M1 Tank Platoon II

[Polak2]

I remember I had 2 Voodoo cards and SLI. What I do not remember what happened to that computer and the other thing is which of the cards the video cord is attached to? It does not matter or it does matter?

[RetroGamer]

Originally Posted by Polak2

I remember I had 2 Voodoo cards and SLI. What I do not remember what happened to that computer and the other thing is which of the cards the video cord is attached to? It does not matter or it does matter?

Copy that. I missed that entire era of 3dfx. I was using computers but the games I was into weren’t 3D accelerated.

This is all new to me and I’m having a lot of fun with it. After some research, I came up with the photos below. I suspect it does matter how everything is connected.

I learned that if a program or benchmark isn’t written for 3dfx, SLI will make no difference. If it is, it’s fantastic! I replayed Star Wars Racer (the kids and I played that in 1999), and that game looks unbelievable!

M1TP2 looks great too. I think I’ve gotten it running the best I can. All that’s left is to install the game patches. One of them, I remember smooths out the CITV engagement function and makes it less jerky.







I’m working on getting Fraps and a USB drive working with this legacy rig. I might set up a dedicated YouTube channel just for M1TP2 gameplay. There are other videos out there but the demonstrators usually don’t really know how to play and it’s kind of annoying.

I gotta show everybody what this game can do!!!!

[Polak2]

All looks as per the schematic.
The main card is Matrox. Do you have all the best drivers for all that?

[RetroGamer]

Originally Posted by Polak2

All looks as per the schematic.
The main card is Matrox. Do you have all the best drivers for all that?

Oh, those photos are images I pulled from the internet during my research.

My main card is an onboard 8MB ATI Rage 3D Pro (reported by Windows). The BIOS sees it as an ATI MACH 64. When I first refurbished this PC, I used the latest (wrong) drivers for the onboard video and it ran all 3DMark tests slow. I tracked down the drivers that an Aptiva E530 came with and those run all three 3DMark Win98 tests (99, 2000, & 2001) a lot faster even though those driver were older.

Short answer: Yes, I believe I have the best drivers available for onboard video.

As you can see, it’s a pretty basic, old PC (formerly in used by an accountant)

[RetroGamer]

In case anybody is wondering….PCI slot #1 is completely useless! It is blocked by the big green capacitors and heat sinks!!

The only card that could go in there is one of those odd shaped ones - those are typically sound cards. Upon further inspection - no card can fit there.

I don’t think there are any more video upgrades physically possible. There’s just no room. I’m happy onboard video is passable. I’m also lucky that the onboard sound card has DOS drivers for MS-DOS mode. There’s just no more room for anything else in the case.

[Polak2]

Here is our 1st potential "homework" in trying to remove some bugs or odd behavior in M1TP2.

Problem:
Vehicles sometimes collide when spawned.

Video:
collision


no collision


Possible solution ...TBC and edited in this post.

[RetroGamer]

I gave the 3dfx-enabled IBM Aptiva a break and took out a different Win98 PC to try M1TP2 on.

Absolute fail using a GeForce 3 Ti200 AGP card with 128MB video RAM. If I disable 3D acceleration, it plays in software mode but that stinks!

I even tried an older GeForce 2 AGP card, same result. Videos play but the game crashes or locks up at the 1st screen.

I updated M1TP2, disabled the 3D acceleration, setup D3D in the configuration, and tried again with 3D acceleration enabled. It did not work.

The PC I’m using is an old dell running Win98 at 1.8 GHz. I would’ve liked to see the performance with those specs but nope.

Does anybody know which direct 3D cards work with M1TP2? I’m not opposed to buying a card known to work with the game.

As far as correcting gameplay - you guys are way ahead of me. I’m still learning how to play it!!