FSAA for Diablo 2?

[Piano Man]

I have been playing Diablo 2 non-stop for about 2 days now. I have a voodoo2 in my system. When I go into the game it uses my voodoo card. Now doesn't this mean it is using the 3d part of any graphics card? Therefore, couldn't FSAA be enabled with cards such as the V5 and GTS? 640*480 is by far the biggest drawback to this game. Having FSAA would help alot. So is it possible?

 

[LXi]

FSAAing 2D graphics? Hm... Im not sure how that could be done.

 

[Crystal Bay]

Oh, it is a 2D game...

 

[JellyBaby]

The other case where 3dfx's fsaa doesn't work is in full-screen windowed 3d games. The only ones I know of are M$'s FS 2000 and FS 98 but I imagine it applies to all 3D-enabled games running in a window. Don't ask me why M$ is still using windowed mode for FS. GeForce's fsaa will work, though.

 

[Heifetz]

D2 is not a 2d game. You could use D3D as the render. So I think you could enable FSAA with it. I imagine it'll look wicked even at 640x480.

Heifetz

P.S. Can't wait until I receive my copy on the 6th. All I need now is a V5. Anyone want to let me borrow one?

 

[LXi]

Uh... I dont think so, they use DirectDraw as the renderer. D3D only comes in play for special effects like smoke, light and reflections and stuff. Yea, FSAAing those would look rather funny.

 

[Stottie]

Hmmm... Actually FSAA does have an effect in D2, and you can see the effect on static objects such as chests or various buildings and not just on spell effects, smoke, etc. I have a batch file in my Diablo folder with the following in it -

set fx_glide_aa_sample=4
set fx_glide_aa_toggle_key=144
game.exe

Running this batch file to start the game allows you to see the effect of FSAA by toggling it on and off with the Num Lock key. It doesn't have such a dramatic effect as say in Falcon 4, but it does IMHO make the game look better. It does nothing for the main character but the effects on other NPCs or static objects are definitely there.

 

[Kogan]

>set fx_glide_aa_sample=4
>set fx_glide_aa_toggle_key=144
>game.exe

Is making a fsaa key like this possible for geforce2 cards? I can't seem to tell a difference when fsaa is on or off in D2. Mabey gf2 cards can't do fsaa with D2..

 

[Deeko]

Well, since that's glide, no, but maybe if there was one for D3D.

 

[Prodigy^]

Crystal Bay, you might want to remove that huge number of empty lines in your signature 🙂

 

[Pocatello]

I think Diablo 2 has 3d support for spell effects, but the environment and the characters are in 2D. I'm not sure about this, but it looks like it.

 

[Stottie]

I'm afraid this batch file trick only works for glide with the V5, I cant get the corresponding commands for D3D to work in a batch file.

I know the buildings, enviroment etc are supposed to be 2D, but look at those edges - jaggies: and they disappear with FSAA (not sure why your main character is different to other NPCs?).

Can't comment on GeForce antialiasing with D2 - I returned it to get the V5 before Diablo came out.

 

[piku]

This will work.

Sure Diablo 2 uses 3D for spells and 2D for everything else, but in order to get one part 3D the entire thing has to be rendered in 3D. I dont think its possible to selectivly render a frame with part of it being 2D only and part of it being 3D only. So if FSAA is being applied to the 3D part it is going to effect the entire screen.

Of course I could be 100% wrong, but at least it SOUNDS good 😛

 

[JellyBaby]

FSAA will just blur the crap out of an already blurry game. I wouldn't bother. 🙂

I think I read Baldur's Gate 2, which'll be 800x600, uses OpenGL with the z-plane set to 0. So while technically rendered in 3D, it will of course be seen as a 2D isometric game. But here fsaa should be possible. Hopefully there won't be much blurring (as you might guess I hate fsaa's blurriness).

 

[Erasmus-X]

<< D2 is not a 2d game. >>



Diablo II is still utilizes an isometric 2D engine just like the original. For special on-screen effects, it can take advantage of a Glide or D3D accelerator. Blizzard has had somewhat of a history of making games that can run on a wide variety of machines. This means more people can play it and thus, more people will buy it.

Warcraft 3 will be Blizzard's first true 3D game.