GPL, Voodoo cards, and anti-aliasing...

One nit I have with GPL, which otherwise consumes my life, is the lack of anti-aliasing support. It simply isn't the case that Voodoo cards can't do it: witness Tomb Raider II and DiD's F-22 ADF, both of which support it and especially in the case of F-22, make it look great! F-15 by Janes also supports it, but not on the planes (which always seemed stupid, but there you go). Rather than say they support anti-aliasing if the hardware supports it, why not just say "we only got around to it on the Rendition cards..." Here's hoping they'll eventually add it, but not holding my breath.

Doubt it will be fixed, witness Nascar 2. Papy and Rendition have been in bed together on this for a long time.

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>> One nit I have with GPL, which otherwise consumes my life, is the lack >> of anti-aliasing support. It simply isn't the case that Voodoo cards >> can't do it: witness Tomb Raider II and DiD's F-22 ADF, both of which >> support it and especially in the case of F-22, make it look great! >> F-15 by Janes also supports it, but not on the planes (which always >> seemed stupid, but there you go). >> Rather than say they support anti-aliasing if the hardware supports it, >> why not just say "we only got around to it on the Rendition cards..." >> Here's hoping they'll eventually add it, but not holding my breath. >Doubt it will be fixed, witness Nascar 2. Papy and Rendition have been >in bed together on this for a long time.

Papyrus is not too far off when they say 3dfx can't do antialiasing. It can do it, but your framerate will practically half (if not even more). Unlike Rendition cards, 3dfx cards do not have a secondary video buffer (this is where the the programmers would do the antialiasing). What you have to do with the 3dfx in order to antialias is display your image (with no antialising), then read it back to RAM, do the antialiasing, and then display it again on the 3dfx card. As you can see, you could have displayed another frame in between if you were not doing antialiasing. All in all, more corect way of saying it is "that anialiasing is not feasable on 3dfx). Damn shame, if you ask me. Regards, David Mocnay ps. TR 2 does not have antiasing. Maybe you mean 'bilinear filtering". Antialising concorns blending of the edges, while "bilinear filtering" has to do with blending of the inside of the polygon.

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>Papyrus is not too far off when they say 3dfx can't do antialiasing. It can do >it, but your framerate will practically half (if not even more). Unlike >Rendition cards, 3dfx cards do not have a secondary video buffer (this is >where the the programmers would do the antialiasing). What you have to do with >the 3dfx in order to antialias is display your image (with no antialising), >then read it back to RAM, do the antialiasing, and then display it again on >the 3dfx card. As you can see, you could have displayed another frame in >between if you were not doing antialiasing. >All in all, more corect way of saying it is "that anialiasing is not feasable >on 3dfx). Damn shame, if you ask me.

While you're correct about AA requiring an extra pass on 3Dfx cards, a Voodoo 2 should have enough muscle to handle it at 640x480 and still give good frame rates. Most people would probably prefer running at higher resolution, so I can understand Papy's decision not to code it. Dunno about TR2, but the later 3Dfx patches for Tomb Raider 1 do indeed support edge antialiasing. Improved the look of things quite a bit (except for an occasional artifact white line around Laura's left pistol), but it significantly hurt frame rate. Of course, that was almost two years ago; with a modern CPU the game would stay locked at 30 fps (its limit) even with AA on. I should go back and finish that game one of these days... -- spamgard(tm): To email me, put "geek" in your Subject line.

Well if you want to get picky, bi-linear filtering is a type of texture antialiasing. The antialiasing that helps to eliminate jagged edges is edge antialiasing. While full-scene antialiasing does everything. - Eric

I have a voodoo two, and in the game you cannot select antialias but in my player.ini there is a "1" after antialias. According to the other graphic options this means it is on, correct? If so, Is it on or off, or is it just bilinear filtering automatically selected as antialias?

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>Well if you want to get picky, bi-linear filtering is a type of >texture antialiasing. The antialiasing that helps to eliminate jagged >edges is edge antialiasing. While full-scene antialiasing does >everything. >- Eric >>ps. TR 2 does not have antiasing. Maybe you mean 'bilinear >filtering". >>Antialising concorns blending of the edges, while "bilinear >filtering" has to >>do with blending of the inside of the polygon.

Edge antialiasing is not supported in either the 3Dfx or software rasterizers regardless of what value is placed in the player.ini. - Eric