Wirehead's Rush News

5/19/02: In case you haven't noticed, this page isn't updated anymore. But it's up for anybody who still has a Rush and does a web search on it.

8/25/98: Some interesting news: ELSA has acquired Hercules. here's the PR release

8/03/98: Updates are still sporadic, sory. We're working on the database engine and graphics for the new site.

The Stingray 128/3D will NOT coexist with other video cards. It does not support multimonitors under Windows 98. Check out the Hercules Win98 FAQ for details.

I upgraded to Win98 recently. The 1.33 drivers from Hercules seem to be working fine with it. And I haven't had the Netscape crashing problem. This is good because I just got a new Logitech mouse and I use the scrolling feature of it to zoom down through webpages.

DirectX 6 is out on Microsoft's Download site and it's out to manufacturers. That updater only works under Windows 95. Since my Win95 instilation is really screwed up right now, I'll have to wait until it is available under Windows Update.

7/16/98: Stolen from Voodoo Extreme:

There's a patch for Final Fantasy VII for the Rush. See the bottom of Eidos's Tech Page for the links to the drivers.

There's a 2073 build of the drivers out for the Adreneline Rush 3D. Check out the 2073 build. I should be able to get some profiles of it shortly.

Also, I forgot to thank (-= DrAGoN =-) for pointing the new Hercules drivers out to me. And it is official -- they do not crash.

7/08/98: Okay, It looks like I'm back to using a non hybrid build. The Hercules build seems to be working quite nicely, so I think I'll stick with that.

Also, for those of you who are looking at the Matrox G200, they are advertising now. In my July 6, 1998 issue of Information Week, Matrox is showing off their Matrox Millenium G200 card. Looks like it may be out pretty soon.

7/07/98: There's a reason for why there haven't been too many updates of late. We're going to be launching a newer and bigger and better site. I'm collecting a staff, getting graphics together, getting cards to review, creating the database, etc. Stay tuned for more details as the launch date approaches.

Hercules has posted version 1.33 of their drivers. This claims to be a 2072 release. From what I can tell, they did in a supported way what we've been doing all along with the hybrid builds. So I'm back to an officially released driver. I'll see how long I stay there.

6/07/98: Sory about the lack of news. I had to switch ISPs. Long story, but we're back up on a new server.

As far as the Unreal patch goes, I got an e-mail from Benjamin Hsu with some more details on the Rush patch.

I just downloaded the Unreal Beta 2.03, and gave it a run on the Hercules 128 3D/8mb. Unreal can now work in full screen mode with Rush acceleration. But there is a catch. In order to change full screen mode resolution, first you have to switch to windowed mode (all these options are under "audio/video"). Only in windowed mode can the resolution be successfully changed. Once you have changed to the desired resolution (the game runs pretty smooth on P200MMX, 640 x 480) in windowed mode, you need to toggle back to full screen mode. But as with before, Unreal will crash during the toggle. But don't worry, just restart Unreal and it should start in full screen mode under the desired resolution.

Voodoo Extreme posts that you can change resolutions by editing the unreal.ini file and changing the values of the [WinDrv.WindowsClient] section to

[WinDrv.WindowsClient] ViewportX=640 ViewportY=480

If you want to get ahold of the patch in question, download it from the Unreal website. One (-= DrAGoN =-) sent me the news first.

Some people have posted some impressions of the Riva TNT. It sounds like the TNT is going to perform as promised by nVidia. Voodoo Extreme's whipped up a summary of the latest Banshee news. The Banshee also may end up being a pretty cool card.

Benjamin Hsu sent me a nice article called OpenGL, D3D and Farenheit for dummies like me.

5/31/98: I've got two different stories for how to get Unreal working on the Rush. The Unreal Nation instructions are probably not the best way to get things working.

My buddy Page Fault just used Denrush's driver build (see the Drivers page) and it worked just fine.

Benjamin Hsu has a slightly more d-tailed way of getting things working, assuming that you have Glide 2.43 installed:

  1. Uninstall and then reinstall Unreal.
  2. When setup asks you if you have a 3Dfx card, answer "yes" and "yes" to both questions
  3. Now the game will start in a 320 x 200 window, and using hardware acceleration (look at the flames on the catwalk, if they don't have black mesh (dithering) over them, then you have glide working.)
  4. If you can't get step 3 to work, you are out of luck (or contact professional help).
  5. If you get step 3 to work, and think playing in default 320 x 200 is a joke, hit "ESC" and go to video/audio setup. 6. At video setup, select the window size you wish to play Unreal at and hit "Enter". I suggest 512 x 384. If the window will not change to 512 x 384, then select "toggle full screen" and hit "enter", then try changing the window size again, it should work now.
  6. If you can't get step 6 to change your windows size, you are out of luck. Enjoy 320 x 200 game play.
  7. At this point, your Unreal is probably running at "software" mode. You can check this when the demo fly by the flames again, they will look "masked" with black mesh.
  8. In order to go back to "hardware" mode at the desired windows size, select "toggle full screen" again and hit "enter".
  9. This is the cool part, step 9 will cause your Unreal to freeze and crash (Unreal is trying to go back to hardware mode but it's too buggy to do so). Just hit "ctrl+alt+del" and force close Unreal. 11. If step 10 cause Unreal to really screw up your system, too bad, blame Epic.
  10. Now start Unreal again, the game should be running at the desired window size and under hardware support. Just leave the video setup alone for now, and you should have no problem. And yes, it's very dark when play under Rush.

Hopefully the Voodoo Rush patch should be out soon, so we don't have to resort to such measures.

5/26/98: Hercules just updated their website with some new content.

Sory about the recent downtime with the site. It should be better now.

Note about yesterday's Unreal instructions. From what I can tell, the step of downloading Glide 2.45 is unnecessary. The grtvgr.exe file will install Glide 2.43, overwriting Glide 2.45. I don't have it myself, so I can't confirm, but I will check with a buddy of mine on it.

5/25/98: Unreal's out. And you CAN run it on your Rush, if you run it in a window just right. Snipped from the boys at Unreal Nation:

I have received confirmation that using Glide 2.45 fixes Rush problems in Unreal, here are instructions to get Unreal to work with your rush from Liquid-Ac who runs Win98 final with an Intergraph Intense 3D:

1. Install Unreal.

2. download and Install GLIDE 2.45 (yes, thats 2.45; I believe its still beta).
Download Glide 2.45 drivers here for Win95. I have NT drivers as well, but I believe the Rush doesn't work on that OS, if otherwise, please inform me and I'll put them up as well

3. find all instances of 'glide2x*.dll' and all instances of fxmemmap.vxd, and delete them off your hard drive.

4. Then, on the unreal cd, run the 'grtvgr.exe' file in the \glide\ directory.
(don't worry, it will NOT delete your current GLIDE dirvers you already installed in step 2.)

5. Reboot like it says, or should say, then you should have hardware accel on your Voodoo Rush Card. Enjoy. :)

Also, The Tech Zone has a cool scoop on the Number Nine Ticket To Ride 4 chip. Number Nine's been making killer graphic cards since the early days of the PC, but they, like Matrox, haven't made any good 3D parts recently. The Ticket To Ride chipset had a killer 2D core with 3D performance a little below the Rush level of performance. However, like Matrox, they have a suposed new killer chipset that will be out shortly.

If you are in the mood for some severe weirdness, read Voodoo Land.

GameSpot has released the software required to run GameGauge for you to measure the performance of your particular video system.

5/21/98: Unreal is finally going to be released. However, according to the FAQ, it won't work on some Rush based cards. However, they don't specify which ones it doesn't support.

5/20/98: 3dfx has released the second beta of their OpenGL driver. This time, you don't need to fill out a form to get a copy of it. Just download it from 3dfx's website..

5/14/98: Banshee is sampling. One "Jimmy Hoffa" on the usenet pointed out in an EE times article that discusses 3D accelerators this fact. Here's the relivent paragraph:

For its part, 3Dfx has begun sampling its long-anticipated Banshee, the company's first single-chip OEM offering to integrate both 2- and 3-D capabilities. It contain the same 3-D core as the current Voodoo 2 chip set and adheres to the same software-legacy constraints as most other 3-D chip companies.

5/12/98: I've talked to a few people who have better connections than I, and we all agree that Forbes Digital Tool doesn't know what they are talking about. The Banshee is entirely different than the Rush. The Banshee is a 2D/3D solution on one chip. The Rush is a combination of the AT3D/AT25 2D chipset and the Voodoo Rush 2 chip 3D accelerator.

On some side notes...

ART's AR250 is a ray-tracing accelerator. It's a good article, except that they state that it can't be used for real time rendering. I've seen Ray Tracing done in real time with my own two eyes on an average PC. How? Well, you just have to be really creative.

MetaCreations, one of the better graphic companies, and Intel have teamed up to deliver the MetaStream 3D format. It's alot different than VRML, but it's got some nifty features. Download the plug-in from MetaStream. It's a pretty cool piece of software. I've got some playing around that I did with it up on a test page.

OGR had a peek at the next SoundBlaster card. It should be pretty killer when it comes out.

5/9/98: Forbes Digital Tool has a different story than the 3dfx shareholder's meeting, stating that the Banshee is nothing more than a fixed Rush.

It's interesting what people will say about a product that's not yet out. I'm banking that the next killer 2D/3D combo card is going to be the new Matrox G200 cards. The Banshee is going to be out third quarter, which means that it's going head-to-head with the Riva TNT and the PowerVR SG chipsets. Plus, S3 has announced the Savage3D.

On a side note, Alliance Semiconductor has announced the Paladin chipset. OGR has a take on it. It seems that this chipset will support GLide. However, there are no performance specs available so I can't say how well that it will stack up to the competition.

5/4/98: Voodoo Extreme reports that in the 3Dfx shareholder's meeting, 3Dfx said that the when the Banshee comes out (With an estimated price of $149 for a Banshee card), it will be the best 2D and best 3D card. It will be better than the voodoo 2 in some games and worse than the voodoo 2 in other games (where have you heard that before?). There's a bunch of other details available in VE's notes.

4/30/98: DirectX 5.2 has been released. There doesn't seem to be any major enhancements, but I should have a report on the new DirectX shortly.

4/29/98: It's National No Divx day.

4/23/98: Zanshin's GL Dojo got an update, with a new chart about which cards are capable of GL Quake and what is necessary.

Not exactly Rush news, but check out The Silicon Edge's info on the Pentium II Xeon. Take a peek at the size of the Xeon's cartridge. It's like a skyscraper on your motherboard.

The 1.28 driver build from Hercules is a better driver build than the 1.19 build. But it still crashes Netscape, so I'm sticking to my 2071/2072 hybrid. I'll have some comprehensive results about all of the new drivers shortly.

Speaking of drivers, I tried out my computer to see how long I could keep it continously running on the 2071/2072 hybrid build. I was running Photoshop and dragging bitmaps around (which crashes on some of the builds). I was surfing with netscape, dragging the slider around (which also crashes on some of the builds). After seven days, I ended up rebooting because my mail program was screwing up. I haven't had my computer freeze up on me like it used to when I was running Hercules's 1.19 release in a long time.

I've added some information pages to the site. There will be more new pages as soon as they are ready to be posted.

4/16/98: Right on the heels of 1.26 comes Hercules v1.28. It seems that the 1.26 version's installer wasn't working right. It didn't install the right VXD file that 1.25 didn't have.

4/15/98: Right on the heels of 1.25 comes Hercules v1.26. Most people have said that they don't recomend 1.25, though I haven't had time to test it out. The 1.26 fixes a VXD error in the 1.25 version that made playing Quake impossible. It doesn't fix any other problems, however.


If you have any news or corrections, please mail me using my mail form. I get too much mail already, so you may have to wait for a response. Don't send huge binary files. If you want to send me a huge file, I've got an FTP server you can upload to, so DON'T SEND IT. Flames will just be ignored, so don't bother.
Version: v1.0
Written by: Ken "Wirehead" Wronkiewicz
Sponsored by: Wirehead Web Designs
Copyright (C) 1998, Ken Wronkiewicz