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********************************************************************** AIR WARRIOR III Direct 3D Hardware Accelerated Mode 3D Development, Team Air Warrior Copyright 1997 Kesmai Studios ********************************************************************** Updated: December 11, 1997 SECTION I. INTRODUCTION SECTION II. DIRECT3D PERFORMANCE SECTION III. GETTING THINGS SET UP SECTION IV. REFERENCE 3D CARD INFORMATION SECTION V. IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR 3D CARD SECTION VI. DETERMINING THE DRIVER VERSION OF YOUR 3D CARD ********************************************************************** SECTION I. INTRODUCTION ********************************************************************** This document contains helpful information for the new and experienced player alike on setting up, playing, and basically getting the most from hardware accelerated Air Warrior. We decided to put this document together after spending the last 6 months or so working with all the 3D accelerators we tested, trying to get them working and running the game. Many of those hours were spent just getting them to work at all in our machines, it is an amazing feat for a programmer, let alone the new user that has never opened a computer case. This document will explain briefly a little about Air Warrior III's support for 3D hardware acceleration, some tricks and settings that are available in the game, and then list some of the 3D cards and drivers that we have tested here in the studios. ********************************************************************** SECTION II. DIRECT3D PERFORMANCE ********************************************************************** What you see and the performance you get while flying Air Warrior III with Direct3D will depend on many factors. The speed of the acceleration hardware, the features and effects that your 3D card supports, how well the drivers were written, whether they support DirectX 5.0 directly, and even (contrary to popular belief) the speed of your computer, all play a role in the final look, feel, and experience of the game. 3D HARDWARE: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The primary factor in your 3D experience is the speed of the 3D hardware that you have installed in your machine. Remember that not all 3D accelerators are created equal. Some early chipsets, like many that come preinstalled on the motherboard of computers, may not even be usable with Air Warrior III. Some OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) say their computer "...Comes Complete With Built In 3D Acceleration!". Unfortunately, many of these early chipsets end up being hardware "decelerators" in that they are actually slower at rendering than the host processor running optimized 3D rasterization (drawing) code. The good news is that there are now some very fast cards coming out on the market and even if you have an older, slower accelerator, you can just drop in one of these faster cards and you're in business. One thing to remember, however, is that even the fastest cards currently on the market won't necessarily give you a better frame rate than software mode, but the detail and realism you get compared to software rendering is just breathtaking. Just to give you a point of reference, a "fast" 3D card in a P200 with 32MB RAM should consistently get 20-30fps or more with all features turned on( fog, sky, ground textures). On the other hand, the "average" 3D card in the same machine will generally get 10-20fps. We provide comparisons later in this document for some examples of the 3D cards we have tested. PROCESSOR SPEED ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Another very important factor, as mentioned above, in the resulting frame rate is the speed of your processor. For example, even the fastest 3D accelerators may have poor performance running on a Pentium 90, where comparatively slow cards will often do quite well on a Pentium II 266 or faster computer. It is a common misconception that the processor speed doesn't matter now that you're using 3D hardware acceleration. This is far from the truth in practice, however. The reasons for this are pretty simple--there are a lot of objects and triangles in a 3D rendered scene, this is a lot of data that the computer must manipulate before the 3D card even starts drawing. The objects have to be moved, rotated, sorted, then turned into triangles, lit, fogged, assigned textures, and finally the resulting data is sent to the driver which in turn sends the data to the 3D card for drawing using the puny 33Mhz PCI bus. All of these things take time and can drive a slower processor to its knees. DIRECTX DRIVERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The driver for your 3D card is a small program that takes the data about the 3D scene from the program and converts it into the format that the card understands, then it sends that data through the PCI bus where the rendering takes place. At the time of this writing, DirectX 5.0 has only been out for a few months and most 3D card drivers that where written for DirectX 3.0a don't support the new features introduced in DirectX 5.0. The older drivers generally still work, but performance is degraded because many DirectX 5.0 calls are re-routed to other points in the driver. This takes time and degrades performance significantly in some cases, it can also cause artifacts such as black or white squares where a smoke cloud or explosion should be. Also, upgrading to DirectX 5.0 drivers can result in a 10-30% increase in performance. You should check your 3D card manufacturer's web site regularly for updated drivers and be sure they directly support DirectX 5.0. If not, they are likely working on a set. Sending email to them never hurts in hurrying this process along. ********************************************************************** SECTION III. GETTING THINGS SET UP ********************************************************************** When you first run Air Warrior III and a 3D card is detected, you will be asked to select the desired 3D Accelerator. Air Warrior III recognizes up to 4 such 3D Accelerators in your system at one time. However, you can only select and fly with one at a time. If you select a 3D Accelerator as your 3D renderer, a note will appear to the right of the selector with information about your driver, such as whether it directly supports DirectX 5.0. You will also notice the section of the "Performance" tab on the "User Preferences" dialog called View Mode Customization. (If you loose the dialog box, right-click anywhere on the screen and select "Setup..." then "User Preferences" then select the Performance tab.) Here you can make changes that effect the performance as well as what you see while flying. VIEW MODE CUSTOMIZATION SETTINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The number in the first column of the View Mode Customization section corresponds to the keys "1" through "5" on the keyboard when in flight. Pressing one of these keys while flying selects that mode and changes the detail level to what is selected here in the dialog box. There are three columns of settings: the first sets the maximum shape resolution that is used, the second sets the maximum distance that objects can be seen, the third allows you to selectively enable or disable specific features or effects. Unless you are getting very poor performance in the game, you will generally not need to adjust the first two settings in each row. The Detail Setting, however, can be very useful for optimizing performance, changing the look and feel of the game, and for turning off effects that your card doesn't support properly or you just don't want in the game. CUSTOM DETAIL SETTINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Air Warrior III sets the Detail Settings to default values that should work fine most of the time, however, if you want to customize the settings, click on the drop down menu and select the "Custom" option and a dialog box will appear. If a 3D accelerator is selected as the 3D Renderer, a 3D Custom Detail Settings dialog will appear with check boxes for all the effects and settings available in accelerated flight. One reason you may want to adjust the view settings is to make things easier to see. If all the "eye candy" in the game is too much for you, you may want to disable fog, textures, etc. Another reason might be if you are getting poor performance with you card, you may want to disable certain options or effects. One big problem with some chipsets is texturing, it can be very slow on some cards. If you find that the frame rate drops from 20fps to 3fps when you have several textured planes in your sights you know you have one of these cards. If this happens to you, open the Custom Detail dialog and uncheck Textured Planes for one or more of the view levels. Then, when you get into a furball, you can disable plane textures by selecting that view mode and your frame rate should jump back up. OTHER COOL SETTINGS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For those of you lucky enough to have fast machines, and even some that don't, here are a few additional suggestions: View Modes Allowed - Set this to "Allow All Modes", this will enable full screen mode. View Optimization - If you have the CD, or have downloaded the high resolution cockpit art (a26____2.art for example for the 1024x768 A-26), you should set this to "Optimize Full Screen Mode". This tells Air Warrior iii to use the high resolution art for the full screen view instead of stretching the low resolution art which results in a blocky look. This along with the new full screen dashes and a fast machine make for quite an impressive visual experience. Once you've mastered full screen view, you might never go back! View Caching - If you have lots of memory, say 32MB or more, you should enable "View Caching". When enabled, once you look a certain direction out of the cockpit, cockpit art for that view will be kept in memory instead of being reloaded each time you look that way, this makes looking in different directions much faster. You can allow up to 13 view directions to be cached. If you enable view caching, the first thing you want to do when you get into a plane is look in directions you will want to look while flying. This will load and decompress the art into buffers so the next time you look that direction, the views will change quickly. ********************************************************************** SECTION IV. REFERENCE 3D CARD INFORMATION ********************************************************************** The following is a list of the cards we have tested directly with Air Warrior III, along with some comments and data about the cards. These tests were done on a Micron PC with a 133Mhz Pentium, Windows 95 build 950, 32MB RAM, and DirectX 5.0 Release 1. This is the minimum required for playable performance in hardware mode. Of course, if you have a faster computer, your results should be better. The frame rate values are averages in regular view mode during normal online play with all effects turned on. Again, a faster machine will significantly improve your frame rate. All data and comments are based on our testing and on our experience; your mileage may vary. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: ATI 3D Turbo Pro PC2TV [http://www.atitech.com] Chipset: ATI RAGE II Driver Version Tested: ATI b07-07-97 DX5 BETA Reference (MACXW4.DRV #4.03.2214) ATI r05-06-97 DX3 Release (MACXW4.DRV #4.03.2162) Frame rate Range: 8-18fps Comments: All effects are supported. The low frame rate is a problem more so offline than online. The game is almost unplayable for offline missions when several textured planes are in view. Turning off plane textures can increase frame rate to an acceptable level. For the full experience, a P200MMX or faster machine is needed. Known Problems: 1.) The current release version of the DX3 drivers will work with the game, but until ATI releases DX5 drivers, performance will be sub- optimal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: ATI XPERT@Work [http://www.atitech.com] Chipset: ATI RAGE Pro Driver Version Tested: ATI b4.35.b16D DX5 BETA Reference (MACXW4.DRV #4.03.2245) ATI 4.3(X) Release (NOT COMPATIBLE WITH AWIII) (MACXW4.DRV #4.03.X) Frame rate Range: 10-25fps Comments: Performance is marginally better than the RAGE II. Since the card does not support fog and alpha at the same time, you will not get smoke trails or other effects with the card when fog is on. Known Problems: 1.) Air Warrior will not run with the drivers shipped with the card. After selecting fly anywhere in the game, the computer will lock up either before, or within seconds after entering flight. Lines are sometimes drawn from the origin to where airplanes should be. This problem has been fixed in the latest internal BETA drivers, These should be available for download soon. 2.) You will not get smoke trails, explosions, and other effects when fog is on. This is a problem with the hardware and drivers, ATI has informed me that they are working on it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Diamond FireGL 1000 [http://www.diamondmm.com] Chipset: Permedia NT with a Glint Delta coprocessor Driver Version Tested: Diamond r0997 DX3 Release (GLINT.DRV #4.03.00.2101-0021) Frame rate Range: 10-25fps Comments: Excellent texture mapping. Textures are rock solid and don't jump around like on some cards. Excellent frame rate, even with planes on the screen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Diamond FireGL 1000 PRO [http://www.diamondmm.com] Chipset: Permedia 2, built in Delta Driver Version Tested: Diamond r1.02 DX3 Release (GLINT.DRV #4.10.01.0200) Frame rate Range: 15-32 Comments: Best texture mapping we've seen so far on any card. Absolutely NO texture "jiggles" on the water or islands. All effects supported and look good. Probably one of the highest consistent frame rates we've seen, even with lots of planes on the screen. No DX5 support yet but when there is it should increase frame rate even more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Diamond Monster3D [http://www.diamondmm.com] Similar but not tested: Orchid Righteous 3D [http://www.orchid.com] Canopus Pure 3D [http://www.canopuscorp.com] Chipset: 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics Driver Version Tested: 3Dfx r2.13 DX5.0 Reference (MM3DFX.DRV #4.10.01.0013) Diamond D3D1.08 Release (MM3DFX.DRV #4.10.155) Frame rate Range: 15-30fps Comments: Best overall performance of the cards we've tested with. Some numerical error in texture perspective correction causing large textured polys to flicker and stretch. Known Problems: 1.) Problems have been reported with fog and various other effects with Diamond's drivers version D3D1.08 (#4.10.01.0013). These problems are eliminated when upgraded to the reference drivers from 3Dfx. 2.) You MUST reinstall updated drivers when you reinstall DirectX 5.0 because the DirectX installer will automatically write over the installed drivers and there is no known way to stop it. The version of the driver that comes with DirectX 5.0 is (MM3DFX.DRV #4.10.155). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Diamond Stealth3D 2000 2MB [http://www.diamondmm.com] Chipset: ViRGE Driver Version Tested: Diamond r09-30-97 DX3 Release (S3D325XL.DRV #4.03.00.3217) Frame rate Range: 2-6 Comments: Air Warrior III requires at least 4MB of VRAM if textures are used and the frame rate is unacceptable for gameplay, even on a fast machine the frame rate will be on the low end. No support for alpha textures means no effects. Known Problems: 1.) Not enough VRAM to meet minimum requirements. 2.) Unplayable frame rate. 3.) Doesn't support any effects in the game. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Diamond Stealth II [http://www.diamondmm.com] Chipset: Rendition v2100 Driver Version Tested: Diamond r10-30-97 DX3 Release (V2KSIIXL.DRV #4.10.01.0101) Frame rate Range: 10-20 Comments: Although the drivers are a little young for the Rendition 2100 chip, this card performs pretty well given the low price. This is a good low cost alternative to some of the more expensive cards. Hopefully DX5 drivers will be available soon. Known Problems: 1.) Doesn't properly support all alpha blending modes so some smoke trails and explosions look a little strange or just black. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Diamond Viper 330 [http://www.diamondmm.com] Chipset: NVidia RIVA 128 Driver Version Tested: 2.0 DX5 Release (NV3XL.DRV #4.10.01.0011) Frame rate Range: 3-30 Comments: Compares favorably to 3Dfx. Performance is significantly effected by processor speed and the number of objects on the screen. Supports all effects. Known Problems: 1.) If you have previously installed another 3D card that uses the RIVA 128 chipset, you may end up with an invisible cursor after installing the card. Contact Diamond Technical Support for instructions on repairing this problem. It requires a little fooling with the Windows registry so, as always, back up important files before attempting this fix. 2.) Many people are experiencing temporary screen freezes and inconsistent performance with the current drivers. Hopefully in time the drivers will improve and these effects will not be so pronounced. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Hercules Stingray 128/3D [http://www.hercules.com] (Intergraph Intense3D) Chipset: 3Dfx Voodoo RUSH Driver Version Tested: 1.04.0c DX3 Release (PROMTN.DRV #4.03.2039) Frame rate Range: 15-30fps Comments: Performance equivalent to that of the Diamond Monster3D. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Matrox Mystique 220 / Matrox Millennium II [http://www.matrox.com] Chipset: MGA-1164SG / MGA-2164W Driver Version Tested: 4.0 DX3 Release (MGAPDX64.DRV #4.03.00.3600) Frame rate Range: 10-20fps Comments: Besides these cards' lack of support for most of the effects features used in Air Warrior III, the performance is fine and is completely playable. Known Problems: 1.) Chipsets do not support Fog, Alpha Blending, or Filtering which severely limit it's look and feel. No alpha blending means no red-outs, gray-outs, or sun flares, and blocky ground and sky 2.) Because of the gray-out/red-out problem, playing in relaxed realism online, or novice mode offline are your only real playable options. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Number Nine Revolution3D [http://www.nine.com] Chipset: Ticket to Ride Driver Version Tested: 1.29 DX3 Release (REV3DP.DRV #1.04.9335) Frame rate Range: 10-20 Comments: Neither the drivers that ship with the card nor the latest available for download at this writing work very well with the game. Because of a conflict with the drivers, sound will not work during flight. There are also random triangles that appear all over the scene as you fly. Other than that, it does a decent job. Effects are drawn, but are mostly just black. No word on DX5 drivers at this time. Known Problems: 1.) Bugs in the current drivers cause a problem with sound in some cases. 2.) Random triangles are drawn all over the scene when texturing and filtering are on. 3.) Some effects are all black. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: PowerVR Ref. Board [http://www.powervr.com] Chipset: PowerVR PCX-2 Driver Version Tested: MR 4.0.1c2-build 14 Release (#4.0.1.34dm) Frame rate Range: 10-25 Comments: Good frame rate, but the emulated vertex fog is very segmented and doesn't look very convincing. Effects will have white squares around them because some of the alpha/colorkeying isn't supported properly in the driver. Requires a custom setup in the Display Properties. Before Flying with a PowerVR Card, you must set up the driver specifically for the game as you would for any other game on the PowerVR chipset. If your PowerVR card does not have these controls, contact your card manufacturer for updates or help with setting up your driver. 1.) Right-Click on the desktop and select "Properties...", then click on the "PowerVR" tab. 2.) Make sure "Enable PowerVR HAL" and "Optimized 2D/3D Acceleration" are checked, then select the "Advanced..." button. 3.) Click on "Add..." and locate the AIRWAR3D.EXE executable in the root Air Warrior III directory on your hard drive. 4.) Once that is finished, click "OK" and make sure Air Warrior III appears in the "Application Details" dropdown menu. 5.) Check ALL the option checkboxes EXCEPT the following: Gouraud Specular, Table Fog, and Use Adaptive when MIP Mapping. 6.) Move the "Translucency Sort" slider all the way to the right to "Fast". 7.) Uncheck "Override Application Filtering". 8.) Now use can run Air Warrior III and get most of the experience of the game. Known Problems: 1.) Color Keying and some Alpha Blending modes are not supported so effects won't display properly. 2.) The emulated vertex fog may not look good, but it does work, with very little performance hit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Sierra Screamin' 3D [http://www.sierra.com] Chipset: Rendition Verite' V1000 Driver Version Tested: r09-4-97 BETA DX3 Reference (VERITE.DRV #4.03.3309) Sierra r1.13 DX3 Release (SCRM3D.DRV #4.03.00.9001-1.13) Frame rate Range: 8-20 Comments: Works well, supports all the effects used in the game. Known Problems: 1.) The current DirectX 3.0 drivers, version 1.13 (SCRM3D.DRV #4.03.00.9001-1.13) supplied by Sierra don't work well with Air Warrior III. Many testers report problems with explosion effects with these drivers. The BETA reference drivers we tested in-house from Rendition work fine. As of this writing, Sierra would not give an ETA on updating their drivers to DX5. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: STB Velocity 128 [http://www.stb.com] Chipset: NVidia RIVA 128 Driver Version Tested: 1.07 DX5 Release (STBv128.DRV #4.10.01.0107) Frame rate Range: 3-30 Comments: Compares favorably to 3Dfx. Performance is significantly effected by processor speed and the number of objects on the screen. Supports all effects. Known Problems: 1.) Many people are experiencing temporary screen freezes and inconsistent performance with the current drivers. Hopefully in time the drivers will improve and these effects will not be so pronounced. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** SECTION V. IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR 3D CARD ********************************************************************** If you have a supported 3D card, yet the inflight world looks like broad areas of simple, bright or dark sections, texture mapping is not working. Hit the 1 key on your keyboard to make sure you have enabled the most detailed view mode. If it does not improve, then the first thing you should do is to re-install Direct X5 from your Air Warrior III CD. Odd as it sounds, we have seen many cases where this worked even when Direct X5 had been installed previously. To re-install Direct X, run setup from your Air Warrior III CD (or Install from the Air Warrior III autorun screen), select Custom installation, and choose Direct X5 from the custom installation list. Restart Windows 95, and try the game again. If your card still produces an odd display, then check your card manufacturer's web site for the latest drivers. If you re-install or update your card's drivers and continue to have problems, please call our Technical Support Line at (919) 461-0948, 9AM to 9PM EST Monday through Friday, and a member of our support staff will assist you. We will be best able to help you if you are at your computer when you call. You may also obtain customer service via the major on-line services. We can be reached via email through the following services: I-Magic Web site: http://www.imagicgames.com E-Mail Tech Support: techsupport@imagicgames.com CompuServe: 75162,1202 America Online: SSIMAGIC Prodigy: ZBWS92A Please fill in the following form and mail it to us: =============================================================== Name: E-mail: Game Name: FE Version: Click on the sheep at the main airfield. Host Version: Click on the sheep at the main airfield. Your hardware information: CPU type and speed (i.e. Pentium 166) RAM (i.e. 32MB RAM) Video Card and RAM (i.e. Monster 3D, 4MB) Video Drivers (i.e. 3Dfx DirectX 5.0 Driver v2.13) Control Devices (joystick, throttle, rudders) ********************************************************************** SECTION VI. DETERMINING THE DRIVER VERSION OF YOUR 3D CARD ********************************************************************** Whenever you report a graphic related problem, whether to us, the manufacturer of your video card, or to any other development company, you will always be asked for the version of your video cards drivers you are using. Unfortunately there is no standard way of determining the version of a video card driver package. Sure, you can determine the date and version number of the DLLs, but that doesn't usually correspond to the actual version of the driver. Sometimes the manufacturer includes a version utility that is added to the Start menu that displays the version. If this is available, please use this when submitting a bug report. If not, please include the version of the *.DRV file. The following procedure shows how to determine this. 1.) Right-Click on the "My Computer" Icon on the desktop and select "Properties". 2.) When the "System Properties" dialog appears, select the "Device Manager" tab. 3.) 2D/3D combination cards will normally be listed under "Display Adapters". Click on the plus sign next to "Display Adapters", then double-click on the name of your video card. 3D Only cards like Voodoo Graphics or PowerVR are usually listed under "Sound, video and game controllers" or "Other Devices". 4.) When the "{video card} Properties" Dialog comes up, select the "Driver" tab. A list of files will be displayed. Scroll down if necessary and locate the driver file with the extension ".DRV". The file will be in the form {NAME}.DRV( dd3DFx.DRV for 3DFx Voodoo Graphics ), highlight the file and the dialog will display the "File version" below the list. 5.) The number after "File version" is the number you want. Please use this number in bug reports if you don't know or can't find the actual driver installation version. For example, the dd3Dfx.DRV file for Voodoo Graphics reference driver 2.13 is version 4.10.1.0013. ********************************************************************** Air Warrior is a registered trademark of Kesmai Aries Ltd (c) 1996-1997 Kesmai Aries Ltd. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are property of their registered owners.