control of System Type
You can control the system type (NTSC/PAL), so that the frame rate limiters can be set to
60/30fps or 50/25fps, except ....
- New Limit Mode: Automatic
This is an "experimental" mode, whereby the speed of the game is limited automatically
by the plugin. It ignores all other user settings, and tries to work it all out for itself!
- Control of VSync
VSync can be controlled from the configuration menu.
- Revised Display Setting
Rewrote some of the display setting code, which hopefully reduces some of the flashing
screens that affect some games.
- Revised FrameBuffer Writing Sequencing
Changed the way framebuffer writes were handled, when they occur after a series of other
framebuffer writes with an inbetween drawn primitive (you could call this
"The Sandwich Effect" or something :). Previous to this, the last framebuffer write
would cause the inbetween drawn primitives to be overwritten. This fixes some hidden menus,
and such like, in some games.
- Banshee
Again, I've fiddled around with the work-around code I have to use to get Banshee working.
Hopefully, this stops any nasty side-effects like lockups. All problems should magically
disappear when 3Dfx release fixed drivers ....
- BlockFill Optimisation
This was a last-minute optimisation I just thought of. It should speed up some games where
there is blockfill to clear the screen and you are running in a high resolution.
Hopefully this hasn't introduced any side-effects.
- Bugfixes
A few miscellaneous bugfixes, that hopefully help out.
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 12 - 3.1.1999
- New Configuration System
The number of keys that I needed was getting too many, so I've re-designed the way
runtime configuration is handled. Now, it basically takes only two keys to do all
the configuration settings :) Settings are also stored/retrieved from the registry
That has interesting possibilities.
NOTE: you will need to reselect your resolution setting, as I've re-arranged the
storage of data in the registry.
*** BANSHEE OWNERS ***
My plugin will try to use the Advanced Alpha Blending mode with your cards (because
the Banshee Glide3 driver says it can support it). At this time, the support in the
Banshee Glide3 driver is actualy broken (3Dfx should fix this on the next release
of driver). Until then, please change to one of the other settings to avoid screen
problems (this should be stored in the registry, so it will happen only on initial
startup).
- Frame Skip
I've added a FrameSkip facility, accessable from the menu system. Only one frame in
two is skipped, if things are running slow. The affect of this will vary from game
to game, since some games depend more heavily on the GPU plugin than others.
- FrameRate Limiter
There is now an option for a 200fps limit (basically no limit), if you want to run
your games a stupid speeds.
- Changed Off-Screen Rendering a little
I finished off my own basic poly drawer, as it was much quicker. Speeds up Crash
Bandicoot 3, where Crash's shadow is continuously drawn offscreen, then textured
on-screen.
- Optimised texture memory invalidation
Something "Under The Hood". It's a "Good Thing" :)
- Re-wrote texture manipulation routines
Some more hand-optimised assembler in action. Speeds things up.
- Re-wrote palette manipulation routines
Even more hand-optimised assembler :) Speeds things up, and is more
"Cache Friendly" (no more huge lookup tables).
- Implemented a WireFrame Mode
For research, mainly ... but left in for a laugh :)
- Check the Menu System section for more details on the available configuration settings
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 11 - 27.12.1998
- Optimised off-screen clearing
This should speed games up a bit. Amount will vary from game to game.
- Fixed connected lines bug
Connected lines was messed up in Beta 10, doing all kinds of weird stuff (didn't
crash though).
- Implemented more basic off-screen rendering support, using Duddie's GPU code in the end :)
In Beta 9/10, I added non-textured triangles. Now I've added Sprites. Although none
are blended correctly yet, it's better to have something than nothing :)
This means the skeletal menu in MediEvil is now visible: a personal crusade to get that
going! :)
None of the offscreen drawing (except clearing and copying) is optimised yet.
This shouldn't affect too many things, since off-screen drawing is not all that common.
- Fixed potential lockups selecting BiLinear filtering, or doing a screenshot
These were "interrupts" coming in and executing out-of-synch with the rest of the Glide
rendering. Thay are now synched to the main flow of execution.
- New Banshee code
Hopefully, this should improve matters for the Banshee owners. With the Banshee drivers
being as painful as they have been, there is always a chance things actually get worse :(
Since I don't have a Banshee, I can't check ... so please give feedback over this.
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 10 - 25.12.1998 - Christmas Release Part II - Beta9 had a nasty bug which crept in at the last minute, which caused lots of crashes
- This is a bug-fix for Beta9
- Fix for DevKit problems
- Extra "work-around" for Banshee
- Implemented basic off-screen rendering support, using Duddie's GPU code in the end :)
- Fixed a crashing bug that prevented Crash Bandicoot 3 from running.
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 9 - 24.12.1998 - Christmas Release - Happy Christmas everyone :)
- lots of things, and no time to write this :(
- See if you can notice the differences
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 8 - 14.12.1998
- fixed a bug due to Tekken3 "fix"
Fixed a bug whereby only some of the scene was being drawn in some games, such as GT.
The whole scene is now drawn properly.
- Added a Frame-Rate Limiter
Games are now capped at 60fps(-ish), PAL and NTSC. You can slow it down to 30fps by
using the SHIFT key.
- Added multiple Display Modes
Still playing around with the colour balance!! There are now 3 options. The latest
option (Option 3) is the best, but it does slow down the update rate (depending on
the game). Option 1 & 2 are the two options that have been available before:
one bright, one dim.
Select the one you prefer, which will probably vary from game to game.
- Small palette optimisation
I added a small optimisation to the palette code. Not sure if this will really be
noticable.
- Compiled under Visual C v6
SP1 seemed to stabalise Visual Studio 6, so took the update step. Seems pretty cool.
Dunno if it's affected the speed of the code, but it has made the plugin bigger!
You will need the latest Visual C runtime libraries (MSVCRT.DLL and MFC42.DLL), which
are available from the PSEmu beta page.
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 7 - 07.12.1998
- fixed the Tekken3 hang, we hope!
Implemented a "fix" for the Tekken3 problem, thanks to the guys on IRC.
Best bet is to advance to the next round by using the START button to skip over the
end Replay and the "victory" animation of your character. I have noticed repeatable
loops if the "victory" animation ends.
- fixed display modes some more
Something that I overlooked in Kaz's code. Thanks to Kaz for putting me straight!
I hope this helps GT NTSC display frames properly .... we shall see.
- fixed problem with DevMode
Returned initialisation code back to how it was in v1.14, unless you have a Banshee
in which case a little work-around is required until the Banshee Glide3 drivers are
sorted!
- altered colour balance
I'm messing with the colour balance again! Display has dimmed down again: this will
allow the menus in Spyro to display the selected item properly (it didn't flash in
previous beta's, due to colour clamping). This may result in another toggle key, to
provide a nice, bright display most of the time, but if something isn't displaying
right you can switch down to the more-compatible dimmer display while needed.
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 6 - 29.11.1998
[2 Beta's in one day :)]
- fixed another crashing bug
Yep, yet another one squashed! This one was in some old code, that pre-dates my
work :) Anyway, this lets the demo of MediEvil play, so I'm sure it will help
other games as well.
- Messed up menu graphics in GT
Corrected this. Probably helps other games as well.
- Messed up dialogue text in MediEvil
No-one would have seen this yet :) Corrected this. Probably helps other games as well.
- Fixed Screen Scaling
At last!! My screen resolutions are the same as Kaz's. No more dead area at the
bottom of the screen!! Thanks to Kaz for his latest code for this.
Known Issues
- Messed up graphics
Skeletal menu at the start of MediEvil demo is not displaying right. This may affect
other games too.
- Incorrect MDEC display
I have heard reports of MDEC playing back in white, or really slowly.
I am investigating this.
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 5 - 29.11.1998
- fixed frame buffer writes
Basically re-wrote the way frame buffer writes were handled, plus fixed 24bit
MDEC support (re-wrote that really!). GT MDEC now displays properly (no flashing),
but it does have rubbish in the "dead" area of the screen.
This should also fix some crashes, since the previous code was trying to draw some
"illegal" triangles that would have caused Glide3 to lock-up [see previous entries,
it's all related!!]. Just to be safe, even the screen-writes are now clipped!! :)
Known Issues
- Messed up menu graphics in GT
Some menu graphics messed-up (illegible), such as the manufacturer select menu.
This probably affects other games too.
- Messed up graphics in the "dead" areas of the screen
Normally these are CLUTs being uploaded to the screen. Once I sort out correct
screen scaling, these will all magically go away. At the moment, just take this
to mean that my framebuffer writing code is working properly!
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 4 - 26.11.1998
- fixed another crashing bug
Another update, another crashing bug fixed! :) Hopefully, no more added!
For those that want to know, it was a problem with Tiles that weren't being
clipped. Now _everything_ is being clipped, and all seems to be more stable.
I am sure there are still crashing bugs, so don't be surprised if it crashes :(
This clears the lock-up in Glide3: I guess it was my fault, and I caused Glide3
to get it's knickers in a twist!
Known Issues
- Flashing Displays
Yup, some framewrites are not working quite right
- Messed up graphics in the "dead" areas of the screen
Normally these are CLUTs being uploaded to the screen. Once I sort out correct
screen scaling, these will all magically go away. At the moment, just take this
to mean that my framebuffer writing code is working properly!
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 3 - 24.11.1998
- fixed some more things to do with frame write uploads
This clears up a corruption/crashing problem that I located
- removed some debug code
This was forcing some default values (like fps counter), plus it prevented
the frame delay "feature" from working. In fact, it would make some games run
way too fast. Ooops.
Known Issues - I am trying to track down a lock-up within a Glide3 call. This is totally weird, and none of the debugging tools I have is helping :( Basically, this is crashing some games and I don't have a clue why!! This coding lark isn't fun sometimes :(
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 2 - 19.11.1998
- fixed some things with frame write uploads
This should clear up some splash screens. It also now means that some stuff
gets uploaded (ie. drawn) off the bottom of the screen in the "dead" area.
Really, that "dead" area shouldn't be there!! It will go once I get the
display setting stiff working 100% right.
- removed the display clearing hack
This was a nice idea, just not fully thought out!! This is what comes of
coding late into the night!! :)
I'll resolve the stray drawing another way, for now it just has to stay.
* ver. 1.0.15 Beta 1 - 17.11.1998
- fixed problems with 2D clipping
There were a couple of issues here. Firstly, I forgot to clip lines :(
This resulted in repeatative lockups within games. FIXED. Secondly,
textures were "swimming" on the edge of the screen, where polys were getting
cropped. That is to say, they were swimming _more_ than normal for a PSX!! :)
Problem is related to the fact that the PSX doesn't do perspective-correct
texture mapping. FIXED.
- got Banshee working!!!
I've worked around bugs in the current 3Dfx Banshee Glide3 driver, so hopefully
all you Banshee owners will be pleased! :) There are still issues, but this
will be resolved once 3Dfx update the Banshee Glide3 driver, and it actually
supports what it says it supports!!
- MDEC support!!!
Full 16bit and 24bit MDEC support!! It may be slow in some cases :( But I'll
work on that :)
This also means that those splash screens and backdrops that were missing should
now be working!
- Re-arranged keys
This was to avoid clashes with other parts of the emulator (mainly the function
keys), and also to match my Show VRAM to Kaz's :)
- Altered palette stuff
Reduced the complexity of my palette caching routines, which hopefully should
resolve some palette bugs. It may result in slightly slower overall speed, but
I'll work on that in a different way in the future.
Things ToDo
- Find more Speed!!
Of course! Where I can, I will.
- Better support for Bilinear filtering
Maybe. There is a few things I could try. If 3Dfx actually put full support for
their hardware in their drivers, the black edges that appear on alot of textures
may well vanish (this is a ChromaKey/Bilinear clash that occurs in 3Dfx hardware).
Known Issues
- I've got a hack in place to tidy up the bottom of the screen. This may possibly result in some weirdness in games I haven't been able to test with (something like a large black square covering part of the screen). It does effect the Tekken3 menu screen near the bottom, but that is easily outweighed by the reduction in rogue flashing bits on the screen in other games!!
* ver. 1.0.14 - 01.11.1998
- implemented 2D clipping against the viewport
This fixes a hack that I had to introduce, so visual quality is up a bit
It also seems to help speed
- tried to balance the lighting
Display is a brighter now, with better balance between textured and
non-textured surfaces. It's still not perfect, so I may implement a
toggle-key in a future version
- loads of behind-the-scenes stuff that you probably won't notice :)
- maybe fixed problems with Banshee? Nope, it appears not :(
Damn this is painful ... believe me, I am _trying_ to get my plugin
to run on the Banshee.
- PLEASE RE-RUN THE CONFIG SCREEN AND SELECT A RESOLUTION!!!
Things have changed slighty, so some of the higher resolutions
will not be on offer. These seemed to be bugged anyway.
Things ToDo
- MDEC support!!
Full support for direct writes to the framebuffer
- Find more Speed!!
Of course! Where I can, I will.
* ver. 1.0.12 - 29.10.1998 - added runtime keys as follows
SHIFT - Show VRAM
This is really for my benefit :)
It's not perfect, as it can't handle double buffer too well
- stream-lined colour support in primitives - added better palette caching - fixed screen resolutions: Tekken3 now scales correctly - cleaned-up init/shutdown code
Known Issues
- Doesn't work on Banshee :(
I am investigating this ....
- Funny display
Try lowering the resolution. I believe this to be a Glide3 driver bug,
so it may be fixed with improved drivers. If I can find a workaround
(short of disabling problem resolutions), I will incorporate it.
- Crashes in some games
This is on the ToDo list, once I am happy the driver is pretty solid.
Things ToDo
- MDEC support!!
Full support for direct writes to the framebuffer
- Find more Speed!!
Of course! Where I can, I will.
* ver. 1.0.11 - 22.10.1998 - added runtime keys as follows
F6 - Enable/Disable Bilinear filtering Default: Off
Looks nice some of the time, but not all of the time.
Now you can choose when and where.
F7 - Enable/Disable OnScreen display Default: Off
Mainly for debugging, not too useful.
I can't say whether the stats are 100% accurate.
F8 - Enable/Disable texture alpha blending Default: On
This setting is for the older 3Dfx cards: use this
to disable alpha blending if you think some textures
are being made transparent when they should be visible.
Unfortunately, it will make textures that should be
transparent visible. Sorry, it's one or the other :(
For newer 3Dfx cards, this key does nothing as it would
gain you nothing (except an incorrect image).
- disabled the following configuration settings
Enable bilinear filtering
Disable VSync
Enable OnScreen display
They are now obsolete: use the runtime keys instead.
* ver. 1.0.10 - 21.10.1998 - first public release