Is There Still A Need For Glide?

zonker asks: "Now that nVidia has picked up 3dfx is there still want or need for glide on other cards? I have a TNT2 card and have some old games that require glide. I can't run them natively, so I either have to use software rendering mode or a wrapper (they all kinda suck, though). With the new 3dfx purchase, and the current state of affairs with DirectX, etc., is there any warrant for asking nVidia to release Glide drivers for their nVidia chips? Or is this something that will forever be relegated to Glide wrappers? I know Creative was working on one. I personally would like native drivers, but..."

If you're an Everquest addict...

[boogak1]

then you'll want Glide. Glide mode in EQ looks substantially better than Direct3D mode, even with the DX7 patch. I should know, I upgraded my Voodoo3 to a GeForce2 GTS and EQ looks kinda crappy now. I for one hope nVidia releases Glide drivers with the Detonator4 drivers.

Yes, we want Glide drivers

[dougmc]

No new games require Glide anymore -- it's often an option, but you can also use OpenGL or D3D.

But many old games came out when 3dfx was the only real accelerated 3D game in town, and many of these games were either Glide or Software 3D.

One good example of such a game is Myth. Great game, even today, but the 3D is Glide only.

I have since replaced my Voodoo3 with a GeForce card -- but I had to put my old Voodoo2 back in so I could still play the Glide games. I lost a PCI slot, as well as a little picture quality (due to the passthrough cable.) I don't like it, but I don't want to lose the ability to play these games that I still do enjoy.

I suspect the answer to the problem is a good Glide wrapper rather than Glide drivers for other cards. Yes, there's a performance hit, but the games that *require* Glide were also made for slower boxes, and today's boxes should have no problem running them, even with a small to moderate performance hit.

Ultimately, the question isn't really `do we want Glide drivers?' ... it's `do we still want to play older 3D games?' Lots of people say `no', but a few of us do say `yes'.

Doubtful, to say the unfortunate truth....

[jmenezes]

Releasing native glide drivers for nVidia cards would definately be a great thing for anyone who plays glide games, but in all reality, glide games arent as common as OpenGL, or the increasingly common DirecX...
BUT, that would require effort from nVidia which they most likely wont be willing to invest, considering that glide's lack of use, DirectX's popularty, and the lack of political interest for the company, i trully doubt that anything will come of it.
Had this happened a year ago, it would definately have been likely and probable...
but not now, sadly

Why bother?

[azephrahel]

Ok some might veiw this as flame bait, others will say this is off topic, but why bother with glide? Are there any games that only use glide that people really want to use? Sure unreal can use glide instead of opengl, but that really isn't because the glide drivers are better than opengl, they just don't do as much. For me, there are NO games that use glide only that I want to play. So what to do for the glide/opengl games that run incredibly faster under glide? Simple, make some type of openGL control panel that can dynamically turn on and off features in the opengl driver. Now that would be an awsome little tool, much much more usefull then bothering to make more glide drivers.