Half life 2 is working on my system using the SFFT alpha 16 driver  ;D but the games set-up is forcing it to start in windowed mode  >:( ,

Trying to force the game to start in full screen causes problems

The graphics look quite nice at playable frame rates (25-30 fps) , crappy thing is that I can't seem to take a screen shot (fraps) because I get a memory error and kicked out to the desktop  ???

What operating system are you running?

Wish I could buy HL2, Valve lost a sale.

No network connection on the gaming box nor am I going to add one.

I get something totally different. SFFT starts up but with some trouble. Then when the game is finished loading it drops back to desktop. With Amiga 3.1 the game starts up plays for a while only very very slow, I guess a framerate of 0.15  ;D But  still after a while it drops back to desktop. I think the voodoo era is comming to its end. This is just to much for them. Ah well at least HL2 supports 16:10 for my 24"Sony   ;)

@gdonovan,

Windows 2000 SP4
Athlon 2400
ECS K7S5A Pro
Voodoo 5500 agp
512 mb ram

I fully understand your position, steam sucks and I hate it  >:( but you may want to reconsider as the 20 minutes or so I got to play on my Radeon 9800 pro system before having to go to bed was utterly amazing, although its a bit premature to make a thorough decision, I'm more impressed with this game so far than with Doom 3  ;).

@omega_supreme,

Just my opinion but the Voodoo era was over when 3dfx sold out to Nvidia and the hardware lost further/ongoing driver development  :'(

Seems I was wrong, the Voodoo era isnt over yet:

Half-Life 2 playable on voodoo 5 5500:

http://members.chello.nl/g.bruintjes/hl2_voodoo5.jpg

Considdering the framerate...its barely playable but the the 5500 is capable of showing the game. I think framerate is between 5 and 20. Ofcourse it drops when you go into wide area's. Anyway If anybody is interested I'm using amigamerlin 3.1 and windows XP Pro. I would'nt reccomand playing the entire game on a voodoo but it's still fun to watch it work  ;D

Dont mind the strange resolution, im using the 16:10 aspect ration. My monitor it widescreen, valve is the first studio that has thought of everything that i can think of. I give the game a perfect 10  :D

@omega_supreme,

8)  ;D

Few questions:

1) What cpu speed.
2) What resolution and game settings.
3) How did you get it working in fullscreen.
4) What/how did you get the screenshot.

As the games stated minimum system requirements are a 1.2 ghz cpu and a directx 7 videocard maybe the driver is limiting the fps  ???

When I get home from work I can experiment more as I only had 10-15 minutes with the game late last night before deciding to get some sleep.

I thought this game should run easily on a voodoo5 5500. Because the game supports a special directx 6.0 rendering path. And I bet that with some tweaking here and there it will run on my V2 SLI too :P.

Hi voodoo 5500,

Few questions:

1) What cpu speed.

-1733 mhz (AMD XP 2100+)

2) What resolution and game settings.

-settings are : low and resolution : here it comes...720x480. Like I said dont mind this one, but my monitor is widescreen so I'm happy valve made this feature possible

3) How did you get it working in fullscreen.

- My friend Amigamerlin did. Amigamerlin 3.1R1 is the special recepie for everything

4) What/how did you get the screenshot.  ;D ;)

-  Since its a dx game (in other words uses d3d) you can simply press "printscreen" and past it in any prefered util.
I was lazy and used ms paint.



...And it seems I was wrong again. The game is indeed very good playable on voodoo 5(even addictive). Only the beginning with the G-man is very slow. After that it plays awesome. Im in love with a game again...it took a long time  :)

@omega_supreme,

YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAA  ;D

Thanks for the Info, I appreciate it  ;)

You might like this :

This is what you get with HL2 on 1600x1024.
Almost no frame drops, Amazing!

members.chello.nl/g.bruintjes/HL2_1600_small.jpg
http://members.chello.nl/g.bruintjes/HL2_1600.jpg

Maybe ill try the maximum 1920x1280 later  :P

Heres some FPS, FRAPS doesnt seem to have any trouble with my config :

members.chello.nl/g.bruintjes/HL2_1600_FPS_small.jpg
http://members.chello.nl/g.bruintjes/HL2_1600_FPS.JPG


-Last edit:

1920x1200 seems to be too demanding for the voodoo
::)

http://members.chello.nl/g.bruintjes/1920x1200.JPG

Nice man, that V5 6k of yours is still one heck of a card!!!! What is you current CPU ( I have forgotten Omega, je kan nie alles onthouden he :P). Is it possible to increase you texturesize?

Actually this aint no 6K  ;D  I still have that one as a last secret weapon. Im currently on my old 5500 AGP(I found out that a 6K is little risky to use on daily base). Like I told voodoo5500 in my second last post., Im currently using an Athlon XP 2100+. Its running at its default 1733 Hmz
(niet meer vergeten he  ;) )

- sorry have to edit again. Texture size is limited to medium because of the 64 mb that the voodoo has. Maybe that the 6000 can go higher but mine it not in use, so i cannot test for you. When you select high the game crashes to desktop and the next time the game start up its back to medium.  

Hmm 4500 would not be a problem. It would bet playable i think. Im not sure about the voooo 2's. Dont expect miracles after that Doom 3 adventure. Doom 3 is Opengl but HL2 is d3d and that's not a very voodoo friendly API. Anyway i wont dtop you from trying  ;)

Problems solved, I'm now running the game at 1024 X 768 fullscreen and its absolutely the best looking graphics seen/rendered on my 5500  ;D

I'm also getting really good and playable fps (lows into middle 20's and high's into the 60's)  8)

@omega_supreme,

My 3dfx rig also use's a big Sony Trinitron 21", its superb  ;)

@Voodoo 5500 Hehe, i always was a person from high-resolution. I always want the highest possible. I was the firt to enable 2048x1536 in Q3 on a 6K and also the first to enable 1600x1200 with 8XAA in UT. Back in the days the GF4  TI4600 ruled the gfx land I had a 22" and was always trying out the maximum. I went wrong when Unreal 2 showed up. I had to go back to 1280x1024 because 2048x1536 was to much for the little geforce  :(  What my point is : cool to see that there are other persons that like BIG!  ;D

anyway what driver are you on now? Still SFFT or Amiga's ?

wrote on 18.11.04 at 08:53:45:

About using a Voodoo II with Half Life 2. I thought Half Life 2 can handle cards with DirectX 7. That's why I think running Half Life 2 on Voodoo II's can be done. Of course with lower textures, but that doesn't matter  ;)

About that one : d3d is a nast API in my opinion. I know tons of games that look worse and use less fancy stuff than Doom 3 and wont even run on a voodoo 5 (or with a lot of problems). But take a game like Doom  (using OGL) And voila it runs on a voodoo 2. Anyway when I look at half-life it's playing in dx6 mode. So I wouldnt be surprised if it would work on a voodoo 2.

awesome sshots  :D

i really like the VSA100's power  ;) , don't you?  8)


Quote:

anyway what driver are you on now? Still SFFT or Amiga's ?

Amiga 3.1 r1 has SFFT's d3d files  :) (it should be the same...)

alpha 16 is online : http://www.3dfxzone.it/news/puntatore.php?uid=447

I know but SFFT's core is now newer I think, he keeps updating that driver  :D My experience was that SFFT behaves different from Amiga3.1 I personally prefer Amigamerlin's but this new d3d core is better than ever.

And ofcourse I like the VSA-100, I like them above all other  ;)

@omega_supreme,

I installed the SFFT alpha 16 again last night and have no problems, I've figured out that I have to have my desktop resolution set to my intended games resolution to play in fullscreen, if its not I get a memory error and tossed out to the desktop, then when I restart the game it fails on a couple of video mode tests and tells me its starting in a safe mode which ends up being 640 X 480 windowed mode  ???

Another peculiar thing is that I seem to see no change in fps going from 1024 X 768 down to 640 X 480.

Anyway the most important thing is that it's working fine in fullscreen mode  ;)

Yes raising/decreasing resolution does not seem to affect framarate alot on voodoo 5. Thats why I was able to make those screenshots in 1600x1024...which is already high for newer cards like geforce an radeons. Ayway nice to hear its working now. Maybe you can try to raise resolution even more. I know this problem and I think it will work OK if the game resolution is lower then windows. For example put windows in 1600x1200 and HL2 in 1280x1024  ;) , still playable. Still its more fun to play on modern cards  ;D

@omega_supreme,

I' ve been a 3dfx fan right from the beginning (I'm 37 now) and made retail purchase's of a voodoo1, banshee and my voodoo5500, I also have kept all my games over the years (160 or so now) so I have my 5500 more as a retro gaming box.

I decided back in March that the 5500 was not going to be able to adequately play the newest/upcoming games, so I put together an Athlon 64 3400/Radeon 9800 pro system.

I still get excited though trying to see if this great older card can still play these state of the art new games.

I played Doom3 start to finish on the 5500 and hopefully will do the same with Half life 2  ;)

Hi everyone

has someone  tried hl2 under Windows 98?
My PC is a k7s5a with XP 2400+, 512MB PC133 and a V5 AGP.. still running  1.04.00

I'm considering buying hl2 right now but I want it to it work :)

Be aware that internet connection is required just to start single player game.

No connection, no game unlock.

I'm refusing to purchase the game till Valve releases version with no lock, it's not stopping the pirates a bit.

Isn' t there a Hack for unlocking the singleplayer???

Thanks again to voodoo5, his postings led me here, and helped me get my 3dfx voodoo5500 running the game also.  Props to Amigamerlin also for the drivers I've been using for so long.

From what I see so far, it plays alright, with dips here and there to about 18fps, but I am only starting and haven't gotten in any firefights yet.

I have also found that I cannot turn model detail from medium (default) to low, because after that when I hit OK the game will crash to desktop.

Did you guys tweak the autoexec.cfg file, or use anything else to enhance performance?

Rig specs for anyone curious (all stock settings currently):

1800+ palomino
1.25 GB PC2100
soltek sl75drv2
voodoo5500 (amigamerlin 3.1 R1)
36GB raptor (nevermind storage drives, this is where the game is running from)
audigy2

G0d I look like such a n00b, sorry for the double post but I forgot to ask.

In the advanced video settings it says I'm running at DX6.0, and underneath it says software DX9.0 - I assume this is what I want to be running at.  Is that correct?  Is it possible to force it to run any lower, and would that enhance game performance?

Hm....

I'm hearing "Beta" and alike terms used for a Game not released yet http://www.falconfly.de/img/concerned.gif

Note that this Board must not be used for any warez-type talk, so please refrain from posting Data aquired from such *cough* "Beta releases" and alike or use PM's for free communication.

Good call FalconFly, and nice forums you run here. :)  Has this game not been released in some locations yet though, I'm slightly confused by that part of your statement?  Got my copy at Gamestop in Ohio.

The link below will take you to a thread I started about my Voodoo experience so far, with about 5 screenshots so far:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=3234362#post3234362

Oops, just rechecked, and seems it's out after all ;D

No tweaks have been done to the game (yet) It uses its own dx6 path so its not necesarry. Dont be deceived by the screenshots, HL2 is playable on voodoo but it doesnt look so good always. Water is really ugly and tearing occurs very often. Some textures are missing and framerates drop below acceptable sometimes. When I came home back from university and tried it on a geforce it was a lot more fun to play. That does however not take away that its nice to see a voodoo 5 running a modern d3d game  ;)

@omega_supreme,

[quote][No tweaks have been done to the game (yet) It uses its own dx6 path so its not necesarry. Dont be deceived by the screenshots, HL2 is playable on voodoo but it doesnt look so good always. Water is really ugly and tearing occurs very often. Some textures are missing and framerates drop below acceptable sometimes. When I came home back from university and tried it on a geforce it was a lot more fun to play/quote]

Thats very strange as I have approx. 2 hours game play on my 5500 system and I'm not sure what you mean by the water looks ugly (looks allright to me for a voodoo 5 playing in a DirectX 6 mode) and tearing occurs often (I have not noticed any whatsoever). I have only noticed 1 location in the game where a texture was not right (a white square/rectangle in the middle of some water.

I have had 2 instances so far were the fps do seem to drop substantially (middle teens) compared to the rest of the game, funny thing is that these spots/area's dont really seem to be to graphically demanding and if I changed my view slightly by turning right or left a bit the fps would shoot right back up to 30 - 40  ???

Another strange thing is that I cannot change any game settings except the resolution or else it crashes to the desktop, the game has chosen medium texture and character details so I cant try anything lower to see if it has any impact at these mentioned slow area's.

Have you noticed that the flashlight does not work correctly ?

Using the Counter-Strike video stress test I'm getting the following at a resolution of 1024 X 768 :

4X AA =    14.43 fps
2X AA =    27.33 fps
Fastest = 31.48 fps
single =   27.07 fps

*The stress test is really the only situation where I have noticed missing texture's (4 rotating panels and a soldier are completly white).

I'm actually quite impressed with how well the game is playing and looking at 1024 X 768 with 2X AA, except for the couple mentioned locations were the framerate does drop off, although you can run/move through these area's in about 3 seconds flat to get back to good framerate's  ;D

Well, I'm on the canal mission right now, and my frames leave a lot to be desired - I would consider them barely playable, as they somewhat frequently drop into the red.  Up to this part of the game though, everything was very cool and fun - at this point, I'm just trying to get through this board so that I can find an area with good FPS again.  I am using no AA.

I also have the advanced video menu issue - models are set at medium, and shadows are set at high, and this cannot be altered without a crash.  I'm sure my frames would be better if I could change these.

As for water looking ugly, I didn't notice this - it actually reminded me a lot of Serious Sam 2 when you are dropped into the lake at the start (even though thats an OpenGL game I think - this card rocks on that game).  I will pay more attention and see if I notice any tearing.  To me right now, it just looked like water on an old ass video card. :)

I also have the flashlight issue - here is a description for anyone not knowing what we're talking about:  Shining the flashlight onto a wall will probably not shine any light there and the wall will still look dark - if there is a heater or pipes on the wall, those might shine.  Shining the light on a dark ceiling usually doesn't light it up, but if there is a barnacle hanging there, it will light up the barnacle, but you still cannot see any light on the ceiling.  

Correction:  Shaders, not shadows, are set at high in my advanced options.  And models are at medium.  Sure wish I could change that.  Just need to find where those advanced video menu values are actually stored.

Have you seen water how its supposed to be? No? Then I'd say try it out you know what I mean. Anyway if your still in the canal mission you have the worst yet to come. Open sea is not very good for voodoo 5  :(
And watch alyx's hair from a distance (purple  ??? ) I dont want to spoil it but I seriously mean it when i say the game can look alot better then it does now  ;)

@omega_supreme,

I mentioned previously that I also have the game running (1280 X 1024, 2X AA) on my athlon 64 3400/Radeon 9800 Pro 256 mb system, so I know exactly how the game/water looks with the games settingings at highest  ;)

As I'm assuming the game is setting itself up to be played on a DirectX 6 compatible/level graphics card (thats what it reports its finding), I consider it to be quite acceptable.

And your correct, I am now in a location in the game ( after driving the hydro-plane) with quite consistently low fps (12 -20), its strange to me as previous sections of the game seemed to be more graphicaly demanding and got much higher results  ???

I know one of you mentioned the advanced video option crashes (crash out of game with memory addressing error after changes and hitting ok in this menu); do both of you have this issue?

Are either of you familiar with tweaking the autoexec.cfg or config.cfg files?  I am certain these files would enable us to tweak the advanced video options settings, and this would allow me to lower the model and shader settings.  I have already inserted the "cl_showfps 1" display tweak into autoexec.cfg (in the cfg folder) and it is working.

We can save the assumptions also - none of us live under a rock, or we wouldn't have gotten these ancient cards running the hottest game out. ;)  Although this is the only card of mine at the moment, I've seen SS's and videos which show the way things can look in this game.  I also owned a r9700pro and have played FarCry, so I know the water leaves a lot to be desired.  The water in Serious Sam 2 actually appeared better on this card also.

Gnerma from OCF posted a link to this guide, which may help squeeze out some extra performance from our cards:

http://www.tweakguides.com/HL2_1.html

BTW, the latest steam update now prompts you with a message that tells us our video cards are unsupported, and that we need to download the latest drivers from the manufacturer! lol

Well Omega Supreme this absolutely wacko news!

We all must know that the good ol Voodoo5 is nearly 5 years old, and still the newest games of today like Doom3, Half Life 2 and  Need For Speed Underground2 all run fine on Voodoo4 % 5 even with FSAA on Voodoo5 cards, 3dfx did care about one thing, they rally made thier cards extremely future proof, But will far Cry ever be worked out one day for our Voodoo cards? Well to me  it's still possible, but it's just that not supported video card detection, if that can be disabled in one such way or removed, then mabe then FarCry can be played on a Voodoo4 or 5.

FarCry will run. If someone is willing to spend alot of time on removing that videocard detection you should be able to run it with mesafx in OGL mode  ;)

Anyone have any idea how to force Half life 2 to use 16 bit color depth ?

I cant seem to find any console commands or any settings in the games config. file to force/enable this  >:(

I have not found how to do that, or how to change the advanced settings without going through the menu.  I am looking though voodoo, and I will post up if I come across anything like that.