I like this old driving game very much but it crashes on my system. The 3dfx-update from the UBISOFT site starts and exit's back to windows without crashing. The newer!!! version i found on my unprotect 8.0 is called 3dfxgsff  (including force feedback) starts normally but stops after some minutes of play without bluescreen or errormessage. I can press strg-alt-entf and close the pod task.  I can run other glide games without problem so does someon know of a newer update?

Thanks,
Andreas

Thank you very much patience for your reply.  I  played POD for years on my old S3VIRGE. I have the full "POD Back from Hell" with 3 bonus tracks and 8 bonus vehicles not for download on the website. There is a d3ddx5 update on the cd but it quits like the 3dfx version until i update it with the d3ddx5ff. Of course it is slower and don't has the sun-light effects as the 3dfx-version. I am highly interested in the update so could you plese tell me the link to get the file. Otherwise i could send you my e-mail as a private message.

Thanks,
Andreas

P.S.
I have to quit now because i am picked up for a party  in the next few minutes so i can reply  tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Thank you very much patience for the file. I'll logout now and boot windows to test if it works.

Thanks again,
Andreas

Regarding P.O.D. on a Voodoo2 I found this-

POD: "Make a copy of glide2x.dll then rename the copy to glide.dll grab a copy of SST1INIT.DLL from any of Voodoo1 drivers somewhere off the net. You don't need the drivers just SST1INIT.DLL from the driver file package. Copy the GLIDE.DLLl that you just made and SST1INIT.DLL to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory then intsall POD if you are still having problems download the latest PATCH. There are a few versions of the POD 3Dfx Patch and they are about the same size even though UBISOFT doesn't tell you this. If you downloaded the POD 3Dfx patch before the you got a Voodoo2 then you must re-download it."

...thank you very much for that option but a friend of mine has isdn and i think that he will do that download for me somtimes in the next weeks. On the other hand i want to check procerus tip now first. If this works there is no need for us to waste time and money for that big file.

By the way, what makes the file so big? There must be more than just an updated exe  ???

Regards,
Andreas

procerus said:
Quote:

Is it "tomorrow" yet?

Umm.  I've installed POD here and have it running at 800x600 on Voodoo2 SLI (200SBi).  It's totally stable and lots of fun.

To do this I did a full install of the game.  Despite my tip above the game still wouldn't install the 3dfx version even though it recognised the Voodoo1 files I'd put in my Windows\System directory.  But patching remedies this.

I have applied two patches from here-
http://www.kineticdreams.net/underground/files/files.html

The first one I applied is the "Force Feedback Patch" (updatePOD21_3dfx.exe).  The second one is the 3dfx patch (contents of pod3dfx.zip).  I then created a shortcut to podx3dfx.exe to run the MMX 3dfx version (I have an elderly Pentium).

To run the game at 800x600 follow the instructions here-
http://www.kineticdreams.net/underground/faq/3dfxhr.shtml

I did have Force Feedback working on my USB FF wheel for a while but I don't know how I did that ???.  I changed something and it stopped working and even a complete reinstall hasn't fixed it.  I'll post again if I crack that one!  Probably some clash with IForce2.dll or dinput5.dll which the game uses and DirectX 8.1.

Hope this is of some help to someone anyway.  I'm off to see if I can figure out how to force the game to run at 1024x768.  It is a very pretty game for its age!

I had forgotten how good POD is!  I mean when I first saw WipeOut on the PlayStation I knew exactly where they had copied WipeOut from.

I've got the FF wheel working now (it's USB and POD was always confusing it with the controllers I have on the gameport).  And a PowerStrip application shortcut changes my desktop from 32 to 16 bit before the game runs and then back again afterwards (the game won't run otherwise even though I'm running it on Voodoo2 SLI).

POD's colourful tracks and amazing soundtrack make for such a hypnotic experience.  I'd forgotten how, as you learn a track, the rhythms of the music blend into the rhythms of the straights and bends.

The cars look a bit rubbish these days but that can be greatly helped by hitting F2 until you're sat inside your vehicle.  And the collision detection's a bit frustrating at times.  When you hit another car your vehicle is greatly slowed.  When they hit you it doesn't seem to affect them as badly!

I'm glad to be playing it again.  Now if only I can get good enough to get off "Easy" difficulty!

I must admit that I'm having troubles here.

The game wouldn't even start until I'd changed the desktop to 16 bit colour.  It wouldn't even start until I'd installed at least two patches (three if you count the dummy Voodoo1 files to fool the installer or five if I try to use the Quantum3D Obsidian2 drivers since the game then runs too fast without the GameService Client).  The game won't run properly if I have anything connected to the gameport since I'm trying to use a USB wheel.  And somehow the Microsoft ForceFeedback causes the Voodoo2s to corrupt and lock-up if mipmap dithering and triple-colour buffering are enabled!

Amidst all this I'm still not entirely sure that I've got the game running entirely stable yet!  But I'm getting there...  

Update:  It appears that every time I play the game with the FF USB Wheel I then have to reapply the game's FF patch and then the 3dfx patch before I can play it again otherwise it locks up!  It works fine with an ordinary gameport joystick however.  This is a shame since the game is surprisingly good with the FF Wheel in terms of feedback and responsiveness.

It was an early fully 3D Windows 95 game that was groundbreaking in many ways.  It surely doesn't like modern hardware much.  It reminds me of many DOS games in the extent to which it seems to ignore or fumble Windows' APIs.

Sure is fun when it does work, though!