Should I use Glide or D3D to play Half Life and other games? (Never had an NVidia card before)

[MichaelD]

Every time I try to shut up, I come up with more questions.

Well, last night, I played my first game on my new system. Loaded up half life. Went to the Video options tab where you pick screen res and decoding (right term?) software. Hmm. Glide or D3D? When you choose Glide, it says "if you are running a Voodoo, use the 3DFX mini driver. I didn't know if using that driver with a non-Voodoo card would smoke the card, but I tried it anyway. It was OK. I tried the other driver, the D3D or whatever it's called. It looked ok. My framerates seemed slower than with my trusty Voodoo 3000 PCI from my old system.

I have a CL Blaster Anahilator Geforce 2. I haven't tweaked a single thing on it, so I'm not passing my opinion of the card yet. I'm just curious which software I should use? Any other comments about how to set up this AGP card would be appreciated. About the only thing I've done is disable V-sync, palette snoop and enabled 4x AGP. Thanks.

 

[Wingznut]

You can't run Glide on anything but a 3dfx video card.

 

[Viper GTS]

You can't run Glide on anything but a 3dfx video card.

Not entirely true, a Glide wrapper would allow it.

Viper GTS

 

[Wingznut]

Fine, get technical on me!

I'm gonna go out on a limb, and say that he's not using a wrapper, nor has any intentions of doing so.

 

[DRGrim]

Any game that uses the Quake engines, you should use Open GL

 

[MichaelD]

I've no idea what a wrapper is, used in this context...in another context, that's an entirely different matter! Anyway. The only options that Half Life gives you is Glide or Direct 3D..is Direct3d the same thing as Open GL?

 

[Pearman]

Possibly reason framerates are slow is because you enabled that 4x thing. I dont have an NVIDIA card, but Ive read the articles, and I think 4x makes the graphics 4x sharper but also 4x slower. But dont trust me, read the sig.

 

[DRGrim]

Pearman, he was talking about 4x AGP, not anit-aliasing.

Half-Life certanly does have Open GL. I don't know why you can't see it.

If you don't have a Voodoo card, don't use Glide. If you cant see Open GL, then your only other option is D3D, so you have to use that.

 

[designgirl]

i would just say don't use glide. 3dfx is pretty much dead and glide is kind'a old tech if you ask me.

if you don't have 3dfx, then don't use glide.

 

[MichaelD]

Is OpenGL the same thing as Direct 3D?

 

[Viper GTS]

Is OpenGL the same thing as Direct 3D?

No, absolutely not.

Viper GTS

 

[Noriaki]

<< Is OpenGL the same thing as Direct 3D? >>

Is an Athlon the same thing as a P3? No..they accomplish more or less the same thing (though in slightly different ways) but they aren't the same. OGL and D3D are the two different &quot;Graphics Programming Languages&quot; that are widely used in games. Glide is another one, but until quite recently that was a 3dfx only one, and has been dieing out lately.

 

[MWink]

Well, if it was there I would say OpenGL. I have yet to see a system where Direct 3D ran Half Life faster than OpenGL. But if it is not there then I guess you have no choice.

 

[MichaelD]

I goofed. I said the wrong thing. I was thinking &quot;which driver&quot; but wound up typing &quot;which language&quot;.

I have Open GL in my Half Life (I know, everyone does) What I meant to ask was, do I still use the &quot;Mini3DFX driver&quot; or the &quot;default&quot;. Thanks.

 

[Maverick]

use the mini driver...otherwise it'll default to the Windows OpenGL driver and you'll be in Slideshow City.

 

[Wingznut]

Since you don't have a 3dfx card, using the 3dfx mini driver wouldn't make any sense.

Use the standard openGL driver.

 

[Zeeliv]

Shiva, the mini3dfx one is for *gasp* 3dfx cards. Seeing as how he has a GF2, the default driver is his best option (and it isn't some generic windows thing, it is whatever driver he has installed).

 

[RoboTECH]

omfg, I think I shall pull what little hair I have left right out of my head now

 

[Maverick]

Ok I'm retarded...I thought when he said he had glide on the computer I thought he had a 3dfx card. Now I see he's got a Geforce.

 

[Tonec]

minigl is for voodoo cards using older drivers. The past three updates support the default opengl option