GTA 3DFX on faster processors

[jm-9 78]

Just something I noticed for anyone interested in playing this on real hardware from the era. I recently got a Voodoo 2 card for my Windows 98 PC. I installed the drivers and tried GTA. The 3DFX versions of GTA 1, London 1969 and London 1961 worked perfectly, no problems at all. A few days later I replaced my 400Mhz Pentium II with a 600MHz Pentium III. All of a sudden all three games crashed in 3DFX mode. The Windows version worked fine, as did the software-driven GTA8 and GTA24 versions. Other 3DFX games worked fine. I put the Pentium II back in and they worked properly again.

 

So I just wanted to let people here interested in playing on actual hardware know that the 3DFX version of GTA 1/London1969/London 1961 doesn't like the processor too fast, at leastwith a Voodoo 2 (a Voodoo 1 may produce different results). Underclocking software may work, but even then, ideally you'd use DOS underclocking software, which is harder to find than Windows software

 

Of course, most people will use Toshiba-3's excellent GTA Max Pack. This runs in DOSBOX, which handles all this for you. This is only for people who want to run the game with hardware acceleration on an old PC.

 

On another note, GTA 2 works much better in Glide mode (3DFX). I was never able to get it working properly in Direct3D. On Windows 98 I had slowdown and screen tearing, on Windows 10 I had judder every so often (probably due to vsync to prevent screen tearing).In Glide mode the frame rate is super smooth with no screen tearing or judder. It's definitely the best way to play it. The Rockstar Classics version is also compatible with Glide. Even on a modern OS, you can use dgVoodoo2 to play the Glide version with your non-3DFX graphics card.

Edited May 24, 2020 by jm-9

[test123 0]

I haven't played around much with the 3dfx version of GTA2, but yeah, the Direct3D one is a mess. To be clear, the issue here is that the game's framelimiter caps at 25 FPS, which is a bad framerate to cap at for most monitor refresh rates. It's also an imprecise fluctuating cap that will cause a ton of input lag with vsync on. Conversely, running uncapped will just make the game run way too fast.

 

However, there's a way to make it play well on a modern system: on a 60hz monitor, use MSI Afterburner to cap slightly below 30 FPS, like 29.993 FPS, and run it with vsync on. That way you'll get smooth motion, minimal input lag and correct game speed. Tested with 11.44 where I threw in the audio files from my original disc into the folder.

 

Supposedly it's possible to tweak the internal cap via registry, so some improvements on a win98 machine are possible, however I'm not aware of a precise cap like MSI AB available there, so the input lag would remain.

 

 

 

 

[test123 0]

accidental double post due to stupid registering system, please delete

Edited May 31, 2020 by test123

[jm-9 78]

An update to this: It turns out that the problem was the Voodoo 2 drivers. I was using Glide driver version 2.54. Switching to 2.50 RC1 fixed it, and I can now play GTA 1 in Glide mode. For anyone else having this problem, download creative-voodoo2-216rc1.zip here: 

 

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/drivers-for-voodoo-2.html

 

After unzipping it, copy glide2x.ovl to your GTADOS folder, and it should work.

 

Also, if you're getting a General Protection Error for the software versions (GTA8 AND GTA24), run the game in real-mode DOS. In DOS 6.x running Windows 3.x, either don't start Windows or exit to DOS if Windows is started. In Windows 98, on startup (just after the BIOS boot screen), hold CTRL until a startup menu comes up and select Command Prompt Only. In Windows 95, on startup, continuously press F8 to access the menu. Windows Me does not allow you  access real-mode DOS unless you use a workaround or use a boot disk.

Edited November 25, 2020 by jm-9