New ATI/NVidia-Cards and dithering...

Post by **Myrd** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:53 pm

The wrapper likely doesn't have complete support for all the Glide features used.

However, if what you say is true (the glide wrapper looks better than Myth's OpenGL), then it should be possible to tweak Myth's OpenGL code to get the same results (after all, the wrapper just calls OpenGL functions).

Post by **Melekor** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:52 pm

I just tried the zeckensack wrapper for myself. It works on 1.4 and 1.5, on 1.6 and 1.7 it works but the popup dialogs are invisible (I wonder if it's broken on real 3dfx cards too?)

It seems that there is a subtle difference in the color depth. It almost seems like the 3dfx code is using 32 bit textures, or at least something higher than 16. EDIT: actually what is happening here is the the glide code is using 16 bit (565) and OpenGL is using 15 bit (555)

Clearly, it should be possible to bring this benefit to the OpenGL renderer. I wish someone had told me about this sooner

OpenGL:

Emulated Glide (via zeckensack wrapper) - notice the "hardware cursor"

Graydon · Post by **Graydon** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:56 pm

That looks like one DAMN sexy Creek.

Balor's Nephew · Post by **Balor's Nephew** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:25 am

@Melekor. I posted some threads - a long time ago - about this issue with zeckensack's (but it was probably not so specific).

Will there be a possibility to use these benefits in both Myth TFL and Myth 2? (for I am one of the lonely Myth TFL-preferers).

Balor's Nephew · Post by **Balor's Nephew** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 12:08 pm

@ Melekor, I tried Zeckensack with Myth II 1.6. The option to choose 3dfx appears, but if I choose it and try to start a game, it crashes back to desktop without a message.
In Myth TFL 1.5, the game starts after choosing 3dfx as an option, but is completely unplayable because of strange graphic bugs (there seem to be no ground textures at all and its splitten).

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... ensack.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... nsack2.jpg

Pyro · Post by **Pyro** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:21 pm

Maybe you were trying to play TFL in the night time.

Yeah that is odd. What type of specs does your comp have?

Balor's Nephew · Post by **Balor's Nephew** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:00 pm

Hi Pyro,

I don't think the specs are relevant here, because I've had the same issue on two other pcs (Athlon 3500, GeForce 6800; Athlon X2 5200, ATI X1950XTX; at the moment: Intel Q9550, ATI 4870HD). Could it be a problem with the myth-native resolution of 640x480? Probably, the wrapper tries to emulate the "normal" resolution back in those days, while Magmapatch sets the resolution of the desktop... When I played it without the Magma-Patches, it worked even in high resolutions (you can create a own profile for the game).

Post by **Melekor** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:56 pm

Hmm, for me, the glide wrapper does not work at any resolutions other than 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. Trying any other results in a crash to desktop with no message. Does it crash for you even at those resolutions? If so I am afraid you might be out of luck with the wrapper.

So now that I'm aware of the possibility of OpenGL display quality being improved, I plan to implement it (for Myth II 1.7) when I have the opportunity. As for TFL, afaik we don't have any plans to do any more patches after 1.5.

Pyro · Post by **Pyro** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:11 pm

If you really want to play TFL, you could do it in M2 via vTFL mode. The Fallen Levels is a plugin made by Project Magma that contains the TFL solo maps. There is also a TFL Multiplayer Pack with many of the multiplayer maps from TFL.

Balor's Nephew · Post by **Balor's Nephew** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:21 pm

Ok, in Myth 2 1.6 it really works on 1024x768. Never tried it that way.

For Myth TFL: Because of Magmapatch's fitting of the game resolution to the desktop, I set the desktop to 1024x768 and even to 800x600. That didn't work either... same ugly result of a splitted screen and black surface in the game. So it's not because of the resolution.

Is there no way to just make a modified version of the patch 1.5 for that feature? Or is there at least a easy way to bypass the memory bug (because if not for that little bugger, it would be possible to play MythTFL WITH the wrapper)?
Three years ago some nice fellow put a simple exe-file here in the forums to avoid the memory bug, but it was just for 1024MB ram. I annoyed you in another thread about that, I know, but is there nothing like that left?

@ Pyro: I tried it, and its fabulous exept for one thing: The dwarven molotovs are too accurate and kill the game's balance. I tried the "TFL Gameplay" option but there were no changes. - and yes, I'm also a little nostalgic...

Pyro · Post by **Pyro** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:28 pm

Balor's Nephew wrote:@ Pyro: I tried it, and its fabulous exept for one thing: The dwarven molotovs are too accurate and kill the game's balance. I tried the "TFL Gameplay" option but there were no changes. - and yes, I'm also a little nostalgic...

Then something was done wrong, because there is a change when you check vTFL on. Try again, maybe you forgot there was a change.

Balor's Nephew · Post by **Balor's Nephew** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:37 pm

Tried to set the boot.ini to /MAXMEM to 512 mb ram. Now I happy fellow can start M1 without memory bug - but now the wrapper doesn't work... damn, I think I'll give up with that...

Balor's Nephew · Post by **Balor's Nephew** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:52 pm

There is something to compare:

The following pictures show similar (or at least comparable) places in the game Myth TFL and Myth 2 The Fallen Levels (Myth TFL on my old Laptop with nothing than the official patch 1.2; Myth II on my actual PC with Patch 1.6).
The first of the examples is always emulated by zeckensack's, the second isthe OpenGL-Version in Myth II.
You will recognize, that even if Myth TFL + wrapper has a extremely low resolution (640x480), the textures of the surface is much softer than in the Myth II-Version. At my opinion, the graphics look much smoother and finer. Have a look at the desert mission (pictures 5 & 6) to get the clearest impression of what I mean.

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/1.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/2.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/3.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/4.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/5.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/6.jpg

Pyro · Post by **Pyro** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:02 pm

Those imagines aren't in the same resolution. So the bigger images look worse because they were saved in a lower quality or Photobucket resized them as I've seen it do. You might have loaded Myth 2 in a render that does not look as good as whatever you used in TFL. So it is not a fair comparison.

Balor's Nephew · Post by **Balor's Nephew** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:22 pm

I am no expert in such questions. Here are the same three pictures in Myth II in 640x480 with OpenGL.
The wrapper emulates (or it pretends to) 3dfx.

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/7.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/8.jpg

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... icus/9.jpg

I don't show you that to blame you or to lower the great results of your efforts. Your works speak for themselves and I appreciate them very much, please be assured of that.

The Tain

New ATI/NVidia-Cards and dithering...