Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

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Chupacabra
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Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by Chupacabra »

Three years ago I gave up on Trespasser due to my over editing of many aspects including the retail levels and other "I Wouldn't Touch That" items. I ended up rendering the game completely unplayable even after deletion and reinstallation as a result. Why that was, I had no clue as everything I had done was wiped out before the reinstall. Anyhow, I decided today to attempt to try again three years later.

After the CD copying, installing, patching, and ATXing, my Trespasser is actually working, except for one very annoying thing. The FPS in Hardware Mode is complete crap even on the lowest Draw Distance and Quality, whereas, it runs completely fine in Software Mode. My computer is running Windows Vista with more than adequate specs for a 1998 game. I was wondering if anyone had any insight as to why this is. I don't mind playing in Software mode mind you, it's just much prettier the other way :)

Also, I apologize if this was covered in the past three years, as I have said, I haven't been around, so bear with me while I get back into the swing.
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by awesome24712 »

Everyone's PC is different, and Tres doesn't agree with all of them. The main reason people use Hardware mode is:

1. Textures a slightly blurred (and look more natural thus)
2. Better fog
3. Only hardware mode can render 24-bit texture sin custom levels.
5. Less bugs

Although Software mode has more bugs, overall it is less likely to crash.
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by machf »

Why is your computer running Vista?

My first suspect: lousy Vista-provided graphics drivers. Get the card manufacturer's official ones instead. (Software mode isn't affected because it doesn't use them at all.)
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by RexHunter99 »

Software vs Hardware, Software wins hands down on both my machines, then again I have i7 processors and an AMD FX 8350 8-core...
The developers have repeatedly told us that the Software renderer is superior anyway
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by mleise »

I've had similar results with an old Starship Troopers game. The way games talk to the hardware through DirectX has changed radically and these old games begin to be more and more emulated instead of run with the best possible hardware support.

Three changes I can imagine to affect performance:
  • Early 3D hardware rendered triangles after the game made 3 function calls to set up the corners of said triangle. Video memory was used only as the place to render the screen to and for textures. Later entire models could also uploaded to video memory and can be rendered and lit in a single function call. Since function calls that involve the hardware are very expensive, this is much faster with the high polygon counts today and has made the old technique obsolete.
  • Rendering without pixel shaders (aka "fixed function") might be another item on the list that only has legacy support now.
  • Trespasser renders the terrain in hardware mode and the bump-mapped dinosaurs in software mode. Maybe this two-pass rendering got slower or there are more modern ways to do it. (I know at least one game that draws shockwave flash content on top of a 3D scene.)
Software mode on the other hand is still fast thanks to how AMD designed the 64-bit CPUs to be fully backwards compatible and fast when running 32-bit programs.

If Trespasser was updated today, it would not use the two rendering steps since the dinosaurs can now be rendered by the hardware with pixel shaders and the rendering of objects in general would modernized a lot. You could expect much higher FPS.

P.S.: I just ran the 3DMark 99 Max Demo and got 80 FPS for the first-person shooter scene (Vista, 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, nVidia Geforce 8600M GT). An overclocked TNT1 with a Pentium II 450 Mhz was able to score 47 FPS already.
Maybe try this computer for Trespasser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi7t2LbwUnc
It runs WinXP and ATi hardware.
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by Chupacabra »

I see, thanks for the input guys, like I said, I don't really mind Software mode all that much I just prefer the game to look as good as it can while still being functional, but then again Trespasser loses it's nostalgia when not in Software mode so I have no real complaints :yes:

On a side note, the game crashed only once so far in Software mode and it was only because I have an addiction to the SPAS-12 and decided to go grab the two by the hidden valley in JR, upon which it promptly crashed, but that isn't the most stable of areas to begin with :no: and frankly there is no real point to going over there anyway :lol:
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by mleise »

Yeah I like the software mode as well since it now runs so smoothly (not even making use of multi-core CPUs :D ).
When you use ATX keep in mind that the extended view range may crash the game. One place where ATX crashed for me was the center of the basketball court. I think it was when the game tried to load the high detail version of the basketball. But it only bothered me because it was my first play through and I expected ATX to improve the game in every aspect.
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by Ray Arnold »

Trespasser looks more realistic in software-mode, everything looks washed out in hardware-mode with the exception of random bump-mapped objects. The software render is also faster, however, I often get blank random flickering polygons without textures, anyone know why and/or if it's possible to avoid it?
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Re: Hardware Mode vs Software Mode

Post by mleise »

The display quality of software renderers is usually not affected by new hardware or operating systems. What you see has likely been bothering people 15 years ago and there is nothing you can do other than change the source code.
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