I kept searching and found nothing related to this game on the forum.
I started playing it on a Windows '98 Voodoo 4 4500 rig and found that the game doesn't recognise my video card as it's named.
I can't say I have trouble playing it as a Primary Display Adapter, it works quite fine in 1024x768 (32bit).

The thing is that it's among the few games that don't show the 3dfx splashscreen. I then guess it doesn't work in the 3dfx glide, but in simple D3D... or something like that.

The question is: Can I find a patch or a driver for the VSA100 based card to pair with the game in order to run it with full 3dfx capabilities ?
I searched the internet allover and didn't find anything relevant.

Thanks in advance.

It has been years since I tried it on a Voodoo5, but this page has the general technique that I used:

http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/nfsfix/

The technique I see there describes the usage of the Glide Wrapper.
I have installed the wrapper provided on the site, but from the start it didn't seem to work because I got a notification when running the configurator (glide dlls already installed - probably from my Voodoo 4 card).
It said to remove those dlls, but is that the solution ?

I didn't and games didn't run. Had to uninstall it.

Quote:

Run the 3D Device Setup program in the NFS3/4 Program Group at least once, and select "Direct3D Device 1". MANUALLY EDIT THE REGISTRY as follows: Find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\Need For Speed III and/or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\Need For Speed High Stakes keys and highlight them.. Change these key values as follows:     "3D Card" = "3Dfx Voodoo3"     "3D Card Description" = "3dfx Voodoo3"     "Group" = "3Dfx"     "Thrash Driver" = "voodoo2" ("voodoo" also works for Voodoo1/Graphics mode..not as good as voodoo2 of course)     "D3D Device" should already be set at "0"...     "Hardware Acceleration" should already be set at "1"...     "Thrash Resolution" (only exists in NFS4) should already be set at "640x480"... Run the game normally, but make sure the shortcut used to start the game DOES NOT contain any command line parameters (these parameters mostly override the registry and force the game to run in different Direct3D compatibility modes ... and are often suggested for 3dfx/Glide problems by EA support documents and persons ...)

The registry changes are the part that will be necessary regardless of whether you are using a real Voodoo card or a wrapper.  Ignore the wrapper instructions.  If you want to use a wrapper with a non-3dfx card, then nGlide is probably the way to go these days.

The .INI files at the bottom of the webpage can also make your life easier, but those were not available when I tried this a number of years ago.

Dude, I did what these instructions told me. After I've uninstalled the Wrapper.
I've even set it as a Voodoo 3 card, after setting it as a Voodoo 4.

All I'm saying is that the game doesn't work in 3dfx mode, or how the bloody hell it's called when the 3dfx logo appears at the game start.
In every combination it worked in the generic D3D mode.

My question remains: is there a(nother) way to make it run with the full 3dfx capabilities ?
Am I losing some visual features if I'm using it in the normal 3D way ?

There is no "official" EA patch for the game to enable 3dfx/Glide, and there is no official EA support for 3dfx/Glide mode.  However, the developers did include the voodoo2a.dll, but the only way to enable it is to use the registry modifications outlined above.

If you use the registry changes listed above to enable 3dfx/Glide, you will NOT see the 3dfx splash screen when the game starts even though you ARE in 3dfx/Glide mode.

If you use the registry changes listed above to enable 3dfx/Glide and you use the 3D Device Setup program to see what mode you are using, it will report that you are in Software Rendering Mode, but you are not.  If you use the 3D Device Setup program to make changes after manually applying the registry changes listed above, it will wipe out your manual 3dfx/Glide registry entries and put the game back in Software Rendering mode or D3D mode, whichever you choose.

I just installed the game and used the registry changes above on a machine with a Voodoo5 and 3dfx Voodoo5 Version 1.04.00 Reference Drivers, and it works well in 3dfx/Glide mode in 640x480 resolution.  With 4 Sample Anti-Aliasing, the jaggies are gone and the dust and specular effects are nicely blended compared to the D3D mode.  Rendering is smooth regardless of circumstances, and this is quite different from using 4 Sample Anti-Aliasing in D3D mode.  D3D AA in 640x480 mode is sometimes smooth, sometimes jerky, and it doesn't look nearly as good as 3dfx/Glide AA mode.

Since you have a Voodoo4, you can't get as much improvement from anti-aliasing as a Voodoo5 user can.  If you tend to run at a higher resolution, any improvements in Glide vs. D3D are probably going to be more subtle as well.  If you are using 3rd-party drivers instead of 3dfx Reference Drivers, that may change your results as well (could be better in some respects, could be worse in others).

Oh, ok. Now I get it. So I should have let it in "Software Render" mode all along. It kinda' creeped me out when I saw Soft Render in the setup menu, I thaught that the registry entries should have entered the name of the card in the setup program and instead of "D3D device 1" I should have seen "Voodoo 4" or whatever I've entered manually.

That being said, I'll leave the game as it is. It doesn't work flawless in 1024@32bit, but I'll have to satisfy with the 16bit rendering.

If only I could find an affordable V5 5500  :'(

funny you're saying that, because i keep seeing Voodoo 4500 on Ebay for as much as a Voodoo 5500 are selling for, usually.

But yeah, you have to go in the registry and tweak the configs there, and same thing for the game "Future Cop LAPD", same process, just not the same game registry folder.

Also, i found that the game work best if you use the official drivers, not sure why though. I kept on getting framerate hiccups while playing with the supposedly better 3rd-party drivers, to a point where i just formatted and re-installed everything, now it seem to work just fine (without using anti-aliasing though, most games seem to drop dramatically in framerates with this on, probably because the card isn't made for latest Glide games, though AA work great with NFS2SE)

There are an Patch for NFS4. (High Stakes/Brennender Asphalt)

4.50

If you install the patch, you can choose the V4 4500 oder V5 5500 in the 3DSetup.