Voodoo Banshee and missing health!!! HELP!
 

I have the 4.12.01.1222 drivers but the bars are still hidden! Also scapex won't run because of "error initializing graphics library". What am I supposed to do? Please help--this isn't on the troubleshooting board!
Using Diamond Monster Fusion card with v 4.12.01.1222

Well they said my Voodoo2 can't do scapex because it requires it to do 3d stuff in a window, which a voodoo2 can't do. It might be the same for your card (I know nothing about 3d cards so i couldn't tell you hehe). May I ask you, before you got the new drivers installed, did you get the Error initializing graphics library (-1) error when you tried to enter the game itself?

No, I never had that problem. Only the graphics library one.

I have the same problem - missing mana and health bars with my banshee (creative 3d blaster banshee) using the same reference drivers (4.12.01.1222). I even have tried to use older drivers, but isn't a cure. I have no idea how to cure the problem. http://www.veforums.com/frown.gif May be it's 3dfx's problem with drivers (they released nothing for banshee/windows 9* since february), may be it's Shiny's problem with a wrapper, but anyway the game is unplayable without these bars. http://www.veforums.com/frown.gif

That is correct Distressed: Voodoo2's can not run Scapex or any other Windows app that required 3D in a window.

-joby

Lack of "scapex" isn't a problem while lack of health/mana bars is. Look at the topic of the thread, please. What we are trying to say is that using the drivers for banshee which are specified in readme.txt and troubleshooting section on Sacrifice official website doesn't cure the problem.

I myself think that Shiny can't just ignore all owners of voodoo cards who have similar problems and should contact 3Dfx to get explanation and make them release new drivers OR should make a patch which will make these bars showing with usage of other methods which will work with voodoos. It's just too much people on the globe who have these voodoos inside their PCs. What you guys from Shiny think about it?

Now, i use a voodoo myself and have problems, but i really think this is more of a problem of 3dfx's and microsoft's. it's not like they're using glide. if that were the case, then shiny would be to blame. shiny wrote the game to use the direct3d version7 API's. Voodoo and Direct3D have never gotten along. They're basically competitors! (glide vs d3d). 3dfx needs to get their act together and write some real drivers for once.

So..what are we saying.. is there anyway to fix this or not? I too have a creative Banshee using the Refrence drivers. All my characters are missing body parts, no heath bars and I can't read my Mana either?

I have a banshee as well. I still have the missing health and manna bars problem, and I used to have the missing limbs problem. For some reason the troubleshooting guide tells you to disable some triangle setting in the graphics options. I enabled it, and that fixed the limb problems. I now have limbs. *shrugs*

Likewise... voodoo 3 card, no health, no mana, no health or mana for my troops unless there is no background behind them. I waited 5 years for the game and can't play it on a one year old computer...

I think it doesn't actually matter where is the real problem of missing health and mana bars contained. I think if Shiny pretends to be "good company" it should fix it. I saw lotsa games which shows health bars (last of them was HW:Cataclysm) and they work with my banshee just nice under both direct3d and opengl. I think there's surely a lot of ways these bars can be displayed and I just don't know why Shiny's programmers have chosen the way that leads to problems with voodoos. May be they haven't tested it with voodoos? I just can't believe it as in readme and in troubleshooting section of official website I've read the version of reference drivers I should use for my banshee. May be they know what they're doing, but NVidia paid 'em to make the game partly voodoo-incompatible? I don't know, but again I'm saying that people owning voodoo should have a remedy for problems with sacrifice. Does Shiny really want to loose money it could earn from people with voodoos? I'd like to hear form people from Shiny what THEY think about the situation and what THEY plan to do with it.

Silence is bad.

What are our options besides returning game to store? I've got ten days... would like to keep it if anyone is going to fix it, but I'll be damned if I'll keep a busted product from a company which is intentionally messing with me.

Well, yeah my bars are missing and it kind of sucks but I will still play. This Christmas I am doing a PC upgrade so I won't have to deal with those problems anymore HOPEFULLY! I have become used to putting my cursor over my creatures to see the health and healing them for good measure. That's the only answer I have been able to come up with since Shiny isn't saying anything about it.

To quote Sad Max:
"I think it doesn't actually matter where is the real problem of missing health and mana bars contained. I think if Shiny pretends to be "good company" it should fix it."


So, shiny should fix a problem that's not theirs? You said it doesn't matter where the problem originates, shiny should fix it to be a "good company".
To do that, Shiny would have to write a whole new set of 3dfx drivers, which they can't possibly do. All they can do is work with what 3dfx gives them. I myself have a voodoo 3500, and everything works fine when i downgraded the the 1.05.00 drivers released on July, otherwise I experienced the same missing lifebars problem. Shiny wrote the game to work with DirectX, which it *DOES*. 3dfx now needs their drivers to work with DirectX!! Please see what I wrote earlier about Microsoft and 3dfx being competitors. So bitch at them, Shiny can't do anything about it.

I have a problem with my mouse. It's DX8 related. But it's a logitech mouse. I'm sure a MICROSOFT mouse would work fine, but they're making it difficult for anyone who opposes them to remain compatible without doing updates theirselves. My middle button won't work with DirectX 8 installed. Should I bitch at Shiny? Should I want them to fix it? I can't use my middle button in their game, so should they have to provide a workaround when the problem is between Microsoft and Logitech? NO! Of course not!
Get real people!

[This message has been edited by Spriseris (edited 11-22-2000).]

Yep, Shiny should fix it because it is their problem. They didn't say ,"Don't get this game, all you Voodoo people out there, because you'll be missing key information which makes the game a pain to play." It is a bug, a programming oversight by Shiny, and bugs should be fixed. My computer runs fine by itself... it isn't an error in the way my graphics card is, it is a known quality for all graphics cards used by a wide number of people, and in interacting with that quality, Sacrifice is flawed. The answer should not be, "You want to play our $40 game... buy a $150 graphics card, and don't come whining to us if your widely used, pratically ubiquitous graphics card isn't supported by us." Nor should I have to install drivers which cause problems for other programs on my computer. The problem is Shiny's, it is their responsibility to fix it.

Further, the complete lack of response by Shiny moderators, no "Oh a patch will be coming, even if it takes us a month or two", no nothing, it extremely frustrating and leads to the conclusion that they don't care about us... which for me is pretty much a "no go" for further games from a particular company. In the modern era of buggy games, a gamer HAS to be able to depend on patches from a game developer... knowing that they will be required. In situations where a game developer is not willing to provide these to fix wide ranging problems with their games, then a gamer has to consider whether loyalty to this particular company is practical, and whether one's money is not better spent on a different product which, if not inherently as ingenious, will nevertheless function the way it is supposed to.

To Shiny's credit, they have been pretty helpful to me. Remember that there aren't all that many of them posting on these boards. I know alot of people have been pretty specific about their problems, but I have also seen some people get on here screaming the game won't work and Shiny should fix it at once. I understand the frustration of having problems with a game, but don't be so quick to damn Shiny, the game has only been out a few days. Shiny employees on these boards have been very helpful to me, and when the message board was being to cumbersome one of them even went out of his way to email me directly to help. Not only that, but we emailed each other back and forth several times within a 2-3 hour period to get things straightened out. Most companies wouldn't bother to try that hard, and that kind of involved conversation would have probably taken place over several weeks instead of just a couple hours. The employees of Shiny are only human, and they aren't an army. You can't expect instantaneous gratification in this kind of situation, and remember not to damn the entire company because they haven't solved every problem just yet. If you'll look at the message board they have fixed an awful lot of things, many of which weren't even caused by their game (my problem wasn't).

I now quote you, Jojo:
" Nor should I have to install drivers which cause problems for other programs on my computer. The problem is Shiny's, it is their responsibility to fix it."

You're admitting that *drivers* cause problems for other programs on your computer, and lay the blame on the *drivers* for every other piece of malfunctioning software on your computer. EXCEPT Sacrifice. That's Shiny's fault, not the drivers.
Don't be a hypocrit! The program uses DirectX. No glide, no opengl. It's a standard, and Shiny wrote Sacrifice to meet that standard. Just because 3dfx is a sub-standard company with drivers written by a three year old, it is now Shiny's fault?

Voodoo 2 banshee supports d3d in window mode.
Other voodooo 2 users can download a tweaking programm to enable d3d in window mode

Yes, we all understand (at least I do) that problem IS actually in 3dfx's drivers, which aren't fully support d3d. But haven't you heared about beta testing? Don't you think Shiny HAD TO test the game with all popular videocards? And Shiny probably did it as it wrote in it's readme.txt file included with the game what drivers should people use with their cards. It's absolutely impossible trying to release a good game without betatesting and further support (patches, addons, etc). But (I still don't know why) we're still having problems even with these very drivers Shiny told us to use. Moreover, I have tried all drivers for my banshee I have (four different versions) and I've got nothing. All I need for now is the answer from Shiny people what they actually do to make the game run fine with voodoos. If they're working with 3dfx to help them finding a bug in their drivers - it's good. If they're working on a patch which will for example make the game use other way to show health bars (please don't be a fool thinking that the only way to fix the problem with bars is to fix the drivers) it's good also. BUT SILENCE IS BAD SIGN. It's telling us that they won't do anything and we'll have to return the game to stores. Which is bad for both: us and Shiny itself.

Had exactly the same problem. Funny hting is, I had to disable the triangle strip to show the limbs and lots of other things. The thing I noticed is that all health bar and mana bar for all creatures are missing. And I can't see the video resolution I have selected in the option menu. So I guess it's something to do with translucency. Maybe translucent bars cannot be dsiplayed in the game? I think in the readme file they have actually included Voodoo banshee the said it's okay to use the latest driver and didn't mention this problem, so I guess they know how to solve this? no? And I really think they should release a patch. The game is playable without the health bar and mana bar, but it's really quite difficult to track the health and mana without the bars... http://www.veforums.com/frown.gif

Wow, i cant believe anyone hasnt posted this yet, im sorry its taken so long, now you can be somewhat happy. Shiny Customer service told me this the first time i talked to them on the phone. WHat you have to do to get voodoo drivers to show mana/health, and fix all the wierd graphics glitches with monsters and stuff is to DOWNGRADE your voodoo driver. You got to the voodoo website and DL the first version of the voodoo drivers, and get rid of your new version. This fixes all the problems except I still cant use patch 3. Anything before patch 3 works perfectly though.

First, do you know where I can download an older version of Voodoo Banshee driver? I tried the one comes with Creative which is somewhat older but I don't see a difference.

Secondly, in the readme it says it works with driver 4.12.01.1222...

I have tried to download the drivers and blasterControl from the Creative website and now the health and mana bar shows, as well as teh bar indicating the resolution selected, but, the game does not show the ground a certain distance aways from the character. I tried the disable the fogging teh fumble with other graphics options but nothing works yet. Anyone can help?

I thought that was normal. Graphics just get more detailed as you get closer

sh*t... i posted about this not too long ago, and no-one from shiny really answered me...

i downgraded the banshee drivers to the 1.03.40 release i think, in order to get Black and White to run... in Sac these work better than the latest ones (in which ground was missing, limbs were wierd, etc), but still no health and mana bars...

i have turned off triangle strips, and disabling detailed textures does nothing except make the ground look funny (like no lighting or shadows or something)... with detailed textures on, it looks the same as on the geforce 2 mx computer (it still looks f*cked tho cos it stops detailing the textures after a certain distance, the same as on the geforce 2 mx)...

i don't understand y shiny haven't tried to fix this yet, since from this thread i can see that the problem has been going on since the beginning...

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Anyhoo...

--EvAde--

The game does NOT show the ground, it's not detailed texture, but the whole ground become "nothing" a certain distance away from the wizard. It's like a piece of circular ground moving with the wizard, and the trees and monsters are standing on void when outside that "radius"...

more people have reported this with a 3dfx card.

With the voodoo3/45 it can be fixed with changing the drivers, for the Banshee it is a bit more difficult.

Try decreasing the resolution and the (character) texture resolution, perhaps you are running out of videoram.

no use http://www.veforums.com/frown.gif ans this problem doesn't show up with the newest 1.04.00 driver, which has the no health/mana probelm. In the older driver the health adn mana are there but it's more unplayable with the grounds missing. I end up reinstalling the newer driver, at least I can complete the game without the health and mana bar...

so you've tried the 1.04.00 driver, try the 1.04.21 drivers

you can download it here

Hi, are you sure that link is 1.04.21 driver? I download the driver, the file name is 1.04.00, nd it has exactly the same size as the 1.04.00 driver, and the document says it's 1.04.00...

sorry my mistake...

What kind of Banshee card do you have? If you have a Creative Labs card, then you can find some older drivers here

I have Creative 3D Blaster Banshee and I tried to download their driver from the net and installed it. It showed the health and mana and the bar that indicate the selected resolution and otehr selections in the option menu. But teh ground disappears a certain distance away from the main character. I tried to turn off detailed textures, descrease resoltuion, etc. but nothing works. At least with the 1.04.00 driver I can play the game albeit a bit annoying to not knowing the health of my creatures and the wizard...

I downloaded the first Driver updade for voodoo 3 ever put out, it wasnt a 14.00 or anyting, wqas like .01 or something like that. I can see all the way to the horizon, ground and all, and have health and mana bars with vidio card downgraded like this. Kind of annoying though, as to play another one of my games, i have to reinstall one of the newer voodoo 3 drivers to play it well. So i have to switch back and forth between drivers to play both games.

i got some generic type banshee card... and with both the lastest (1.04.00) and the one that black and white likes (1.03.40) all the ground textures and stuff are ok (except for something i'll add in a mo), but no mana/health bars... with the drivers on the cd, the ground and stuff is missing...

when i say that the ground textures are ok except for something, the something is a problem i have encountered on both my computers. apparantly p3beta uses some sorta new detailed texturing system that uses less lights or something, so that ground furthur away isnt detailed as much as close up. on both my computer this causes a graphical glitch that makes the area where the detailed becomes less detailed very jaggedy with like no transition stage...

the only thing wrong on my banshee (apart from that detailed texture thing, that should hopefully be being fixed) is the lack of mana and health bars

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Anyhoo...

--EvAde--