nGlide and LB2

I recently tried nGlide when I was recommended to use it for Nuclear Strike.
Its a global wrapper that is installed to Windows. I compared nGlide to DegeVoodoo and this is what I found when testing with NStrike:

nGlide: Higher framerate, no visual artifacts, crashed on level exit only once.
DegeVoodoo: Lower framerate, ground mesh has transparent lines between the polygons, crashed slightly more frequently on level exit.

I will test nGlide with LB2 and see how it works but it would be interesting to see more test-results.
Dont forget to remove glideXX.dll and degevoodoosetup.exe from your LB2 dir before testing.
If degevoodoo is present in LB2 then that will be used regardless if you have nGlide installed or not.

I have previously tested some other glide wrappers too. Go to the very bottom of the link below to see my short results summaries. Of course, those wrappers are mostly of the original sort - made to coincide with the UltraHLE N64 console emulator - and even some of those may have been updated now and may work NOW. What with so many different graphics cards and driver sets, it's impossible to really say YES one does work or NO another doesn't. Everyone seems to have different success rates. But as you know, overall, at least until now - dgVoodoo has been THE one to use.

http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/lb2/display.html

If I don't test that wrapper you told us about myself, it will be interesting to see how you get on with it.

EDIT: I've just checked the 'nGlide - Compatibility list' and they do actually list the LB2 demo as being playable with the wrapper.

I was curious so I tested it on a clean install and it certainly works with LB2.
Corrects the 'broken cockpit' and 'bouncy clouds', at least on my computer.
Graphically it doesn't have quite as clean a look to the models as dGV. I personally didn't notice too much difference with framerate between the two. I did notice that if you exit a mission back to desktop nGlide will cause 'program has stopped responding' error but as you are exiting back to desktop anyway I'm not sure how much of an issue that would be.

I think someone is after my job!

Thanks for testing this glide wrapper and posting results, Lorien! It would be awesome if the cockpit and clouds were actually fixed in LB2 on Win7, without having to have one or the other and still get mixed stability. Framerate-wise we really need to get it as LOW as possible so as to try and get the game running smoothly but pulled back enough so that the yaw issue is universally fixed - and hopefully the rocket issue too - without the need for a third third-party software to bring the CPU speed down and try and correct the game that way.

Lol Hardly

Well I tested it on Win7 Pro(x64) and it worked fine, at least for 2 short instant action missions. No missing cockpit and no elastic clouds.

As an edit to my previous post the models are as detailed in both DGV and nGlide, I simply hadn't changed the resolution in nGlide :/
Unfortunately I can't help with the yaw issue as I don't have that problem and other people, Recluse and AV8R to name a couple, have already suggested everything that I would have, plus a few more that wouldn't have occurred to me. The only problem I have that's control related is due to a little shimmy my helicopter does and the joystick throttle is impossible to use due to the lowest setting, ie pushed all the way forward(down) is 64% torque which makes landing virtually impossible unless I want to keep practicing my auto-rotation.
I'm not sure what the 'rocket issue' is. They appear to fly at the correct speed, they are just nigh on impossible to aim and fire correctly. But if I can remember back that far I think they were difficult to aim in '97 too.

When you force a higher screen resolution, do you get those lines that break up the 2D cockpit view?

Do you have the vertical sync option turned on? For me that would be the first step to try and fix the yaw.

The rocket issue is with modern, fast computers, the HE rockets fall short of the target. I can't really remember but it's said that they used to pretty much hit the targets at modest ranges. Now, they fall short at any range. The only option really is to use the MPSM rockets as they don't have to actually hit the targets, but even they aren't great nowadays - they actually seem to fly beyond the target!

At the resolution I use (1920 x 1080) there are some thin lines where the different panels of the 2d cockpit join but I don't find it distracting and, in the thick of combat, I don't notice them.

OK, I've installed the nGlide glide wrapper and done some quick tests. Here are my results so far...

Good:
+ easier to configure and use than dgVoodoo
+ no broken 2D cockpit
+ clouds don't jump (didn't look for myself but thanks Lorien)
+ I think my yaw appeared slightly better, I did say slightly
+ framerate does appear somewhat higher (chaingun rounds and rockets, most notably, seemed to travel faster)
+ slightly richer colors? (might just be my gamma setup)

Bad:
- not as many configuration options as dgVoodoo
- lines still present in 2D cockpit when you force higher screen resolution
- Hellfire and Maverick smoke seems to have a double smoke layer at immediate trail of missile
- I got several crashes during testing; one in-game freeze and a couple ghost screens upon mission exit

Summary:
What with the end mission and in-game freezes, plus smoke artifacts, I don't really think there is any overwhelming advantage over dgVoodoo. One or two things appear to be in nGlide's favor, but overall it is not as configurable and the main things like stability are still a big issue.

I decided to make a 'portable' version of the current latest version nGlide which you don't have to install. Just drag-and-drop files instead. I think I packed all the files needed, please see the readme I included for info. Note that you may have trouble downloading the ZIP file, my webhost is playing up a bit with not completing downloads before saying they have finished - leading to supposedly 'corrupt' ZIP files. If you have a download resumer, please use that to make sure the whole file is grabbed intact.

http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/lb2/progs/nGlide098_portable.zip

All this talk of glide wrappers has gotten me all nostalgic, remembering the times when I tried and tested all the N64 glide emulators, frantically trying to find one that worked with LB2.

After a bit of a search, I have found info and download locations for all the old original glide wrappers!

Arcade@Home - Nintendo 64: N64 Emulators (under UltraHLE Utilities & Info)
Zophar's Domain - Glide Wrappers

I've added a 'portable' version of the latest version of nGlide, v0.98, to my site if anybody is interested.

http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/lb2/progs/nGlide098_portable.zip

I like both wrappers, but nGlide has an incredible upside whereas dgVoodoo hasn't been updated for a few years (I know that dege has had real life take precedence over development).

Zeus (the nGlide developer) is quite responsive; post the Longbow issue on his forum and I'm sure he'll get right on it (or right back to you at the very least).

HomeFries - You've lost me. What Longbow issue? Oh, do you mean the ones I listed on page 1 of this topic? Well, I have LB2 uninstalled now so I no longer have any problems regarding that sim anymore. I think I did report those problems to Zeus, but due to a gadzillion combinations of hardware and software, I'm sure a lot of people don't have any of the issues that I faced when I tested nGlide.

And by the way I am actually a member of the Zeus Software forum, and do a bit of beta testing and bug reporting for the glide wrapper when I can. What's going on in dege's life, then?

Heretic!

I B Spectre - Get back to your man-cave!