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- Original ver: 11/22/97
- Updated: 1/30/97
- Shadow Warrior 3Dfx version Notes
- ---------------------------------
- Shadow Warrior 3Dfx files
- -------------------------
- SW3DFX.EXE - 3Dfx version of the game
- SET3DFX.EXE - Setup program for 3Dfx. (Run this one).
- (Will create sw3dfx.cf2 as your config file for 3Dfx).
- 3DTMAIN.EXE - Main setup program for 3Dfx.
- FXCODE.SYM,
- FXDATA.SYM - Files needed for 3Dfx to save/load games.
- 3DFXREAD.TXT - This text file.
- Fixes for v1.1 of the 3Dfx patch
- --------------------------------
- * You can now save/load games successfully.
- NOTE: The software and 3Dfx versions of the game have their OWN save
- files. The 3Dfx saves are listed as "GAME#.SA2". There was no way
- to make them use the same save files. You cannot use software version
- save files with the 3Dfx version.
- * Can select resolutions from the set3dfx.exe program.
- NOTE: The setup program now uses it's own config file as well.
- Software version uses SW.CFG and 3Dfx setup uses "SW3DFX.CF2".
- * F5 will toggle resolutions in the game now.
- * 800x600 added in 3Dfx mode.
- * Colors are no longer "muddy" and match the software version closely.
- * Kid Mode works correctly (v1.0 turned every texture into texture #1).
- * Status bar should no longer be "garbled".
- * Smoke Bomb will now make your hands transparent, so you can tell you
- are invisible.
- * Multiplay frag bar no longer has top line cut off
- * Better error message if glide2x.ovl not found in your path.
- Fast Start
- ----------
- Want to get 3Dfx Shadow Warrior running right now?
- 1. You would be well advised to read the troubleshooting section first.
- 2. You MUST have at least 32 megs of RAM. More memory will lead to
- much better performance. This patch will not work on 16 meg
- machines.
- 3. You MUST have the "glide" drivers installed. Shadow Warrior
- needs a file called GLIDE2X.OVL to be in the path. If you don't have
- a glide2x.ovl in your \windows or \windows\system directory, you can
- get current glide drivers here at the 3Dfx site:
- http://www.3dfx.com/download/sdk/index.html
- Try http://www.3dfx.com (and poking around if the site changes)
- You want the Glide2.43 Runtime Drivers (or whatever the current version
- is at the moment.)
- 4. Make sure to have your Shadow Warrior CD in the drive, or some CD with
- a valid track #2. (Ignore this if playing the shareware version).
- 5. Run SET3DFX, and configure the game. (should read troubleshooting)
- 6. Launch SW from the setup program, or exit and type SW3DFX.
- 7. The game will load. (Note the "3Dfx" on the title bar).
- 8. It will take some time to convert various textures the game uses to
- 3Dfx format. Be patient. On a P300 this takes 10 seconds. On a P90,
- it will take longer (upwards of 3-4 minutes or more). This is a ONE
- TIME deal.
- 9. Play the game.
- Notes on the 3Dfx version of Shadow Warrior
- -------------------------------------------
- The 3Dfx version uses a different setup program (SET3DFX.EXE). So, type
- SET3DFX to setup/run the game instead of SETUP.
- 3Dfx Shadow Warrior does not support 3D sprites like regular
- Shadow Warrior does. This was a technical impossibility. For this
- reason, the 3D sprites option has been removed from the options
- menu. Be sure to turn 3D sprites off in regular Shadow Warrior
- before running the 3Dfx version for the first time. If you do not
- do this, then no sprites will appear in the 3Dfx version.
- Troubleshooting
- ---------------
- Q: Why can't I see any enemies or decorations in the game?
- A: The "3D sprites" option is turned on, which is not supported by
- 3Dfx Shadow Warrior. To fix this, either delete your .CFG file
- and create a new one, or run "regular" Shadow Warrior and turn
- the 3D sprites off.
- Q: Why does my status bar look garbled?
- A: Some of the larger textures (like the status bar) are converted
- to 3Dfx format the first time you run 3Dfx Shadow Warrior.
- Sometimes these textures can become corrupted. Try deleting the
- TX3DFX subdirectory in your Shadow Warrior directory and
- running 3Dfx Shadow Warrior again. It will reconvert the
- textures again.
- Q: Why does 3Dfx Shadow Warrior access the hard drive so much?
- A: You probably have 32Mb or less installed in your system, and
- you probably have a 2Mb 3Dfx card. Shadow Warrior uses a LOT of
- wall textures and enemy sprites, and these can take up tons
- of memory once they are converted to 16-bit color for use by
- the 3Dfx card. For best performance, you should run 3Dfx
- Shadow Warrior on a system with more than 32Mb installed.
- Q: Why is the frame rate so low?
- A: Low frame rate is usually due to hard disk cacheing, in
- which case you need more memory as mentioned above. Another way
- to increase frame rate is to INCREASE the screen size (by
- hitting the '+' key or using the Screen Options menu.) The
- status bar tends to slow things down a lot, and getting rid of
- it often helps speed things up. NOTE: Decreasing the screen
- size will only slow things down more.
- Also Shadow Warrior has to do a lot of extra work to get onto the
- 3Dfx that a "real" 3D game does not. We end up having to deal with
- many more polygons per frame than a game like Quake, Jedi Knight or
- Hexen II. This is detailed more in Scott Alden's 3Dfx notes below.
- Q: Why are sloped floors and ceilings so bright?
- A: This is a necessary evil for various programming related
- reasons.
- Notes from 3Dfx and environment variables
- -----------------------------------------
- 3Dfx Build Engine Version 1.0
- Author: Scott Alden
- Date Created: 9/12/1997
- Last Update: 11/22/1997
- 3Dfx Build Engine Version 1.1 update
- Author: Jack Mathews / 3Dfx
- Implementation Notes
- --------------------
- I had a lot of fun and challenges on working on the
- Build engine, not everything went as I wanted it
- and many things are workarounds. Sloped floors
- were especially fun ;-) An ideal thing to happen is this
- engine is converted to true polygon rendering system.
- This could greatly enhance the speed for the 3Dfx hardware.
- I currently have the raster layer of the build engine
- rendering spans to the 3Dfx hardware. Thus a wall that
- fills the entire screen would be made up of X triangles
- where X = the horizontal resolution of the screen.
- You can set the BUILD_TRICOUNT (see below) environment
- variable to see how many triangles are being drawn on
- the previous frame. This is more for seeing how the
- tricount affects the framerate. Since each wall and
- floor is made up of hundreds of spans, thus thousands
- of triangles are drawn each frame. For instance if
- a single wall was rendered in a frame that filled the
- screen, the renderer would have to draw 640 vertical
- triangles to draw the wall.
- All of the tiles in the game are downloaded to the
- hardware as texture maps, and the span is converted
- to the 3Dfx format for rendering. There are 3 types
- of primitives that I use: horizontal triangles for
- horizontal spans, vertical triangles for vertical spans,
- and quads for drawing unclipped sprites.
- Also, the lighting/palette effects that the game
- uses are achieved by downloading a new palette to the
- 3Dfx hardware. This palette downloading happens on
- a span by span basis. Fog and other lighting effects
- are all achieved by palette changing.
- A span based renderer is slower than the an ordinary
- 3D based renderer (like GLQuake) on the 3Dfx because
- of the conversion of spans involved. For each vertical
- span in a wall, the texture coords must be calculated
- specifically for the span, where as a regular polygon
- for a wall only has to provide texture coordinates at
- the vertices.
- -----------------------------------------------------------
- Here are some extra things to know about for
- additions I have made to the build engine which
- can be set in your environment before running
- the game:
- Environment Variables
- ---------------------
- The BUILD_640X480 environment variable is used
- to run the game in the 640x480 resolution.
- The default setting is 0, and the default resolution
- is 512x384.
- e.g. set BUILD_640x480=1
- The BUILD_RESAMPLE environment variable is used
- to control how the game and animation textures
- are converted to 3Dfx format. If you set this
- variable, the slower method of sampling and blending
- is used. This gives a more desirable image however
- it takes a long time to run, and it gives a dark
- halo effect surrounding sprites (i.e. the fists
- and some menu bar things). The faster way uses
- point sampling, it provides a more grainy conversion,
- but is a lot faster than the previous method.
- You only need to convert the textures the first time
- you run the program, and if you want to recreate
- them, delete the "tx3dfx" and animxxxx directories
- which contain all the .3df files.
- The BUILD_BRIGHTNESS environment variable is used to
- brighten the colors of the textures that are used in
- the game engine. The colors will be brightened by this
- factor, and will saturate to white. The default setting
- is 2.5.
- e.g. set BUILD_BRIGHTNESS=2.8
- The BUILD_NOPAL environment variable is used to turn
- on palette downloading on a per-span basis.
- !!!Warning!!! This will affect the color palette of the game
- and the colors may not be correct! This is only provided
- as a speed boost. The default setting is 0.
- e.g. set BUILD_NOPAL=1
- The BUILD_NOFOG environment variable allows the game
- fog to be turned on/off. This is provided as a
- speed boost. The default setting is 0.
- e.g. set BUILD_NOFOG=1
- The BUILD_CONVTEXTURES environment variable is used
- to control whether or not textures are cached to disk.
- If BUILD_CONVTEXTURES is set to 1, then the textures
- will not be cached to disk and will be converted in
- memory. If you are running the game under Windows 95,
- then this setting is not recommended. If you are
- running the game under DOS, then this setting may help
- out because disk I/O access is slower on some
- DOS machines than others. The default setting is 0.
- e.g. set BUILD_CONVTEXTURES=1
- The BUILD_TRICOUNT environment variable shows the number
- of triangles drawn in the last frame. The default setting
- is 0.
- e.g. set BUILD_TRICOUNT=1
- The BUILD_FPS environment variable shows the current clock
- settings, frame number, and a (rough)FPS count.
- The default setting is 0.
- e.g. set BUILD_FPS=1
- The BUILD_VERSION environment variable shows the current
- version number of the 3Dfx Version of the Build Engine
- and the current version of Glide you are using below that.
- The default setting is 0.
- e.g set BUILD_VERSION=1
- BUILD_MRED, BUILD_MGREEN, BUILD_MBLUE set the colors
- of mirrors in the game respectively. Their range is
- from 0-255. Their default settings are 200, 200, and 255
- respectively (gives a blue tinge to all mirrors)
- e.g. for dark blue mirrors:
- set BUILD_MRED=0
- set BUILD_MGREEN=0
- set BUILD_MBLUE=200
- ------------------------------------------------------------
- Here's some things I added to the Shadow Warrior code
- and specific things in the build engine that are
- related to Shadow Warrior.
- When you start up Shadow Warrior 3Dfx version, the
- program will begin converting the textures in the game
- to the 3Dfx format. This only needs to be done once, and
- if you want to recreate the process, then delete the
- subdirectories called tx3dfx and animxxxx where xxxx will
- be a number and the directory will contain .3df files.
- This takes quite a while to convert so be patient :-)
- See the above environment variable BUILD_RESAMPLE for
- more information on this.
- New Keys
- --------
- ALT-B: Turns on Bilinear filtering ("Blurry" mode)
- ALT-P: Turns off Bilinear Filtering ("Pixelated" mode)
- F12: Captures the 3Dfx screen. Creates files in the TGA format
- with the naming convention of swcpxxxx.tga where xxxx is the
- number of screen captures made.
- New Functions
- -------------
- Transparent Textures based on their intensity.
- This is for transparent explosions, etc...
- This function has been applied to the following textures
- for Shadow Warrior (these are based on the internal
- representation of the tile numbers):
- 1465-1468
- 3072-3225
- 1748-1753
- 3240-3277
- 3280-3300
- 3948-3986
- 3969-4016
- 772 - 776
- Note: Cranking up the intensity with BUILD_BRIGHTNESS
- will cause less of the textures to be transparent, since
- the level of opacity is based on their intensity.
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