| TNT2
Glide - Creative Labs Unified |
A lot of people have sent
out some e-mails/questions regarding Glide compatibility on TNT2 cards
which Creative Labs released a while ago. (Which basically pissed of
3dfx big time). However. These driver are written by their development
team with the basic and free information that 3dfx hands out.
What is a glide wrapper ?
Well, you'll probably have heard of Glide before, it is 3DFX's proprietary
graphics API which is used by it's Voodoo range of cards, and not by any
other card on the market. Glide lets programmers make spectacular
looking visuals with ease, it became popular about two years ago due to
3dfx spotting an opening in the market and capitalizing. So, what do you
do if you need Glide for a game, but don't want to shell out for a new
Voodoo graphics card? You use a Glide wrapper. A Glide wrapper is a
piece of code that will convert all Glide API calls passed through it
into OpenGL or Direct3D which most graphics cards use.
CL released the drivers
under the name 'unified' The drivers are specifically designed for CL 3D
Blaster TNT2. What does it do ? Well it simple emulated glide by
replacing 3dfx's glide2x.dll
You can get/download the drivers from the official Creative labs website located
here: Unified Drivers for their TNT/TNT2 boards.
After you have entered your
product serial number, The serial number is located on the original outer box or on a white sticker
applied to your Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT or 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra card.
Only valid serial numbers will be accepted.
You can now start downloading the latest version.
I have tried the unified
drivers and found them at the least to be very unstable. I actually was
able to play only one out of ten Glide games available and 'ditched'
them right away out of frustration. Perhaps you have more luck and
patience then I have.
The secondly and most asked
question is, can I get Unified drivers working with a non CL board ? Yes
you can actually ! But, we have been slapped on our fingers by Creative
about this so we cannot bring you this information anymore.
Update !
Good News for all of you.
Thanks to Glide Underground I have found a Public Domain (Freely
Distributable) Glide Wrapper. This nifty utility has been developed
extremely well, and personally i think it is even better then the
unified glide wrapper from Creative (which bugs a lot!). The wrapper is
compatible with G200, ATI Rage PRO, RAGE 128, and TNT/2 cards
XGl200 0.04a a.k.a. Scott's Glide Wrapper
------------------
In case you don't know, this is a program that emulates 3dfx
hardware by translating Glide (3dfx's proprietary programming
interface) calls into Direct3D calls. I'm developing this on a system with a G200, so results are
probably best on that card. However, I have heard that this
wrapper works well on ATI Rage Pro, Rage 128, and TNT cards
as well.
Here are some Freely
downloadable Glide wrappers:
Download - XGL200
0.04 Glide Wrapper
Download - New
MGlide version (glide SDK free)
Download - Gl2ideal
1.0 New wrapper based on the Gl2ide Rev. A source. It adds better
image quality on the TNT chipset, hopefully this will be very well
developed in the future.
Download - OpenGlide
0.05 OpenGLide (Glide->OpenGL) wrapper from Fabio Barros
Download - Boost
Wrapper 1.0 New glide wrapper. This is supposed to be one of
the fastest wrappers available to date.
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