OpenGL for Unreal v0.9

OpenGL for Unreal v0.9

Here is the OpenGL file for Unlreal to give your rendering OpenGL use in Unreal.

Release Notes for the OpenGL for Unreal v0.9

Authors: Keith Z. Leonard, Tom Holmes of DreamForge(R) Intertainment, Inc.

Date: 08/21/98

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PLEASE READ THE LIMITATIONS AND KNOWN BUG SECTION BEFORE REPORTING ANY

PROBLEMS. If you do encounter bugs, please e-mail info to

[email protected]

news://news.rendition.com/rendition.games.support.unreal

is a newgroup for bugs and problems encountered running Unreal on

Rendition hardware. I (Keith Leonard) will be periodically checking

the group to help resolve problems.

Or at Epic MegaGames try

http://megaboard.epicgames.com

for additional help.

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Install.

1. copy the ZIP file into your Unreal/system directory.

2. Decompress the zip.

3. Run glInst.bat

4. In the game, goto the options menu, under advanced options,

under drivers, GameRenderDevice, choose OpenGL for Windows.

That's it.

Note: If you have a rendition card, rename the included v2kgl.dll

to Opengl32.dll in your unreal/system directory. This beta requires

features that are in this version of Rendition's OpenGL that are not

yet included in their downloadable ICD.

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UnInstall.

Since this is a beta version it is very possible that you will encounter

problems, if you need to uninstall this driver, do the following.

1. In the game, goto the options menu, under advanced options,

under drivers, GameRenderDevice, choose Software Rendering.

2. Run glUninst.bat

that's it.

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Compatibility.

This version of the OpenGL for Unreal has been tested on many of the

OpenGL cards available to consumers. Some of these cards either lack

some of the functionality of OpenGL, or have rather slow drivers.

At this time there are only a couple of video cards that will run under

OpenGL correctly.

the Rendition v2100 and v2200 should work fine with the included OpenGL

driver. The Intel 740 chipset also runs well, however Intel has not made

their drivers public as of 8/21/98. A beta version of their driver is expected to be

released in the near future.

Chipsets that don't work, why, and their status as of 8/21/98 include:

Riva 128/Permedia 2 - Lack of the blend mode that Unreal uses for lighting.

We are working toward a secondary lighting model to get these

cards to run in OpenGL for Unreal.

3Dfx Voodoo/Voodoo 2/Banshee - These cards do not currently have a stable

OpenGL driver. The latest beta from 3Dfx should work but is

crash prone, especially with Multi-Texture enabled.

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Limitations and known bugs.

*****IMPORTANT*****

The display mode must be set to the same color depth in which you want to

run the game. Therefore for a card supporting 16 bit rendering, you must

have your windows desktop set to 16 bit color mode before running Unreal.

Cards supporting 32 bit color should run fine in 32 bit in Unreal, but the

performance hit will be noticeable.

Some resolutions listed may or may not work. A given resolution must be

supported by both your video card and monitor. Suggested resolution for

the Rendition and I740 cards is 512x384.

There are currently several Z-buffer errors, this is due to the way that

Unreal handles drawing the world. Cards with W buffering will not suffer

as many errors in the Unreal rendering architecture, such as the Voodoo

series. W buffering is not supported in this release, it is pending an

extension for OpenGL. As soon as an extension becomes available, a new

release of this driver will be released supporting it.

Occasionally we have seen the driver start up on Rendition hardware

missing textures all together, this only lasts for a few seconds, then

the driver corrects itself. This is a known problem on our list to

look into.

You will need the latest display drivers as well as the latest OpenGL

drivers for any video hardware to have the best chance of all of the

features of OpenGL necessary for Unreal to be supported. A Rendition

OpenGL driver is included, but you should use any update that Rendition

posts after the release of this driver instead.

Many of the current OpenGL drivers have a problem with repeated switching

from the OpenGL render to the software renderer and back. If a card

stop rendering in OpenGL after such a cycle, just close Unreal and run

it again.

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Performance.

OpenGL is what I like to call a "clean" API. Whenever you change a texture,

or rendering mode, OpenGL checks to see if the change is valid. This takes

time. Therefore the more often that you change textures or rendering modes,

the slower the application becomes. Unreal requires many state changes,

therefore it is unlikely that you will be hitting your hardware's drawing

limits when running Unreal. DreamForge has been, and will continue to work

toward eliminating any state changes that we can while retaining the visual

quality of Unreal.

It is possible to "tweak" unreal to obtain a faster performance. There are

several adjustable options in the Advanced Options property page under OpenGL.

Playing with these options may result in higher performance on different cards.

Note: Contrary to many assumptions, disabling 8 bit textures does NOT increase

image quality in Unreal. So in general, you will want to leave the options

UseEightBitRGBTextures and UseEightBitAlphaTextures set to true. These options

are only in the property page in the event that an OpenGL driver reports support

for 8 bit textures, but does not draw them correctly. If your system seems to

be drawing incorrectly, try setting these to false.

We thank you for your patience and understanding, understand that this is a beta

and will likely have problems. We have been working toward eliminating as many

as possible. This port is aimed at making your Unreal experience even better.

Keith Z. Leonard

Tom Holmes

DreamForge(R) Intertainment, Inc.