hi all, I just downloaded and installed DirectX 8 for developers. I started running some of the demos and they are running WAY to slowly. When i open any DirectX app i get this popup No hardware accelerated 3D devices were found. Switching to reference rasterizer, a software device that implements the entire Direct3D feature set, but runs very slowly. Well it really does run slowly, REALLY SLOWLY. It takes 5 seconds to draw a teapot. My computers not great (500 mhz. 128 ram. 3D AGP, 4mb video) but it runs Delta Force 3 without problems. Something is wrong here, but i don''t know what. I installed the debug version, but i hear that shouldn''t be a problem. ANYHELP WILL BE MORE THAN GREATLY APPRECIATED RELIGION IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

You are lucky, you have a 4 MB graphics card. You can buy register combiners and install them on your graphics card.

Kneelz

What kind of video card do you have? have you checked their web page for troubleshooting help?
Have you tried reinstalling your video drivers? have you checked that directx is setup to use HAL, and not set to only use HEL (yes, it can be made to not use HAL in the control panel... atleast mine can.)

--Drakonite

Well its no wonder that things are running slow. Direct3D can''t find any hardware to make things faster so it has to emulate hardware. Direct3D8 is quite a bit more picky than Direct3D7.

Alright, in the control Panel i changed to Enumerated Reference Rasterizer and Retail version. This helped greatly. I''m now getting 1.8 FPS on a Utah Teapot when i was getting .3 FPS. However i programmed a Utah Teapot in OpenGL that runs at about 4 FPS. You see there is still a gap.

I don''t understant about HEL and HAL. Where can i switch as i didn''t see it in the Control Panel?

Any info would be great.

RELIGION IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

quote: I don't understant about HEL and HAL. Where can i switch as i didn't see it in the Control Panel?

Try Start..Run..dxdiag, then click on the 'Display' tab. See if under 'DirectX Features', DDraw, D3D and AGP texture acceleration are enabled.

Edited by - DarkAvenger on November 15, 2001 1:41:46 AM

You know what, I''ve been having a similair problem, except when I try to run certain DX8 sample apps (mostly bumb mapping) it says it my hardware don''t support it so it goes into teh crappy mode. Thing is, I got a GeForce2 MX, it SHOULD handle this, I know it can do OpenGL bump mapping just fine.......

The geforce cards doesnt support enviroment bump mapping, only enviroment mapping or something like that.

(doesnt know about Geforce 3)

Geforces do DOT3 bumpmapping. Geforce3''s do support EMBM.

For the guy whos software is running slowly - the lowest end card that I know of that runs DX8 is a Voodoo3 2000 or a Savage4. Motherboard graphics chipsets are extremely poor (except for Nforce, of course).

Upgrading your graphics card wont cost a fortune but WILL make an enormous difference to frame rate.

Benedict

Reality is Insanity

quote: Original post by Sinner_Zero
You know what, I''ve been having a similair problem, except when I try to run certain DX8 sample apps (mostly bumb mapping) it says it my hardware don''t support it so it goes into teh crappy mode. Thing is, I got a GeForce2 MX, it SHOULD handle this, I know it can do OpenGL bump mapping just fine.......

Nope, Geforece2mx does not do enviroment mapping, however it does do bump mapping. But enviroment mapping is something different... similar, but I still have no clue what it''s about.