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PODPlaying the Arcade track (with some work)(23 posts)(23 posts)
(23 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 06, 2012
As a longtime Poddie, I remember downloading and trying various custom tracks off Qball's website - the most memorable of all was Arcade - perhaps owing to its sheer scope compared to any other tracks.

Unfortunately, as some of you will know, the 3DFX version of Pod simply will not load this track - I suspect this is due to its rather large triangle count at ~25,000. The largest track by triangle count that works with 3DFX Pod seems to be Slimepit (around 20k triangles).

In any case, I was determined to try and play this track again, so I set out to get a old PC going with Windows 98 and DirectX 8.1 (requirements for D3D5 install of Pod). After many hours, I have finally gotten to play this track again after so many years.


Anyway, on to the screenshots! I've made a small collection here: http://imgur.com/a/ImKgg

If it were possible, I would have recorded a video, sadly there do not appear to be any screen recording programs out there which support Windows 98 any longer :/


-------------

For the curious, this is what I did to get this working:

Machine was an old AMD Athlon 700 with a 3d Prophet 4500 32MB card and 320MB of system memory.

I had Windows 98 and DirectX 8.1 installed, then used the original Pod CD in my possession to install the DirectX 3 version of Pod to the default location.

Then, using the patches available off the Ubisoft site, I upgraded Pod to the DirectX 5 release, and also applied the force feedback patch to fix the faulty CPU detect for the AMD processor.

Last was copying over my CDpatcher files and installing the stuff I wanted. (Note the DX5 version of Pod uses the BL4/BV4 track/car files).

The rest is history :)
Posted January 09, 2012
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amazoph: Unfortunately, as some of you will know, the 3DFX version of Pod simply will not load this track - I suspect this is due to its rather large triangle count at ~25,000. The largest track by triangle count that works with 3DFX Pod seems to be Slimepit (around 20k triangles).
What version did you try to play?

There are (at least) three versions around:
Arcade- (20 textures, 76 sectors) 4,702,208 bytes
Arcade (20 textures, 73 sectors) 5,210,112 bytes
Arcade+ (24 textures, 79 sectors) 5,832,704 bytes

Last but not least, the "full" arcade version (25 textures, 230 sectors) can be found on Skubidou's website.
Post edited September 11, 2013 by nicode
Posted January 11, 2012
Very impressive.
I never play arcade track. When I've got Pod, I've got a 3DFx with it.

I think I will try to mount a machine like yours.
Posted January 12, 2012
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amazoph: Unfortunately, as some of you will know, the 3DFX version of Pod simply will not load this track - I suspect this is due to its rather large triangle count at ~25,000. The largest track by triangle count that works with 3DFX Pod seems to be Slimepit (around 20k triangles).
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nicode: What version did you try to play?

There are (at least) three versions around:
Arcade- (arcade_bl4_16) 4,702,208 bytes
Arcade (arcade_bl4_21) 5,210,112 bytes
Arcade+ (arcade_bl4_24) 5,832,704 bytes

Last but not least, the full arcade version (modified to work with Sik's BL4Viewer) can be found on Skubidou's website.
The versions I tried on 3DFX Pod with dgVoodoo were 'Arcade-' and 'Arcade'. I believe that the machine with the D3D5 install is using the Arcade track.
As far as I know, none of the above versions work with 3DFX Pod, whether it is using native or emulated Glide.
Posted February 25, 2012
I've only been able to find Arcade+ on the net these days and want to mess around with this a bit. Does anyone have a copy/location of Arcade and Arcade-?

EDIT: Derp, nevermind - found them all here: http://witnessteam.free.fr/downloads/skins/
Post edited February 25, 2012 by hiho0140
Posted March 12, 2012
I don't actually remember having any issues running this track on my 3dfx install last time I tried, which was about a year ago. Was running Win7 at the time, and I distinctly remember accidentally slowing down too much and falling off that insane horizontal loop thingy.

Edit: Wait, was that even Arcade that had that? I Know that the screenshots look incredibly familiar, but I think I might be thinking of another track.
Post edited March 12, 2012 by Glitchfinder
Posted March 31, 2012
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Glitchfinder: I don't actually remember having any issues running this track on my 3dfx install last time I tried, which was about a year ago. Was running Win7 at the time, and I distinctly remember accidentally slowing down too much and falling off that insane horizontal loop thingy.

Edit: Wait, was that even Arcade that had that? I Know that the screenshots look incredibly familiar, but I think I might be thinking of another track.
That sounds like Skyrace to me - they do look quite similar at some points :)
Posted November 02, 2012
PodHacks 3.8 fixes the texture loading in the D3D5 version of POD.

Now you can play the Arcade track on current Windows versions.

Please note that the CDPatcher might not know the podd3d5x.exe/wpodd3d5.exe and might try to install BL3/BV3 files.
Put a (backup of your) podx3dfx.exe in the POD directory to enable BL4/BV4 in the CDPatcher.
Posted September 02, 2013
Interesting read about "POD Arcade" in the Undumped Wiki at emulab.it
http://mamedev.emulab.it/undumped/index.php?title=POD_Arcade
Posted September 09, 2013
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nicode: PodHacks 3.8 fixes the texture loading in the D3D5 version of POD.

Now you can play the Arcade track on current Windows versions.

Please note that the CDPatcher might not know the podd3d5x.exe/wpodd3d5.exe and might try to install BL3/BV3 files.
Put a (backup of your) podx3dfx.exe in the POD directory to enable BL4/BV4 in the CDPatcher.
Which version of podd3d5x.exe are you using?
the GS2 version?
Whatever I do, pod failed to launch with this one.
Posted September 10, 2013
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SkipCool: Which version of podd3d5x.exe are you using?
the GS2 version?
Whatever I do, pod failed to launch with this one.
In the past I used the GS2 version with PodHacks to test the Arcade[-|+] track.

Setup:
1) install POD Gold (GOG.com)
2) extract the GS2 D3D5 patch into the game folder
3) install PodHacks and enable it for both EXEs
4) create a %windir%\UbiSoft\ubi.ini
5) download the [url=ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/CDPatcher/cdpatcher2.zip]POD Data Patcher[/url] and enable Windows 95 compatibility mode for the CDPatcher
6) install Arcade+ track

Tested today:
A) Wine 1.4 - no problems
B) VMware Player 5.0.2 - crash on start
C) Windows 7 - garbage logos/video/menu but playable (selected track with 3Dfx version, started D3D5 version, moved mouse to the upper left corner to avoid selecting menu buttons, "blindly" entered the game with keyboard)

It might be easier to hack the 3Dfx version to support the Arcade track than patching the D3D5 version to work with Windows 7. However, it might be a simple problem (e.g. memory override while enumerating display devices/resolutions and/or input devices) that breaks the D3D5 version on your system.
Post edited September 10, 2013 by nicode
Posted September 10, 2013
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nicode: It might be easier to hack the 3Dfx version to support the Arcade track [...]
Open the PODX3Dfx.exe in a hex editor, search for the byte sequence BA 10 00 18 00, change it to BA 10 C8 20 00, and you can play the Arcade[-] track with the 3Dfx version :-)

The Arcade tracks have too many textures for the 3Dfx version. The textures are wrong or missing (there is a "dark" passage on Arcade+). However, you can at least play the track.
Post edited September 11, 2013 by nicode
Posted September 13, 2013
Thanks for your answer ;
Unfortunately it doesn't help me ;
I've try to reinstall pod + D3D5 GS2 patch like your setup but it doesnot work;

I've also try with the 3DFx version but I obtain nothing more than an error message when launching arcade [-].

Thanks again for your support.
Posted September 16, 2013
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SkipCool: I've try to reinstall pod + D3D5 GS2 patch like your setup but it doesnot work;
Please be more specific about "doesn't work" :)


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SkipCool: I've also try with the 3DFx version but I obtain nothing more than an error message when launching arcade [-].
Game or Windows error message?
Any exception address or detailed information?

POD has some potential compatibility issues (fixed-sized lists for callbacks that might be too small). However, since they never happened to raise problems on my test systems, I didn't spent time on creating fixes yet...
Posted September 16, 2013
Yep, sorry for the lack of details ;

It's a basic windows app crash message. It appears only when launching arcade.
In windows log, I've got this (sorry, don't know how to launch it in english :( )

Nom de l’application défaillante PODX3Dfx.exe, version : 2.2.8.1, horodatage : 0x345274bf
Nom du module défaillant : glide2x.dll, version : 1.0.0.0, horodatage : 0x4dcd896f
Code d’exception : 0xc0000005
Décalage d’erreur : 0x00003460
ID du processus défaillant : 0x1740
Heure de début de l’application défaillante : 0x01ceb30024d7eafe
Chemin d’accès de l’application défaillante : C:\Jeux\POD GOLD\PODX3Dfx.exe
Chemin d’accès du module défaillant: C:\Jeux\POD GOLD\glide2x.dll
ID de rapport : 6e5daf41-1ef3-11e3-b09f-685d43daaf42

It seems something's gone wrong with the glide wrapper from gog. I will try with others wrappers
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Community
PODPlaying the Arcade track (with some work)(23 posts)(23 posts)
(23 posts)