I don't get it, why has GOG decided to use Glide emulation as default, over out of the box supported D3D ? Makes no sense. Glide is slow and view distance is pathetic with that fog. Not to mention how bad the game looks like despite using 4x FSAA and 16x AF.

I used to have a really old pirated version of Carmageddon 2 and have decided to buy GOG version instead to go legit, just to be greatly disappointed by performance and the looks of the game. It's so bad i'm thinking of doing a refund, because this thing is pretty much unusable.

I've tried selecting D3D though the launcher, but the game just crashes, unlike the pirated one which seems to be pretty happy with D3D... but you know, i'd like to play the real deal instead, not the pirated one...

I suggest that you read the GOG site policies:
http://www.gog.com/support/policies/terms_of_use

Take particular note to the section titled Refund Policy:

You can cancel a preorder and receive a full refund if you request this before the preordered game's release. The refund request becomes invalid if you attempted to download the game, or its bonus content.

You can request a replacement game of equal or lower value (for games purchased during discounts, the discounted price applies) if the request is made within 7 days after purchase, and you have not attempted to download the game or its bonus content.

A sale is considered final after 7 days after purchase, or when you make a download attempt for a game or its bonus content.



So as you've downloaded the game there is no refund. This is a necessary requirement for GOG as the games are DRM free. If they were to allow refunds there would be nothing stopping people from downloading the game and then getting a refund whilst keeping the installer.

Anyway, what resolution does the D3D version play at? Using nglide (which it comes with) you can run it at native monitor resolution. I run Carmageddon 2 at 1680x1050 because of nglide. As for draw distance, that is a setting in the DATA/OPTIONS.TXT file. See this thread:

http://www.gog.com/forum/carmageddon_series/carmageddon_2_increasing_draw_distance



Take a look at this for some D3D/3DFX comparison. D3D is locked to 640x480, whilst glide wrapper allows higher resolutions. It then shows the draw distance being increased whilst using the glide wrapper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLXgOVimuzs

How on Earth am i suppose to know the game is half broken when i bought it based on experience from a version that i had? I've never asked for any refund (ever). But here i was really disapointed. Even pirated version worked and looked better :( And with high FSAA and AF it looked incredible even if it was just 640x480. This version with Glide looks horrible either way, even with FSAA and AF...

I'll try to make it work with D3D again somehow...

EDIT:
Stupid. This thing is hardcoded to use stupid Glide. WHY!? I've tried using the launcher and deleting all 3dfx related stuff and all it does is that it just crashes.

Are you using the nglide_config.exe to set up the glide wrapper before you play the game? The default nglide settings use the application set resolution, so up the resolution using the nglide config tool first, then launch the game.

As for D3D, being an old game it will use different DirectX libraries to those present as standard in Vista, 7 and 8. Have you installed the latest DirectX 9c? Get the redistributable or use the Microsoft Web Installer to get all the missing DirectX 9 files and then give it a try.

Seems an odd experience. For games that old with 3d acceleration, generally glide offers both better graphics and performance. I'm pretty sure glide had better quality textures and was faster.

I'm trying to get the (CD ver) game running on my netbook.

It is indeed a LOT faster under D3D than any glide wrapper I've found. Sadly it's also impossible (for me anyway) to get sound working in D3D mode - using the launcher kills the sound, launching the exe directly solves the sound problem but introduces a major crash bug. *sigh*

Have you applied the v2 superpatch? That fixes a few things.

The D3D mode hasn't been touched and it's still there. GOG only hacked the music playback back in and that's all.
They decided to use the Glide API because it's the most compatible one, D3D tends to crash on most modern systems. Glide is also the only way to get higher resolutions. Finally, in C2 Glide mode supports texture sizes up to 256x256, while D3D shrinks anything bigger to 128x128.
About fog and view distance, that's not really related to the rendering modes. As written above, just make sure the ingame menu options are maxed out, and you can also edit the Yon value in OPTIONS.TXT. (changing the ingame options afterward would reset the manual editing)

Users should avoid the launcher (carma2.exe) at all costs. Launching CARMA2_HW.EXE will run the game automatically in Glide mode. Creating a shortcut or .bat file to run it with the -d3d parameter will launch the game in D3D mode (it has always been like that). Setting CARMA2_HW.EXE compatibility to run as admin, as if under Windows XP SP2 will help run it in D3D mode. Making sure it uses the right graphic card will help too (read below).

If you have performance issues, you'll first have to check that CARMA2_HW.EXE is set to use your high performance graphic card and not an integrated one. This can be done from the nVidia configuration panel or the AMD counterpart.
If it doesn't help enough, replacing nGlide by dgVoodoo 1.50 should bring some improvement as well.

Just tried the v2 'superpatch' - results were almost exactly the same as my own hack-job. D3D crashes instantly unless triggered from the launcher (which disables the sound), Glide is treacle-slow and equally silent. Use of any compatibility settings prevents it from launching at all.

I get the feeling it just isn't going to work for me :(

+Kudos to those that tried to help though, thanks guys.

Brovillor: Read what I wrote!

I did, the command line settings result in the same problems as using the launcher. Thanks for the pointer though.

Don't worry about it, I've given up. I don't think there's a way to make this run acceptably on Intel GMA.

To be honest the game doesn't run even decently on D3D rendering anyways.Doesn't even support High Resolutions when I tried YEARS ago.You'd be better off running in software mode in 640x480 res.And to be very blunt,the game is a LOT more stable running with nGlide anyways.

THIS

Nonsense. I've played the game on and on with D3D across several OS-es and it worked far better than this forced Glide nonsese which is slow and looks just as bad. Before i could force 24x FSAA and 16x AF and the game looked perfectly fine, yet it was still running with like 500 fps. Now it's just slow even without any FSAA...