I was wondering if there id anyone out there creating a full OpenGL 1.2 ICD for Voodoo cards? Lets get it straight: I have a Voodoo banshee.I bought NWN and it wont play unless my card supports OpenGL 1.2.I would like to ask some questions(answers requested!) :
1)Are voodoo cards capable of supporting OpenGL 1.2(full version,not miniGL)?
2)Can such a driver be created now that 3dfx is clesed(since banshee was created by creative shouldn't be creative's responsibility?And how about nVIDIa,3dfx was bought by nVIDIA,shouldn't nvidia continue the 3dfx driver support >:()?
3)Can at least a miniGL driver be created (and how,is there a developers kit available?)?
BTW i am happy :D there are still Voodoo users out there!
If you know anything please respond.
Oh! email: metal_knight_gr@hotmail.com if needed

Hmmm...

That is a very difficult thing to ask.

First, this is what I found as minimum Requirements :

Our minimum system specifications currently are a Pentium® II 450 MHz or AMD K6 450 MHz, a 16 MB TNT2-class OpenGL 1.2 compliant video card, 96 MB of RAM (for Windows 98/ME, 128 MB recommended) or 128 MB of RAM (for Windows 2000/XP, 256 MB recommended), a DirectX certified sound card, and DirectX® version 8.1.
===========================

Sounds okay for a Banshee, except OpenGL 1.2...
All 3dfx Drivers are only OpenGL 1.1...

3dfx Underground/3dHQ is claiming to be in the process of creating an updated OpenGL Driver, which is aimed to fix this issue. Yet, their success has yet to be seen...

NVidia?
Well, the only 'support' 3dfx Users ever got from them, was the advice to dig our own grave and jump in it >:(

However, some Users found the existing OpenGL 1.1 Drivers apparently are very well able to run this Game under certain conditions.

There's a "workaround" guide for Voodoo5 owners, and just today, I received a nice feedback that the workaround works for Voodoo4 as well.

Not quite perfectly suited for a Banshee maybe, but here's the scoop :

Notes -
Original Textfile found here : http://www.acquerra.com.au/personal/bird/nwn.txt
Original NewsGroup Thread can be found here :
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=agibmn%24lqgfr%241%40ID-75931.news.dfncis.de&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain

Full Copy if Link is down :
--------------------------------
Neverwinter Nights WORKS on a v5/5500 and win98.

I have seen many people asking how to get NWN to run on the V5. There is some
misinformation going around that it's not possible 'cause NWN needs openGL 1.2 and the V5
drivers only have opengl 1.1 ICD. THIS IS NOT TRUE. NWN runs fine with the 1.1 ICD, provided
you start it in just the right way... :-)

Here is a recipe that makes the game work for me - I hope it works for you too.
However, I don't guarantee anything... If it doesnt work for you then I'm
sorry for getting your hopes up. However maybe you can use some of the information here
to work out a solution.

The critical points when NWN starts up seem to be the transitions between the splash screens
--> movie --> game screen. Under most situations, you end up with either
a crash or just a blank screen at the end. I see a lot of people here
reporting a "blank screen" after the intro. I was getting that too, until I stumbled
on a recipe that works around it.

After some trial and error (about 2 days worth), I think I have a reliable
way that gets the game loaded and working. I have experimented
with variations on this recipe, and ONLY ONE METHOD WORKS. If I had access to the
NWN source code, I could probably figure out why, but I don't :-(

This recipe is specifically for a V5/5500 on win98. It might work on other
systems, but I don't know. My CPU is an AMD duron 1Ghz (actually it's my wifes machine :-))

---- end Part 1 (Forum Limitation) ---

--- Part 2 ---

Drivers
=======

You NEED the x3dfx-1.08.04 drivers. I mean it. I experimented with others, and
they all failed except for this one. The filename is x3dfx_V5_Win9X_1.08.04.exe,
available from any good voodoo site - try www.voodoofiles.com.

* You should leave the settings for this driver on their defaults until you have
got it working - I have found that changing the driver settings can stop the game
from loading. I'm looking into it now to see which settings are causing problems.

Ok - got that driver installed and working? Good...

(ps I tried the "underground" beta 1.09 driver, and it didnt work - blank screen
syndrome.)

I assume that you have directx 8.1 installed. NWN offers to install it, but I didn't need
to because I already had it.

I have my desktop running as 1152x864x32. This may not be a factor, but I thought
I'd mention it just in case there's something magic about starting NWN
from that resolution :-)

Install the game, up to the point where it has run the nwconfig program - it will
probably suggest 800x600 mode. Accept this and then quit out without starting the game.

This will create the nwconfig.ini and nwn.ini files.

This is the first hurdle to pass - if you don't have the 1.08.04 drivers installed then
nwconfig will either crash or complain that it can't find any OpenGL drivers.

(Sometimes I have seen the first game menu come up without text on any of the buttons.
This seems harmless, and will be correct the next time you start the game.)

To get a working cursor, you HAVE to change the "Enable HardwareMouse=1" line in
nwn.ini to "Enable HardwareMouse=0". Do that before continuing.

Now, to start the game... pay close attention.

Good and Bad
============

There are 2 different ways that NWN can start up - the "good" way and the "bad" way.
If it starts the "good" way then you will end up with a working game. If it starts the "bad"
way then you'll end up with either a crash-to-desktop of the dreaded blank screen of death.

You can tell them apart because of the way the splash screens behave when you start the game. I'll
descibe them both here so you know what to look for:

The "good" startup will NOT show the white ATARI splash screen, and it will show the Bioware Dragon
and other splash screens off-centre. i.e. The game will still be running at your desktop resolution
when it shows the splash screens, so they will be displayed as 800x600 in the top left corner of the screen.

--- end Part 2 ---

--- Part 3 ---

The "bad" startup shows all the splash screens (including the ATARI one) centered properly, and
the game will have already switched resolution to 800x600 (or whatever you have chosen).
When this happens you have no choice but to reboot. NWN will not start up if you see this sort of behaviour.

When you see a "good" startup, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING until the movie starts.

If you press a key, or click the mouse prior to the start of the movie then
you will just end up with the blank screen syndrome or no mouse, and you'll have to kill it
with CTRL-ALT-DEL and start again.

When the intro movie starts playing, press the SPACE bar. You should see the game screen
come up, with a working mouse. The game is running successfully.

IMPORTANT! Don't let the movie play to completion, or the game will crash to desktop, and you'll
have to reboot before you can try again. Obviously the V5 has had its internal state scrambled
by something that happens at the end of the intro movie, and pressing SPACE while the movie
is playing skips past it.

That's it. Hope it works for you. It's made me very happy.

*NOTE*

I have sometimes had the game quit to desktop after showing the bioware dragon splash screen.
To fix this, try running the nwconfig.exe from the NWN directory, and make sure you press
the "scan" button and then the "test" button. It should show a blank screen and then return ok.
After accepting the suggested recolution, try running the game again as per the instructions above.
It should be ok now.

If nwconfig complains that you don't have a valid OpenGL driver installed, reboot and try again :-)

Clearly there is some part of the V5 which is not being reliably initialised. I'm sure the correct
fix would only be a few extra lines of OpenGL / Glide startup code...

p.s. You'll have to turn off the shadows and stuff in the video config for it to be
playable, but it still looks very nice. I'd suggest you get something faster than my
1G duron though :-(

regards, Bird


--------------------------

Notes on performance
--------------------

You need a fast system to use the V5 for this game - I guess that's because a lot of the features
are being done by the host CPU.

My initial tests were done on a system with a 1Ghz duron, and the speed was borderline
( around 10fps, sometimes lower). When I dropped the V5 into my main gaming rig (1.5Ghz athlon,
ASUS A7V333 Mb, DDR333 RAM) the framerates were fine - around 20fps and higher. To make the game
playable however, you have to run at 800x600 with the video slider set to "fast". This disables
all the environment video effects etc, but the game still looks ok without them.

I improved my performance another 20% or so by playing with the 3dfx control panel, enabling
HSR, mip mapping, triple-buffering etc. It's worth experimenting a bit to see what you can get.


By comparison, my main gaming rig usually has a GF4-4600, and with the game running at 1152x864
with all video options enabled, I get around 20 - 30 fps. Sure it looks better, but IMHO the
game is just as playable on either card PROVIDED YOU HAVE A FAST MACHINE. Don't bother trying
to play this on a p2-400 if you have a Voodoo5 :-)
===== Original Text end =====

As said, I have no Idea if this helps with a Banshee as well. If it works, don't expect good performance :-/

It will depend in special on the following :
- use an up-to-date OpenGL Driver (3dfxogl.dll)
(when Using WinXP, BansheeDriver's Drivers should carry the most modern OpenGL components)
The mentioned x3dfx-win9x-1.08.04 Driver carries the following OpenGL Version : 1.0.0.0761 JoFSh Updated

This needs to be extracted from the Driver if needed, as this modified Version is not in my Archive by itself. (If needed I can send it)

Experimenting with various Versions as found here in the 3dfx Archive might help as well...

Hope this works, although a Banshee is no Voodoo4 or Voodoo5  ::)

If all above fails to work for you, WickedGL might be worth a shot. When it comes to most OpenGL related Problems, many Users fixed, or at least got things running in the first place with that...

Greetings
FalconFly

Thanks for your reply.I haven't try anything yet.Actually i CAN play the game using GLdirect v3.00 (with no sound and 10 -15 fps at best  :( ) Anyway actually NWN works with the current drivers(even 3dfx's) with a some changes in NWN.ini and nwnconfig.ini but with 0.07 fps.but there isn't any blank screen issue,thats why i believe its strictly a driver issue.I just hope there will be some kind of driver soon.

How exactly did you get NWN working with your Banshee?  I have a voodoo3 2k and the tweaks used for the v5 don't quite work for me.  I can get the menu buttons to show and my mouse to show but there are a lot of blank white spots and the game will crash when I get into the actual gameplay.

Let me know if you can.

Thanks,
Chad

Ok there has been a post in NWN forum which is quite interesting here it is:


""""""""""""""" Author A fix for 3dfx specifically voodoo 3
                 cmdjing

                 Joined: 21 Jun 2002Posted: Tuesday, 25 June 01:36AM
                 Hey folks, for those of you who haven't been able to play NWN
                 because of your 3dfx card there is a solution. Although there
                 are a few graphical glitches and the gameplay is rather choppy
                 at best, it runs. Heres what you do. Open both the nwconfig
                 and nwn ini files. Under nwconfig, change all of the result=0
                 to result=1 and under the openGL category, change it to 1.2.
                 Ill post a copy of my ini files so you can see what I did.

                 [OS]
                 OS=Windows 98 v4.10 build 2222 A
                 Result=1
                 Skip=0

                 [Processor]
                 Type=Intel Pentium III
                 Vendor=Intel
                 NumCPUs=1
                 Speed=447
                 Result=1
                 Skip=0

                 [RAM]
                 RAM=128
                 Result=1
                 Skip=0

                 [Video Card]
                 Type=3dfx Voodoo3
                 VRAM=16
                 Desktop Resolution=800x600
                 Desktop Color Depth=16
                 Result=1
                 Skip=0

                 [Open GL]
                 OpenGL Installed=1
                 OpenGL Version=1.2
                 Result=1
                 Skip=0

                 [Direct X]
                 DirectX Installed=1
                 DirectX Version=DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0881)
                 DirectX Build=4.08.01.0881
                 Result=1
                 Skip=0

                 the nwn ini file looks like this

                 [Game Options]
                 Memory Level=1
                 Memory Access=1

                 [Sound Options]
                 Music Volume=1.00
                 Voice Volume=0.75
                 SoundFX Volume=0.75
                 DisableSound=0
                 Environment Effects=0
                 Speaker Type=0

                 [Display Options]
                 Width=800
                 Height=600
                 BitsPerPixels=16
                 RefreshRate=75
                 TexturePack=1
                 SafeMovie=0
                 FullScreen=1

                 [Config]
                 FirstRun=0
                 Connection=0

                 [Video Options]
                 VideoQualitySetting=0
                 NumDynamicLights=3
                 Enable HardwareMouse=1
                 AntiAliasing Mode=0
                 Enable VSync=0
                 ShinyWater=0
                 NumShadowCastingLights=1
                 EnableVisualEffectsHigh=0
                 Enable Truform=0
                 Enable AnisotropicFiltering=0
                 CreatureWindSetting=0
                 EnableGrass=0
                 EnableFastGrass=1
                 EnableEnvironmentShadows=0
                 CreatureShadowDetail=0
                 Gamma=1.000000
                 Enable TextureAnimations=0
                 Enable CreatureEnvironmentMapping=0

                 By the way, the mouse has the habit of blinking back and
                 fourth when you move it, so far theres not a way around this
                 even if you set hardware mouse to 0.

                 Once thats done, download the Scitech GL direct program and
                 set the rendering at Maximum Compatability useing the Scitech
                 GLdirect CAD driver. Before you start, make sure you have both
                 your desktop resolution and game resolution set at 16 bit and
                 800x600. Originally I had my desktop set at 32 bit and
                 1024x768, which causes some sort of error with openGL. On
                 subsequent tests with the desktop resolution at 1024x768 it
                 ran fine, but set it at 800x600 to be safe. Now if you did
                 everything correctly. When you launch NWN, right after the
                 splash screen, youll see a scitech splash screen for a second,
                 then the game launches and you get a black screen with no
                 sound, but your CD drive is being accessed. What you do here
                 is ctrl+alt+del and then cancel which kicks the movies in and
                 unlike voodoo 5 owners, you get the TSR, Atari, etc splash
                 screens and get to watch the intro movie. And then of course
                 you can play  . The gameplay for me is a little choppy and
                 there are a couple of graphical glitches, but its to be
                 expected since you dont actually have openGL 1.2 but are
                 rather tricking NWN to think you do. But hey, the game works
                 and I can play, so hopefully I helped out my other fellow
                 voodoo 3 owners."""""""""""""

I'm also posting my nwn.ini and nwnconfig.ini files:

-------------nwconfig.ini :-----------

[OS]
OS=Windows 98 v4.10 build 1998
Result=2
Skip=0

[Processor]
Type=Intel Celeron
Vendor=Intel
NumCPUs=1
Speed=398
Result=0
Skip=0

[RAM]
RAM=256
Result=2
Skip=0

[Video Card]
Type=3D Blaster Banshee PCI/AGP
VRAM=16
Desktop Resolution=800x600
Desktop Color Depth=16
Result=1
Skip=0

[Open GL]
OpenGL Installed=1
OpenGL Version=1.2
Result=1
Skip=0

[Direct X]
DirectX Installed=1
DirectX Version=DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0881)
DirectX Build=4.08.01.0881
Result=2
Skip=0


[Misc]
Last Run=30/12/1899
Scanning=1

[Version]
Game=Unknown

-----------------------nwn.ini-------------------

[Alias]
HD0=.\
CD0=H:\
OVERRIDE=.\override
TEMP=.\temp
MODULES=.\modules
LOGS=.\logs
LOCALVAULT=.\localvault
DMVAULT=.\dmvault
SERVERVAULT=.\servervault
TEMPCLIENT=.\tempclient
SAVES=.\saves
CURRENTGAME=.\currentgame
HAK=.\hak
PATCH=.\patch
NWMFiles=.\nwm
AMBIENT=.\ambient
MOVIES=H:\movies
MUSIC=.\music

[Game Options]
Memory Level=2
Memory Access=1

[Display Options]
Width=800
Height=600
BitsPerPixels=16
RefreshRate=70
TexturePack=0
SafeMovie=1
FullScreen=1

[Sound Options]
Music Volume=0.75
Voice Volume=0.75
SoundFX Volume=0.75
DisableSound=1
Environment Effects=0
Speaker Type=1

[Config]
FirstRun=0
Connection=1

[Video Options]
VideoQualitySetting=0
NumDynamicLights=3
Enable HardwareMouse=1
AntiAliasing Mode=0
Enable VSync=0
ShinyWater=0
NumShadowCastingLights=1
EnableVisualEffectsHigh=0
Enable Truform=0
Enable AnisotropicFiltering=0
CreatureWindSetting=0
EnableGrass=0
EnableFastGrass=1
EnableEnvironmentShadows=0
CreatureShadowDetail=0
Gamma=1.000000
Enable TextureAnimations=0
Enable CreatureEnvironmentMapping=0


I hope that helps all of you guys that bought NWN and won't run!

I still have no answer to my question.Voodoo cards dont support FULL Opengl 1.2 because its a software issue (the drivers weren't fully developed yet and then 3dfx were sold) OR its a hardware issue (like voodoo cards can't display the effects used by OpenGL API ?

BTW I am posting a really interesting part of the miniGL 1.49  README file :
""""""As of yet, you cannot do windowed rendering on either Voodoo3,
Voodoo Banshee or Voodoo Rush.  They will always open full screen.  
This will be addressed on Voodoo Banshee when A FULL OpenGL ICD IS RELEASED.""""" (the capitals are mine)

Here it is another README from the Creative minigl drivers which is really interesting too.

"""""""
What is the OpenGL Mini-Driver ?
====================================================
The OpenGL Driver is a specially tuned subset of    
OpenGL designed to run the Quake Engine products  
(Quake, Quake2, Quake3 and Hexen2) at their peak
performance.

A normal OpenGL Driver delivered by the Chip
Manufacturer supports ALL OpenGL functions (over  
400 seperate functions).  This level of functionality
constitutes a validated Driver (called an ICD) and
can be officially "approved" by Microsoft.  The GOOD
news is this level of functionallity will allow any
software product that requires OpenGL to function.  
***The BAD news is, unfortunately, to reach this level
of capability, the overall performance of the Driver
will suffer.***

What is provided to you in this release is a
performance enhanced version of the OpenGL Driver
designed to work only with the Quake Engine products.
Since the Quake Engine only uses a subset of OpenGL
(less than 100 functions), a dedicated Driver has
been developed and optimized for these functions."""""

Please read carefully the part that i have marked with 3 asterisks (***). I am asking you :If you could choose ,tell me your answer :Play no games at all (since voodoo cards will not be supported by games that use OpenGL 1.2 or newer) OR play with an OpenGL driver with decreased performance BUT at least games will run!
Just consider that i 'm playing NWN not using OpenGL but emulating OpenGL in Direct 3D! Thats greatly decreasing performance so i wouldnt mind a lesser in performance driver that at least would be a compatible driver. EVEN TNT2 SUPPORTS OPENGL 1.3  !!! >:( Oh well...

Well, to be honest, OpenGL support was disregarded by 3dfx for a long time :(

Since they started relatively late with equipping their Cards with OpenGL ICD's (after Glide lost some importance, and their MiniGL's weren't sufficient anymore), they never really managed to get beyond OpenGL 1.1 before they closed their doors...

However, until recently, Games didn't really require anything greater than OpenGL 1.1 , so it wasn't too big of a disadvantage.

Since what he have now is all there is, newest Games start running into compatibility Problems (either DirectX8.1 or OpenGL), and the Game developers don't bother anymore :(

Epic with taking on their 3dfx support for UT 2003 again is a nice exception though...

But in the End, there's nothing one can do about it; I don't see any improvement of this situation coming anytime soon (if at all) ::)

Greetings
FalconFly

What you are saying is nothing but the truth.I just wish I could do something other than waiting for the end... :'(

Yes, it's a bad feeling...

The only thing that has (in most cases) helped, were own or 3rd party Drivers.

For some reason, those special mixes often do the Trick.

I think there are indeed special NWN Driver mixes, aimed just at getting it to work as good as possible.

Nightstormer over at x3dfx did one for Voodoo4/5 :
http://pub43.ezboard.com/fx3dfxfrm2.showMessage?topicID=2299.topic

In the end, using Programs like WickedGL or SciTech GLdirect Wrappers might be the only way, however....

Greetings
FalconFly