OldFallout3 SM2.0

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[crookedmouth]

Depends on what knowledge level you have, but any help is good.

We have the official word from Bethesda that they use "some" (SM2.0b implied) shaders that 9x00 can't run. So the main mission is learning/understanding what Oldblivion does for Oblivion in regards to SM2.0 to SM1.1 (and/or bioshock SM3.0 to SM2.0) and repeat it for Fallout3 SM2.0b to SM2.0. Wich would require some coding knowledge or, like in my case, being stubborn as hell.

I will take a shader crash course when I get home to my own computer on sunday. I did a google on "shader how to" and there's at least plenty of information



Project thread on the fallout forums:
http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=897841&st=0&gopid=13102336&#entry13102336

 I don't have Fallout 3 yet, so I don't know if Bethesda has reused some shaders from Oblivion. Still reading in the Docs section under developer resources may be helpful. I've only tweaked and combined shaders not re-writen them but I'm still going to be looking anyway, when I get Fallot soon. Zeroed has done some conversion I think.

[Pemalite]

Like I said in the other thread, a card that Oldblivion was tweaked for, an Intel 965GM Express.

Even if we "were" able to dumb down the shaders enough, your x3100 will be able to run it, but it would be incredibly slow, you would need to disable any-and-all particals/smoke effects and dumb down the lighting considerably. - Then you would more than likely need to disable your cards TnL engine anyway, in order to free-up some of the Unified Shaders.

Then you have the issue of attempting to run in a Direct X 8.x Shaderpath which actually performs worst on the x3xxx series of IGPs from intel in comparison to the Direct X 9 SM2 shaderpath.

[monsterkatt]

http://www.paolofranchini.com/shshock/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=369&p=3690#p3690

[monsterkatt]

We had a small breakthrough btw!! Our russian friends have come through with a way to get into the menu.

 

  yesterday we managed to run fallout3 without crash on strart (we are the ati radeon 9600pro owners), so we could finally see an intro movie :-D
    one guy from our forum (its in Russian) found out that there's some kind of contradiction between files in folder Fallout 3\Data\Shaders\ and "Shader Package: 8" line in RenderInfo.txt.
    There's no such a file named shaderpackage008.sdp in Shaders folder... so u can just copy an shaderpackage002 and rename it in shaderpackage008 and u shall get intro movie running. :-D
    sad that it crashes again after the intro=//

[PogoDaMonkey]

Just a bit of a breakthrough that could potentially help everyone... but it doesn't work on the Intel 965 chipset. Just a bit of helpful advice for anyone trying to do this on that kind of card. Don't bother trying it. 

On a second look through, for the Intel 965's it gives the "Shader Package: 2" so I'm not too sure why it would have worked anyway, I'll try changing different shader packages to see if they work on this particular card.

Edit: Nope, went through all of the different shader packages and no effect, even changed the .ini files to bUseShaders=0 and other shader options, all to no avail.

[godeatgod]

Hey everyone, just started reading the topic, and i did this :

Took all the shaders in the 002 package, made a quick tool to change all of them to ps_2_0 from ps_2_x or ps_3_0
Some of the shaders could be converted with just a replace of shader version, others use ps 2 operations, which i will make a list of and we'd need to work on converting them by hand.

At the moment the uncoverted shaders have been replaced with dummy ones, that still compile and should work, but would probably do a lot less, like for example show a simple color instead of water refraction.

Alas, after using it, the game loads a bit when selecting New, but still crashes. Maybe there's something more than converting the shaders.

I will review the shaders when making a list, maybe i've missed some important thing when i converted them automatically.

But here's the shaderpack which you can copy over your pack.

[Phazz]

Hey everyone, just started reading the topic, and i did this :

Took all the shaders in the 002 package, made a quick tool to change all of them to ps_2_0 from ps_2_x or ps_3_0
Some of the shaders could be converted with just a replace of shader version, others use ps 2 operations, which i will make a list of and we'd need to work on converting them by hand.

At the moment the uncoverted shaders have been replaced with dummy ones, that still compile and should work, but would probably do a lot less, like for example show a simple color instead of water refraction.

Alas, after using it, the game loads a bit when selecting New, but still crashes. Maybe there's something more than converting the shaders.

I will review the shaders when making a list, maybe i've missed some important thing when i converted them automatically.

But here's the shaderpack which you can copy over your pack.

Try replacing all shaders with dummies, also those from other shaderpacks. And btw, you do know that some shaders might simply be too long for SM20, or using too many registers? So SM2b-specific instructions are not your only issue.

[godeatgod]

Yes, i know about limitations, and those shaders have been replaced with "empty shader" too, so the pack i made everything should compile

The only question is maybe some files that are supposed to be in pack 8 arent in pack 2 (X850 chipset), i'll have to look in the executable see what shader files it looks for.

[monsterkatt]

Hey everyone, just started reading the topic, and i did this :

Took all the shaders in the 002 package, made a quick tool to change all of them to ps_2_0 from ps_2_x or ps_3_0
Some of the shaders could be converted with just a replace of shader version, others use ps 2 operations, which i will make a list of and we'd need to work on converting them by hand.

At the moment the uncoverted shaders have been replaced with dummy ones, that still compile and should work, but would probably do a lot less, like for example show a simple color instead of water refraction.

Alas, after using it, the game loads a bit when selecting New, but still crashes. Maybe there's something more than converting the shaders.

I will review the shaders when making a list, maybe i've missed some important thing when i converted them automatically.

But here's the shaderpack which you can copy over your pack.

This sounds great, thanks! I even think I understand

[Naaldi]

Hey all. This is my first post here, but I'm excited about the project and have a little bit to add. From one of the other threads, duri83 wrote,

".....and can by bypassed by setting bUseFaceGenHeads=0, yet in this mode you can see no heads of characters haha. I suppose this could be easy to alter in the game so the heads are rendered another way."

I tried this myself (after copying shader package 2 and renaming it to 8, which seems to be the only way to get the game to load in the first place) and was surprised to see it does, in fact, allow you to go a little further into the game. By going into the fallout.ini file and changing the term "bUseFaceGenHeads" to zero the game will allow you to start a new game. You are able to watch the starting video, and then the character creation step of the game follows (sex, name, etc.). However, when choosing your appearance, the screen is missing all of the text and facial graphics, so I had to just click around until I figured out how to continue. Of course as soon as the actual game started I crashed to desktop, but it is progress, nonetheless.

I'm gonna start tinkering with the .ini file a little more, and see if I can get further in. To everyone getting frustrated and disappointed over not being able to play, just stay positive. I'll bet we'll all be able to play in less than a week, given the amount of progress we've made so far.

BTW here are my specs:

Intel Pentium 4 - 2.6GHz
1GB RAM
ATI Saphire Radeon 9600 256MB VRAM
Windows XP Pro

(rather low specs for this game but what it will let me do runs just fine)

[monsterkatt]

Nice!!


Although, and I don't mean to sound negative at all, disabling things that use SM2.0b shaders is probably not the best long term solution, since it appears there's quite alot of things that use them. Just wanted to make a note of that.

Very clever thinking though, keep  it up! I'm very curious to see how far you can actually get.


If you use godeatgods shaderpackage with your trick btw, you get to play infant you for 2.5 secs before it crashes. I moved my head around and got the HUD up. Then it crashed.

[PogoDaMonkey]

So what does your guys Renderinfo.txt say? Does the single number (like, in my file, it has Shader Package : 2 or something similar) denote which package it uses? I'm willing to try anything at this point.

I included my RendererInfo.txt as a .ini file so I could directly attach it here.

[monsterkatt]

Have you tried this?

".....and can by bypassed by setting bUseFaceGenHeads=0, yet in this mode you can see no heads of characters haha. I suppose this could be easy to alter in the game so the heads are rendered another way."

in the fallout3.ini in mydocuments/games/fallout?

[PogoDaMonkey]

Yesh, I got to hear the intro daddy talk and see the intro movie! Of course, it was a pain getting through the facegen menu with no buttons, but I'll see what else might work in terms of disabling certain options. This was on an Intel 965GM Express.

Two things that intrigue me are:

bForcePow2Textures=0
bForce1XShaders=0

I wonder what they do? The problem I had was that I thought FalloutPrefs.ini was the one that affected the game. Oops. 

[Pemalite]

Well there is ONE option for the notebook users with the 965 Express, and that is an External Graphics card with a Radeon 2400 in it, plus you have the benefit of playing other games at higher and better settings.

One thing about the 965 series is that it plays older Direct X 7 and 8 games like crap, and newer games like molasses, however a select few games like FarCry 1, Half Life 2, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, F.E.A.R run with almost all settings maxxed out, yet a game like Doom 3 plays like crap, yet if the IGP can max out FarCry 1 then in theory it SHOULD be able to play Doom 3 at decent settings. (And in turn Oblivion and Fallout 3, considering they are not that much more demanding).

Anyway, I have set-up Fallout 3 to download during my Off-Peak internet usage, so it might take me about 2 nights to download, then I shall test and attempt to get the game running on the 965 Express, I'll also probably tweak my Intel Drivers to the max If I can.

Things I will try doing however is:

1) Toggling TnL.
2) Disable Fog and Particles.
3) Vertex Shading onto the CPU.
4) Tweaking the .ini file.
5) Tweaking the GPU drivers, perhaps even create a Fallout 3 profile.
6) looking at the various shaders for Oblivion and getting them to work in Fallout 3 - they both use the same engine thus possible compatibility is there.

I'll post an update when I have these things in order and if successful guide you some through the process if I manage to get it to work.