UT/S3TC/OpenGL/Windows support now available!!

[BenSkywalker]

Props to Auric who posted this thread over in the Video forum. This link has the information on how to do it, you must be running version 4.02 for it to work.

I threw up a few screenshots here, two of them comparing these shots from Sharky's, with another two from the Gothic level comparing compressed to non compressed images. I'll try and get some more up later. Does anyone have a Radeon or V5 that can give this a shot? Works perfectly on my GF DDR and imagine it should on a Radeon, though I'm not sure about V5 owners(wouldn't it be ironic if the 3dfx boards were the only ones that couldn't handle this).

Performance seems to be quite a bit better then D3D performance even with the HQ compressed textures enabled, though I need to find a bench to test that(anyone know where I can find EH1.dem to DL?) a bit more accurately. Also, none of the artifacts associated with Quake3 that I have been able to see, and I spent a decent amount of time looking for them which seems to idnicate that those are on the fly compression issues and not a problem with the entire S3TC OpenGL compression on the nV boards.

 

[Volenti]

Well I can confirm that it *doesn't* work with a V5, you just get a blank white colour where the S3TC textures should be, all though it is good for finding out what textures are S3TC or not...

Allthough that doesn't mean that it *can't* do it, 3dfx would be violating S3's patients it it did work in open GL...

 

[Jonny]

And opengl is dead.

 

[wake]

Those screenshots are very impressive!
How do they look in 32bit color?

Voodoo 5 doesn't support S3TC, it supports FXT1 instead.

 

[BenSkywalker]

wake-

"How do they look in 32bit color?"

They look quite a bit better in 32bit, but they look quite a bit better before they are compressed even in 16bit Some levels benefit heavily, while others the impact is minimal to hardly noticeable. Don't know when you checked the screens, I just added a second page right before you posted.

Volenti-

"Well I can confirm that it *doesn't* work with a V5, you just get a blank white colour where the S3TC textures should be, all though it is good for finding out what textures are S3TC or not..."

Curious, I had similar problems my first time through as I didn't add this-

MinLogTextureSize=0
MaxLogTextureSize=10
MaxLogUOverV=10
MaxLogVOverU=10
UseZTrick=0
UseMultiTexture=1
UsePalette=1
DoPrecache=1
ShareLists=1
AlwaysMipmap=1

section to the Unreal.ini file. Some of those aren't needed, but the MinLog/MaxLog settings have to be in there for at least GeForce boards or you get the same problems with missing/white textures. Did you look at the screenshots? Are those textures all missing?(the big box in particular, that one didn't display properly until I added the Min/Max settings but it did have a texture applied).

Any Radeon users around to try this out?? I have heard third hand reports that it works, just curious to see how well. Still trying to find a bench to compare, Rev's "Thunder" won't work.

 

[Leon]

Only few levels have compressed textures, from my experience. Looks neat though. Unfortunately, those levels that don't compress textures look blurry, because OpenGl option lacks "detail textures".

Leon

 

[BenSkywalker]

Leon-

The G400 supports S3TC? Or are you running a different board?? I have the Detail Textures option under OpenGL, though I haven't paid attention to if it does anything though(set to True). Editing the Unral.ini file gives you the option.

 

[Cheep]

Holy Nali Cow! This actually works! I thought this whole idea had died, considering that Epic said it would "never be done"! If it was this easy, why didn't they do it? There are TONS of nvidia users out there who have always wanted to see these extra textures.

One really cool thing is that now UT is playable under Win2000 for me! The stuttering that I got under D3D is gone. (Playing UT was really the only reason I kept WinMe around on my dual boot...)

Also, a question for you guys-- how do I adjust the brightness now? The slider in preferences doesn't work. Everything's darker than it was under D3D, and I wanna see the new textures in all their glory.

 

[LiekOMG]

Doesn't work on the v5???

<grumble>

 

[BenSkywalker]

Cheep-

&quot;Also, a question for you guys-- how do I adjust the brightness now? The slider in preferences doesn't work. Everything's darker than it was under D3D, and I wanna see the new textures in all their glory.&quot;

You can adjust the gamma and/or brightness in the display properties for your desktop before you start your game, or crank up the brightness on your monitor. Not the ideal situation, but until we get a more up to date patch it may be your best choice. It is also possible that some settings in the Unreal.ini file can be adjusted, they have gamma and brightness settings included, so perhaps tweaking those will solve the issue.

 

[Soccerman]

&quot;And opengl is dead.&quot;

ha! it's not dead, it's just not so popular.

why would 3dfx users even WANT this! LOL..

AFAIK, they already get these features (FXTC 32 bit) in UT so they don't lose anything.

I'm guessing that this might speed up the score on the Geforce, beucase it has T&amp;L?

 

[Cheep]

Uh, no dude. The reason to do all this ISN'T for speed... it's to see the super-detailed hi res textures on the 2nd CD of UT, which has been nothing but a frisbee for everybody but the select few with Savage3d cards (which are pretty crappy). I WOULD think that 3dfx users would want to see this stuff too.

 

[Soccerman]

Cheep.

you're saying that the DX vesion doesn't have support for texture compression (DXTC)? if that's so, then yeah I could understand why the V5 won't run with compressed textures unless you run this...

 

[Auric]

Glad it is working for some people. I found out about it at sdn.fgn. Hopefully the 428 renderer will be hacked soon since I will be retiring my Savage4 from the primary box soon. For those that did not know, the high resolution textures have always worked only via MeTaL on Savage3D, Savage4 and Savage2000.

You can see here that a even a crappy old old old Savage3D has the best quality compared to the latest cards:

UT comparision

Even my S4 gets something like 45 FPS at 800x600 with everything on which is very smooth. Maybe Voodoo cards using Glide can run it faster but it is not any smoother and is low color and low res texture fugly. Now, it seems, a Geforce or Radeon will be the ticket to having it all. Yeehaw.

 

[bauerbrazil]

^BUMP, everybody try this and tell us how good is this

 

[Volenti]

No, I didn't use those, allthough I do think it would have to be enabled in the V5 drivers for it to work anyway, I've since deleted that UT install though.

I'm glad that at least some people can enjoy good performance+great visuals in UT now.

 

[Pocatello]

I thought the V5 has S3TC and DXTC support.

 

[dawks]

OpenGL is dead? Huh? How so? Heh..

 

[BenSkywalker]

&quot;I thought the V5 has S3TC and DXTC support.

DXTC yes, no S3TC unless they have licensed it from S3 recently. In terms of hardware, DXTC and S3TC are identical so that isn't an issue, but 3dfx likely lacks the cash right now to pay S3.

 

[dawks]

3dfx also developed FXTC, which is used in DirectX as DXTC, so maybe they wanna use something they developed exclusivly. They have to follow &quot;we developed it, it has to be better&quot; rule of business.

 

[Pocatello]

Dang! Those shots look very good.

 

[Soccerman]

FXTC can also be used in place of S3TC in openGL games. Quake 3 is a perfect example of that.

 

[bauerbrazil]

I tried this but i got a white screen and an illegal operation

 

[dawks]

Ok Soccerman.. Im confused now..

FXTC (DXTC) works in D3D games.
FXTC (DXTC) works in OpenGL games.
S3TC works in OpenGL games.

Thats how it works?

 

[jpprod]

Sigh, let's explain the whole DXTC <=> S3TC <=> FXTC issue once again

• S3TC and DXTC are technically the same. Both define the exactly same algorithm for realtime displaying of compressed textures. Microsoft licensed S3TC from S3 and integrated it into DirectX, hence DXTC is a part of DirectX and any 3D hardware manufacturer may implement support for it.
• S3 still holds rights to S3TC under all other APIs, and if hardware manufacturer wishes to support it, it must be licensed. Nvidia and ATi have a license, 3dfx does not - thus Voodoo5 doesn't fully support S3TC under OpenGL.
• Quake III uses OpenGL video card driver via extension GL_S3_S3TC to compress it's uncompressed textures while level load. Thus it does not have know what texture format is being used internally by video card and driver, and 3dfx can emulate GL_S3_S3TC extension by using FXTC as compression format.

And as for UT, it ships with pre-compressed S3TC textures. It uses GL_S3_S3TC only to display already existing compressed texture data, created in the development process. This is why V5 does not work in UT with the new S3TC OpenGL hack while Q3/TC works just fine.

[edit] typos. For hasty posters like myself, we really need an &quot;edit&quot; tag like this which would put the text somewhere within the &quot;this message has been edited&quot; line [/edit]