On what ATI cards was TrueForm usable?

Wikipedia seems to have a similar list, adding Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six among others:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_TruForm

Has anyone verified it?

On what ATI cards was TrueForm usable?

Only Radeon 8500 and 9100. Everything else used software emulation.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-17, 13:40:

On what ATI cards was TrueForm usable?

Only Radeon 8500 and 9100. Everything else used software emulation.

I have a Fire GL 8800 with drivers forced to 8500. Is it really the same chip? Will truform work on the Fire GL?

Interesting.
Where do you turn on the "TrueForm" feature, in the Catalyst control panel or in the compatible game settings menu?

have a Fire GL 8800 with drivers forced to 8500

FireGL 8800 is based on the same chip so it should work. Which drivers btw?

Where do you turn on the "TrueForm" feature

TruForm must be supported by software.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-17, 15:25:

FireGL 8800 is based on the same chip so it should work. Which drivers btw?

I had to search through a bunch of computers to find it, Catalist 6.2. At the time of installing the driver by the device manager, instead of letting Windows search for the best driver, manually select the 8500 and everything seems to work fine.

Including OpenGL?

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-17, 16:34:

Including OpenGL?

I don't remember trying a lot of OpenGl games, Going to do the test. GLquake and Serious sam. If my memory doesn't fail Serious Sam supports OpenGL and D3D.

Well in the end I can answer my own question, truform works on a FireGL 8800 with 8500 drivers, tested with Serious sam 2 on OpenGL.
And OpenGL seems to work fine, tested with GLQuake, Quake 2, and Serious Sam 2.

I've been down this path. Unfortunately the Radeon OpenGL driver does not work with the 8800, and the FireGL driver is suboptimal for gaming.

Bios flash won't cut it either, without an accompanying transistor mod. Modding the Radeon OpenGL driver is probably the best bet. Rivatuner could turn a 8500 into an 8800 via driver mod, so the same should be possible in reverse.

Retro_John wrote on 2021-08-18, 15:01:

I've been down this path. Unfortunately the Radeon OpenGL driver does not work with the 8800, and the FireGL driver is suboptimal for gaming.

Bios flash won't cut it either, without an accompanying transistor mod. Modding the Radeon OpenGL driver is probably the best bet. Rivatuner could turn a 8500 into an 8800 via driver mod, so the same should be possible in reverse.

I think you didn't read the whole thread or my English is as bad as I think, or my FireGL 8800 is special because it works with the Radeon 8500 drivers, yesterday I've been playing Serious Sam 2 in OpenGL without any problem, even tried it at 1280x1024 and it was fluid, perfectly playable.

I suppose it only works in win9x environment, where you can mismatch hardware and drivers quite liberally.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-18, 15:42:

I suppose it only works in win9x environment, where you can mismatch hardware and drivers quite liberally.

Didn't thought of that, good point,this machine has Win98SE installed. Maybe I should try it in XP, but for XP I think the 8800/8500 is a bit under powered. For the price they ask for a 8500 on fleabay there a better options I think.

Well, you can totally play all TruForm games on Windows 98 SE. Although Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 and Newerwinter Nights are far from perfect experience on 9x.

Hoping wrote on 2021-08-18, 15:36:

I think you didn't read the whole thread or my English is as bad as I think, or my FireGL 8800 is special because it works with the Radeon 8500 drivers, yesterday I've been playing Serious Sam 2 in OpenGL without any problem, even tried it at 1280x1024 and it was fluid, perfectly playable.

Which OpenGL driver are you using?

Retro_John wrote on 2021-08-18, 17:20:

Hoping wrote on 2021-08-18, 15:36:

I think you didn't read the whole thread or my English is as bad as I think, or my FireGL 8800 is special because it works with the Radeon 8500 drivers, yesterday I've been playing Serious Sam 2 in OpenGL without any problem, even tried it at 1280x1024 and it was fluid, perfectly playable.

Which OpenGL driver are you using?

I have to apologize for vein rude because I didn't say that I was using Windows 98 SE. This evening I've installed Windows XP sp3 on the same machine and forcing the driver only D3D worked, on Catalyst CC it says OpenGL version unknown and doesn't work.
So like The serpent rider said, it's diferent in Win9x.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-18, 16:58:

Well, you can totally play all TruForm games on Windows 98 SE. Although Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 and Newerwinter Nights are far from perfect experience on 9x.

I don't have any of the Unreal Tournament games so I can't test then, but yesterday I've tested Neverwinter Nights and in the version I have the support for Truform has to be enabled in the file nwn.ini. But I didn't notice any difference.
I'm going to test Undying and Morrowind.

truform is really cool but it's cursed. i still remember how the counterstrike guns looked - the silencer of the m4 colt looked like a blown up pillow. the AK looked like it had been cooked like a rice bubble.

for a good while i had no idea how to turn it off until i was messing with tickboxes in the drivers. i was surprised at how much it crushed performance, too! i can't remember exactly what model I had but i got it in 2003 when prices came down, so I can only assume it was an original 9600 that was price cut.

i would love to see a comparison of generations (8000 vs 9000 series or beyond) to see if the hardware or software option is actually better or not. I would try myself but I don't have any cards with hardware truform, only a 9600xt and x1650pro.