Game looks pixelated

[Yerdy]

I have a Voodoo3 2000 graphics card and was wondering why my Age of Empires game looks so pixelated. I there something I need to do to get it to look smoother? Or am I at the limitations of the graphics card. I have a KDS Avitron 195tf monitor. Do I need to set the resolution to a specific setting before starting up the game?

Thanks for any help

 

[Jugernot]

Its not your video card, its the game programming. AOE doesn't use 3d acceleration, rather software rendering which shows pixels.

 

[Moonbender]

The higher the resolution, the smaller the pixels. This is true for 2d and 3d, for hardware and software. So if there isn't some driver issue or a bug, then setting the resolution higher should make it less pixelated, although everything gets smaller (in 2D games, that is).

"AOE doesn't use 3d acceleration, rather software rendering which shows pixels."

Maybe I don't understand you correctly, but everything on the computer shows pixels, simply because of the way displays work.

 

[BFG10K]

Maybe I don't understand you correctly, but everything on the computer shows pixels, simply because of the way displays work.

No, that's one of the good things about 3D accelerators and the thing you immediately notice when switching to them. Using bilinear filtering and sub-texel and sub-pixel accuracy, the pixels just disappear when rendered through 3D.

Look at a wall in software Quake and then look at the same wall in GLQuake (at the same resolution). The pixels have disappeared and the wall is cleanly rendered.

 

[Jugernot]

BFG10K, exactly!

 

[Moonbender]

Um ... no? If you chose a resolution of, say, 800 x 600 then you can see 800 x 600 pixels on the screen. If you set the game res to 400 x 300 (I just did - yuck!) then it's as pixalated as it gets. This ought to be obvious, so I think we're talking about different things. Of course, I can upload some screens (3dfx Mini GL, Banshee, 400x300) ...

Something just came to my mind - are you talking about texture blurring? The stretched textures are blurred after stretching them, I think - but still the overall screen is "pixelated" (if you can say so in high resolutions).