Wirehead Studios

Got an old game you want to play that ran great on Glide, but runs like crap on straight OpenGL and doesn't like Direct-X?  Then you need the Glide wrapper. (http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/index.html)  I've tried it out and it works great.  I'm finally able to play Klingon Honor Guard again (yay!), though I have to do it on my Windows 98 partition owing to the cinematics not working right on 2000 for some reason (I think I have a bad .avi codec somewhere).  The wrapper works fine on both Windows 98 and 2000, so I imagine it'll work on XP just fine as well.  So far it runs fast, and I've not encountered any rendering artifacts, bugs, crashes, or glitches of any kind with the wrapper.  It's a must-have if you still like old games written during the Voodoo era!

Intresting. I could never get KHG to play at all, and know I know why. what other games run on  glide?

Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries has a Glide option (which I could never get working properly on my old Win 98 machine even though I had a Voodoo 3 inside at the time), any Unreal Engine 1.0 game (Unreal 1, Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, Klingon Honor Guard etc).  

Visit http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/UnrealEd_Versions (http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/UnrealEd_Versions) to get a working link for the KHG v1.1 patch (this patch will bring KHG up to the equivalent of the Unreal v219beta patch).

Regards,

Yickle.

Yes, you NEED the patch, period.  KHG version 1.0 crashes any time you try to access the advanced options, which you need to get to in order to switch rendering modes and turn on/off things like surface reflections.  Turning on shiny surfaces, to me, is a must because it really enhances the visuals.  The only other technical glitch I ran into was with sound acceleration.  If the sounds have heavy static, disable hardware sound acceleration in your multimedia properties.  DO NOT do this in Software mode, it'll freeze in Win98 (but not 2000).  I don't remember having this problem with my old Fortissimo card, so it may be specific to the Fortissimo III.

A few tips from the bird as far as gameplay goes (without spoiling anything):

First, the knife works best when thrown from a medium distance.  Close-range throws won't cause much damage.  Throwing knives works very well for a quick kill, it's more effective than the disruptor pistol even.

Second, do NOT switch weapons when the spinclaw is in flight, or it will blow up in your face when it returns.  Use the PRIMARY fire button to recall the blade.  The secondary detonates it... which you really don't want to do.  The spinclaw is something you will come to love in the game.  I'd have to say it's my favorite "unusual" weapon in a first-person shooter to date, owing to its versitility and "just plain cool" factor.  If you've ever seen the movie Krull, you'll understand this weapon well.

Some weapons have some recoil.  The spinclaw has some minor recoil, the Assault Disruptor has some major recoil.  You may find this useful later in the game (again, won't spoil it for you).

You can "stomp" on Tar Chop.  Just jump when they get close and try to stay on them, it's easier than trying to shoot them.  It's like "Nali Cow Rodeo" all over again. ;)

The secondary fire works a little funny in KHG on the weapons.  Except for the disruptor pistol (which does not reload) the secondary is a mode switch AND trigger.  Same with primary.  If you are using the primary fire, and hit secondary, the gun will go through a reload animation.  To fire it, hit the secondary fire again, NOT the primary.  To switch back to primary fire, hit the primary fire button.  It will again mode switch, and use the primary fire to shoot.  This is probably my only serious gripe with the interface.  I think it would have worked better if the secondary button only switched modes and the primary button was always used to shoot.  Sometimes I end up switching modes accidentally when I want to disintegrate something, and I get a disruptor to the face as a result. -_-

What I find funny is KHG got a lot of bad reviews from some well-known gaming publications.  The claim was the maps were "uninspiring and sub-par", etc, and that "there's plenty of Klingons to kill but not much else".  I believe these people never played past the first or second level.  There's some crazy stuff you get to do later in the game that I've never seen to date in another FPS, and there are Andorians, Nausicans, Lethians, as well as several monsters.  I'd never say it's Quake-killer grade, but it's not a terrible game, to me it's downright fun.  It can be pretty hard in spots too.  Oh yes, and the Klingon wisecracks a lot, though not quite as much as Duke Nukem.  "Is that MY Bat'Leth in your chest?"  :D

Other than KHG, I don't personally have any other GLIDE-only titles.  I'm sure they're out there.  Basically anything stamped with a 3DFX logo that does not support straight OpenGL will benefit from the wrapper, so long as it expects glide2x.dll, not the old Voodoo 1 GLIDE.

Right. All I've got to do is finish tribes vengance, (kinda stuck, defending the four 'towers' which are not towers but signal discs against the air attack)  then go back and finish Q4 (which I left for a bit to go and play Alice). the I'll try Deus Ex maybe, then KHG.

It should be pointed out that when KHG was re-released on budget years ago, PC Format gave it 89% and I think PC Gamer UK  gave it a high score too.

To me, KHG is fun, although I did go up to the Andorian dancing girls and press the spacebar repeatedly....but nothing happened! Bah!

I also learned to map using UnrealEd on both KHG and Unreal 1.  So it holds special memories for me...might try reinstalling it and tweaking it - maybe even fiddling around with different rendering files if I can (I remember being able to, but it was that long ago that I've probably got it all confused...I'll try and get back to ye's).

Regards,

Yickle.

Ahh, I'm glad it got some decent reviews then.  I remember reading one online and I think it might have been an archive from PC Gamer UK.  

Yeah, the dancing girls don't do much except dance, and die if you attack them.  They don't even scream.  Of course, there's no honor in killing an unarmed civilian, so I reloaded and left them alone after my initial curiosity was satisfied.  Killing Andorian soldiers is a blast though. "Did that hurt, little Ferengi?" ^_^

Now if you ever get KHG installed again and I'd love to try some Deathrite with you.  The bots keep latching on "3" for some reason, which is no fun when they just continually dodge every shot and never miss at all.  I'm not sure why that's happening, I don't remember encountering this problem before.

Well, we've got to remember that KHG is a very rushed product.  I say this because the original Unreal only came out in 1998 as did KHG, it could have done with some more polishing time.  But if I remember right, Microprose was facing difficulties at the time financially..it was a fair bit of time ago so I'll check it out later.

But anyways,  yes I have KHG installed now and I have the inclination to make a Doom 3-esque level in it...*shrugs*

Regards,

Yickle.