Beta testing

Márton: How do you beta test your drivers? In a report, ID software said they prefer to test their code themselves, non-stop for days. Do you believe that bugs can be sorted easier by the programmers, or the users?

Paul: In Belfast we have a system in place where a developer will test their own code, until they are certain that it works completely, then we ask the lead of the QA department to assign a test engineer to give it a better test. This system works well, if a programmer has been working on a problem for a long time, he tends to get focused on that particular problem, often neglecting the other problems that may appear.

Dávid: Glide has been buried by online hardware sites several times. Does such an "old and tried" API have any chance nowadays, or it is the other way and those sites were right about taking Glide to the "software museum"?

If Glide is here to stay, why?

Johnny: You can get the best performance out of a Voodoo card using the Glide API. This is because the API was designed specifically for the hardware, it is "closer to the metal" than OpenGL or Direct3D. For an example of what I mean simply compare the performance of a game that supports the Glide API on a Voodoo card to the the same game on a card without Glide support (the Unreal games spring to mind). As far as mainstream games go, developers are moving to Direct3D and OpenGL because they can be used accross a range of video cards. Lets face it developers don't want to code for 3 API's when they can code for 2 or even just 1. Even if developers no longer want to provide a Glide option in newer games it still has its uses. Glide is still good if you want to produce a rapid prototype to see what a game or effect will look like. The code is simpler and shorter than the equivalent in other APIs (athough this is changing with newer revisions of Direct3D).

The Glide API is now open source. I think that it will live on in the open source community and continue to be improved for a long time to come.

Dávid: Why is the installation of Internet Explorer 4.01 SP1 required for the correct working of 3dfx Tools?

Paul: That update of IE contained updates for the windows shell that were necessary for some of the pages to function correctly. In particular, one example that springs to mind, is the tree control of the Advanced Features page.

Dávid: Let's stay at 3dfx Tools: as far as we know, the 22-bit post-filters for the Voodoo series can be reached by setting the "3D Filter Quality" to "High" and the "Alpha-Blending" to "Sharper". But it is rumored, that these post-filters are not used when doing 32-bit rendering on the V4/V5. What is the truth (why?)?

Johnny: Hmmmm ... not sure about this. The 22-bit filter was famously used on Voodoo3 cards to give an output of 22bpp even though the card only supported a frame buffer up to 16bpp. Many reviewers incorrectly compared the Voodoo3 and a competitor's card using screenshots because they failed to take the 22-bit post-filter into account. You need to use something like HyperSnap to get correct filtered screenshots.

I don't think it makes sense to use the same filter in 32bpp mode but I haven't checked what the driver does in this case.

Dávid: Undoubtly, 3dfx was in a very unpleasant financial situation (maybe they still are..?). Following the story of 3dfx it would seem logical that a big video card manufacturer's proposition could have been the solution. Much like 3dfx bought STB two years ago, a big manufacturer (for example, Creative) could have given an offer that solves the financial pressure. What is your opinion about this?

Paul: To be honest I know as much about the financial situation of 3dfx as the person on the street :(

Dávid: Do you believe that a company, as big as Creative, couldn't have considered this option very seriously?

Paul: I doubt that any other card manufacturer would step in and help 3dfx. Creative and any other companies that used to produce 3dfx cards got their fingers burnt when 3dfx bought STB. They have been making their money developing cards based on nVidia chips, so they may have been unwilling to take the risk. (I think personally that nVidia would have been able to put pressure on any company wanting to do this.)

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