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[Booch]

Ok, so here is the deal, I have a Panasonic CF-M34 (PIII 700Mhz/256Mb) laptop which has no built-in 3D acceleration (Lynx EM+ 4Mb). I love this little laptop because of it's small size and ruggedness (8.4" screen and solid magnesium case). I know it will never play Halo, but it works great with older games. Red Alert 2, Half-Life, Diablo 2 all work well on it.

I've been trying to get Freespace 2 to run on it and have actually got it to function using the eVoodoo glide wrapper. The problem is that it is EXTREMELY slow. Freespace 2 only requires a 200Mhz Pentium, but it does require Direct3D or Glide. I figured that a Pentium III 700 should be able to run the wrapper fast enough, but it doesn't seem to. I wonder if maybe eVoodoo is using RGB emulation instead of Ramp emulation in Direct3D? What are the minimum specs for adequate performance given no 3D acceleration at all? Any ideas on this? Anything I can do to improve performance? The renderering quality is actually quite good, but just to slow to be playable.

[edited]

I should add that I was using eVoodoo XP 3.2 and was getting good rendering with slow framerates. I tried eVoodoo 4 and got slightly better performance (still not playable) but all the models were distorted.

[Doomulation]

Ever tried RGB emulation in some software? If you have, then you'd know how slow it can be! :P
Anyway, I don't think you will ever get fullspeed without any sort of 3d acceleration. Talk about ancient machine, really.

[Booch]

Ever tried RGB emulation in some software?
That is my guess as to what is happening, but is there anyway to force it to use Ramp emulation instead? eVoodoo 4 was faster than eVoodoo XP 3.2, so maybe ver 4 was using Ramp. I don't know.

Talk about ancient machine, really.
It's not really that ancient. It's just purpose built as a true ultra-portable. Mine is 700Mhz, the brand new ones are running 933Mhz. The machine is targeted towards military/industry/healthcare. It's small, light, nearly unbreakable, battery life lasts all day, and it runs full WinXP. It blows the doors off of any Win CE machine and is nearly as small. It's about the size of a portable DVD player. In fact, I use one of the DVD player cases as a laptop case for it. Newer models have built-in GPS and daylight readable displays.

I know the specs are low, but this same machine can render Half-Life more than adequately (with the high-definition pack). Freespace 2 is much less intensive than Half-Life. It's odd to me that the more demanding game can work so well and the less demanding game runs at a snails pace.

[ScottJC]

Your forgetting the fact that Evoodoo is an emulation of Glide, that means it will ALWAYS be requiring some speed in the CPU department, also, evoodoo is designed for the n64 plugin like Glide64 mostly.

My machine may be the size of a tank but it is 2000Mhz, i'd rather have that over a small slow-as-a-snail small pc, if ye want a small pc, buy a Shuttle pc, their small, and you can upgrade them.

[rcgamer]

you can try zeckersnacks glide wrapper, its more for old glide games. http://home.t-online.de/home/zsack/glide_wrapper/

[Booch]

you can try zeckersnacks glide wrapper, its more for old glide games. http://home.t-online.de/home/zsack/glide_wrapper/
Thanks, I'll give that one a try.

[Booch]

My machine may be the size of a tank but it is 2000Mhz, i'd rather have that over a small slow-as-a-snail small pc, if ye want a small pc, buy a Shuttle pc, their small, and you can upgrade them.
I think you're missing the point. I have a nice desktop and it plays all the newest games really well. I use this tiny laptop the way most people use iPaqs and for that purpose it rocks. Even old PC games blow the doors off of the games available for Pocket PCs. A Shuttle PC isn't even a laptop, it's just a smallish desktop that requires AC current and has no battery or built-in screen. How am I going to use that in a car?