3dfx vs SVGA

DemonPostalWorker · Post by **DemonPostalWorker** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 01:58 am

What looks better? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

Number II · Post by **Number II** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 05:53 am

Well, SVGA is the 65xxx colours as far as I know, whereas 3Dfx is 3D-accelerated.

Well there's probably more than the 65000 something colours to SVGA, but 3Dfx is still accelerated so you basically get hardware instead of software.

Maybe someone who is more knowledgable about these variants can explain more...

sirlemonhead · Post by **sirlemonhead** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 05:11 pm

The 3dfx version only adds texture filtering as far as I know, which can help smooth out all the jagged edges that exist on the textures. This can make things a bit blurry looking though.

Sorry, crap explanation really :p

If you can't get 3dfx working, then you're not missing a whole lot I'd imagine.

sirlemonhead · Post by **sirlemonhead** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 05:17 pm

http://www.glidos.net/

Might be of use to you. Run Blood in 3dfx mode without a 3dfx card

John91783 · Post by **John91783** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 07:13 pm

thank you sirlemonhead

Post by **Willis** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 07:53 pm

wow, I completely forgot to reply to this, and I'm sorry for the delay.

VESA (SVGA) is the better looking mode. 3dfx is just sort of nastalgic to the period. As sirlemonhead mentioned, 3dfx pretty much only added texture filtering, and made things extremely blurry (the HUD looked like crap in 3dfx mode).

Also, the 3dfx patch was never finished, it was left in an alpha state, and therefore never has perfomed very well.

You will get the most satisfaction out of VESA 2.0 at a resolution of about 640x480 (or as Gila mentioned 640x400 which does not distort). Beyond that resolution, the graphics do not really look any better, the text just gets smaller.

Number II · Post by **Number II** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 08:34 pm

What's the difference between SVGA and VESA?

Jethro · Post by **Jethro** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 11:33 pm

Hmm, 320x200x8bpp is not really SVGA mode but 13h I think. Anyway, VESA 2.0 allows you to run games in higher resolution and supports much more colors, but probably the only difference You will notice playing Blood will be higher res becouse all Blood textures are in 256 colors (I suppose).

Jethro

Post by **Willis** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:02 am

Well, I've fallen victim to using false terms, which always happens to me when others say them first.

SVGA by definition is 800x600 (usually 16bit or higher)
VGA is 640x480 256 color or better.

VESA 2.0 is just a rendering protocol standard like we now use OpenGL or Direct3D.

Blood only runs at 256 color, and without VESA won't really perform well above 320x200 default resolution.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

Gila · Post by **Gila** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:19 pm

i always thought 640x480 with 256 colors mode was the lowest SVGA res.

and 320x200 is vga.

vesa is the standard or something.

Number II · Post by **Number II** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 04:56 pm

Why can't I run Blood in VESA and higher res? All I get is these happy colours and stripes. I've installed the stuff on the XP site. It helped me with sound and all, but not VESA.

Jethro · Post by **Jethro** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 08:34 pm

Are You sure You didn't forgot to add nolfb.com to shortcut's autoexec section?

Post by **Willis** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 08:50 pm

Gila wrote:i always thought 640x480 with 256 colors mode was the lowest SVGA res.

and 320x200 is vga.

vesa is the standard or something.

Standard Resolutions:
VGA is 640x480
SVGA is 800x600
XGA is 1024x768
SXGA is 1280x1024
UXGA is 1600x1200

Widescreen Standard Resolutions:
WXGA is 1280x800
WSXGA is 1680x1050
WUXGA is 1920x1200

Widescreen, since it is newer than standard format has no WVGA or WSVGA in the retail market since resolutions were already higher.

And VESA is a rendering method which controls timing and resouce management.

Number II · Post by **Number II** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:06 am

Jethro wrote:Are You sure You didn't forgot to add nolfb.com to shortcut's autoexec section?

You mean "- nolfb.com" ?

Jethro · Post by **Jethro** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 09:00 pm

No, I mean that you will need to download nolfb.com, copy it into your Blood directory and then in VDMSound shortcut's properties there is something like 'perform this comands before starting main executable' or something similar, and add nolfb.com there. Now VESA modes sould work properly.

Jethro