[Mr_Blastman]

Well, after beating this game years ago I figured I'd give it another try.  Since then I've upgraded my computer a good bit (though by modern standards it is still lacking)

I am getting pixelated graphics - i.e. the blockyness is not being blended together (this is not an antialiasing issue - this is another type of problem and I forget what it is called - think quake 1 vs. quake 2 - quake 1 had blocky non 3d-accel graphics - but if you ran it with glide the blockyness went away - like if you get close to something you see blending rather than individual texture blocks)

Anyways, this was never an issue when I played this when the game first came out - but it is now, and I can't figure out how to make it go away.

I have a Geforce 4 TI 4600 card + 1 Gig of RAM running Windows XP and have the latest Direct X 9 Build

I'm also running the latest NVIDIA drivers for my card - my processor is an Athlon XP

Any ideas?  Is there a command line to fix this?  The game will only let me run in Direct 3d, how do I force Glide mode?

[Wanderer]

Are you running FS2 vanilla or with the SCP? Vanilla doesnt use anything else than DX. If you are using SCP, run the launcher and go to video tab.

[Mr_Blastman]

I'm running Freespace 2 vanilla - no mods or anything with v 1.2 patch.

[karajorma]

You could try going to the SCP forum and seeing if FS2_Open cures your problem. A guide on how to do that can be found in my FAQ.

[Charismatic]

from the beamer

[Carl]

I am getting pixelated graphics - i.e. the blockyness is not being blended together (this is not an antialiasing issue - this is another type of problem and I forget what it is called - think quake 1 vs. quake 2 - quake 1 had blocky non 3d-accel graphics - but if you ran it with glide the blockyness went away - like if you get close to something you see blending rather than individual texture blocks)

I think you maybe be talking about texture filtering. i don't know why a newer card would have that problem.

[Nix]

Yes, try running FSO with your build, because you'll be able to use OpenGL.  You'd never run Glide on an nVidia card, because IIRC, Glide was exclusive to the 3DFX cards.  I had one of those, a TI4400, and in order for anything Glide to work on the nvidia card, I had to use a wrapper in order for it to go, but it was extremely slow.  FSO would be a better place to start.

[Mr_Blastman]

I don't know why I called it Glide - I must of just finished Longbow 2 using dgvoodoo's glide wrapper, doh.  I meant to say Open GL.  I installed the SCP mods last night - 3.6.7 (I couldn't get the 3.6.8 beta working - all sorts of errors - but I did finish downloading that massive 1.7 gig full install that was on the main page of this site - just have not installed that yet since I have the original CD's I play the game with - will try later).

3.6.7 runs very smoothly so far - though that asteroid base on the 2nd mission still looks chunky - the shine maps and other light sourcing on the ships looks really impressive.  One problem I did notice was the incredibly long load time on the campaign mission briefing screen (this only takes a long time the first time I enter this screen when running the game - every time thereafter while staying in the game goes pretty quickly).  I've got a 1900+ Athlon XP with 1 gig of ram and 7200 8 meg buffer HD's (yeah a few years old but still pretty quick for older games).

It must be called texture filtering - because with the SCP/FS Open mod the texture blockyness goes away and the translucency/smoothness is back like I remember it.  I notice that the lasers on that first fighter you fly aren't red anymore, they are a glowing blue - details I know but I loved the game the first time I played through it back in 199something.  FS 2 must of been defaulting to software mode for some weird reason unless I run it with SCP.