Purpose: To speedup Voodoo, Voodoo ˛, Banshee, & Voodoo III 3dfx / OpenGL gaming based games and video boards Author Contact: alexkowalski@mindspring.com Installation: Unzip and Run it the SETUP.EXE program from c:\temp (default unzip area) Requires Windows95, Windows98, or Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack #3 with DirectX 3.0 ==================================================================================================== ATTENTION: If you used APK 3dFx Tuning Engine 2000++ prior to this release, remove these settings EITHER MANUALLY thru the registry editor, or by using the program's main menu Reset to Defaults Options for your particular accelerator board! That is the simplest way, then just reset/retune as you normally would! SSTH3_GRXCLK SSTH3_REFRESH_640x480 SSTH3_REFRESH_800x600 SSTH3_REFRESH_1024x768 SSTH3_FASTPCIRD SSTH3_FASTMEM SSTH3_VIDEO_24BPP SSTH3_SWAP_EN_WAIT_ON_VSYNC FX_GLIDE_NO_SPLASH FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL from your registry voodoo3 areas from: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\3Dfx HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\3Dfx\Device0 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\3Dfx\Device0\D3D HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\3Dfx\Device0\Glide HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\-0001\D3D HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\-0001\Glide from your registry under banshee areas from: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\banshee\Device0 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\banshee\Device0\D3D HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\banshee\Device0\Glide HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\-0001\D3D HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\-0001\Glide (As they proved to slow you down, and is corrected in this release and are not needed and are detrimental to your speed...) ==================================================================================================== WINDOWS95 or WINDOWS98 USERS ATTENTION PLEASE: ============================================== You MUST Install with InstallShield installer to avoid an error the first time you run the Program after installation. InstallShield makes several registry entry flags to signal the need to backup your autoexec.bat file for safe restores of it should you uninstall, and during alterations of it by this program! SHOULD YOU INSTALL IT BY SIMPLY COPYING IT from one system to another The first time program is then run, it will issue an error message. Disregard this and run the Backup Button from the main screen (or from the main screen menu Tools, or the Trayicon Popup Menu icon Tools section). This is only done once and the error will not show again. This backup preserves the contents of your original Autoexec.bat file for safety purposes! To USE THIS PROGRAM: =================== 1.) You need Windows NT 4.0 or better with Service Pack #3 ( Some systems may need to apply the Microsoft Common Control update contained inside as 40comupd.exe. If it fails to load or DrWatson errors out, then apply the controls update, reboot and then the program will run fine) 2.) Unzip and run SETUP.EXE (will install to your Windows or WINNT directory but runs from anywhere on your system) 3.) and of course, you need a love of OpenGL gaming / 3dfx gaming SOME QUOTES FROM HAPPY USERS USING THE PROGRAM (showing 20-30% increases): ===================================================================== TESTIMONY #1 ============ Subject: APK 3dFX Tuning Engine 9.0++ Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 22:10:19 +0200 From: "Lars Krag" To: Very impressive work you´ve done here. I have a P200 MMX with a CL 8 Mb Voodoo 2 board with 64 Mb RAM. I play a lot in my spare time, actually it´s my prime time, and have been playing Unreal a lot lately. Sadly my computer isn´t quite up to the game (as well as Quake II anyway). Even with the new drivers and the TMU patch from 3fingers, or whatever his name is, I couldn´t get the timedemo 02 up to more than around 21 fps. I´m by no means an expert on computers, but without changing any settings, applying your program and recommandations, I got a solid 28 fps. Not only that, but the gameplay is now almost as smooth as Quake II, and absolutely playable. You just saved me a new computer, well at least for another 6 months anyway. Thanks. Lars Krag Oh, by the way, should you ever do an OS on your own, I´ll be first in line to pick one up. TESTIMONY #2 (from JKhan here on the board) ============ Its really great, APK's tuning program really does work, it boosted my Quake 1 framerate (intimedemo demo2.dem (I erased 1 by mistake )) from 49.9 to 57.8. Its so great all my games are consistently running much smoother on my Pentium 200 80 ram. Just wanted to thank you APK its a great program, and tell everybody else to try it out. I'm not sure of its location cuz he e-mailed it to me. Testimony #3 -------------------- Hey Alex, this is Ash (ChronoKnight) I got that tuner of your's, it Rocks!!!!!!!! Running Q2 in eccess of 35-40 FPS!!! I'm running a Pure3D (In NT 4.0 with the DX5 drivers) I know you apreciate these e-mails so I though I would send my thanks ^_^ Thanks again, Ash Testimony #4 ------------------- I had serious cache problems in the past, and its cleared up a little. I used your tuning engine and it helped a lot... and Daniel posted 08-30-98 08:13 PM EST (US) I just downloaded your new 98++ tuning engine, I used it and my fps in quake 2 went past 60 to 75-85! What a piece of work this engine is. All other tweaking programs just made my fps go down. Keep up the good work! Daniel Daniel, 3dfiles Message Board user Testimony #5 ------------------- Helza posted 08-30-98 10:38 AM EST (US) btw. I love your program I got a p200 and i get 5 ftp more in Quake2... AND Hey APK.. I used to run your Tuning program on my old PC a P 200 with a 8 MB Voodoo2 card... and got about 5 frames extra in Quake2.. At least it's better then nothing... but on my new computer a PII 450 with Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, what did you think I get..? how about a increase of 45....yes 45 frames.. how the hell is that possible...I went from 59,5 FPS to 104,5 and that in 1024 X 786 and that's with 3D Fingers Highest performance config... somehow it just blew away Quake 2.... you really did a great job at that one... Testimony #6 ------------ Logan posted 08-30-98 02:25 PM EST (US) I think its great work, and what else do you get for nothing? Testimony #7 ------------ Lethal Pencil posted 09-01-98 05:41 PM EST (US) APK, I think your program worked miracles on my computer! It improved my glquake fps by 18!!! ....now is that amazing or what! well done with the program....and yes...i agree with king stud, an uninstall would be a nice feature. But i have no plans to uninstall it! Lethal-Pencil Testimony #8 ============ Subject: Excellent utility : 3Dfx tuner Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 01:17:54 +0100 From: "Mark" To: Hello, Congratulations on a really excellent bit of software; 3Dfx tuner. I used to use your memory defragmenter also though after I formatted I'm not quite sure where it went. The vcache and cd-rom cache utility is also a great touch ... Thanks for a great utility (I'll try not to lose this one) Mark www.gameslog.com Testimony #9 ============ Subject: Maybe you can help Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 19:25:55 -0700 From: Zilla To: alexkowalski@inetnow.net First off APK for 3DFX is outstanding Man!! Zilla Testimony #10 ------------- Paul posted 08-18-98 11:59 PM ET (US) You may also want to try the APK Tweak program available from www.3dfiles.com (utilities section) this program makes simple work of all the various 3dfx card tweaks (registry, environment settings, and autoexec.bat/config.sys settings) There are a LOT of changes made to the registry with this program. One of which may solve your framerate problem. Run the program and look in the registry under (hkey local machine/software/3dfx interactive/voodoo2/ and then check the dos and glide settings for the tweaks. You never know, you could get lucky. I thought I had q2 maxed out on my machine. I ran this program and got an extra 3.9 fps in timedemo1 without changing a single thing in the game. Every bit counts. Good Luck. Testimony #11 ------------- Brad posted 09-17-98 02:04 PM EST (US) Got your program. Had to disable bp24, that was giving me trouble with the cards.. at 70 refresh rate I got a 10fps increase cards set at 95Mhz. Your prograns a keeper.. Is it me or is this site slow to load. takes forever!! Testimony #12 ------------- Jurik \"Eagle\" Ristjouw wrote: Hi there, I do not know you in person, but I just wanted to say that APKTweak is the best... Here are my results, done on my : intel P200MMX, Matrox Mystique 4MB, Diamond Monster 3D2 8MB Quake 1 timedemo demo2: without tweak : 59fps with tweak : 83fps!!!!!!!!!!!! :) - SSTV2_REFRESH at 75 - SSTV2GRXCLK at 95 without cooling yet I don't write a lot of comment, but I've seen no program do so much as this one thanx a lot, and please keep me informed about updates.... jurik@bart.nl Testimony #13 ------------- GERMAN TRANSLATION FOLLOWS DEUTSCHE UEBERSETZUNG FOLGT -------------------------- Dear Sirs, PC-WELT would like to put your software APK 3DFx Tuning Engine 98++ on CD. It will be distributed with the next issue of PC-WELT. If you agree please send us a short e-mail to agree@pcwelt.com. You can also send us a fax. Best wishes Anja Smeilus ------------ IDG Magazine Verlag GmbH PC-WELT Editorial office Brabanter Str. 4 D-80805 Munich Germany Phone +49-89-36086-297 Fax +49-89-36086-459 E-Mail agree@pcwelt.com PC-WELT PC-WELT - the German edition of PC World USA - is a magazine for advanced users. With 373.119 sold copies (audited Q3/98 by IVW) PC-WELT is the best selling monthly pc-magazine in Europe. GERMAN TRANSLATION DEUTSCHE UEBERSETZUNG -------------------- Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, die PC-WELT moechte Ihre Software APK 3DFx Tuning Engine 98++ auf die Heft-CD der naechsten Ausgabe brennen. Dafuer brauchen wir Ihr Einverstaendnis. Bitte schicken Sie uns eine kurze E-Mail an agree@pcwelt.com oder ein Fax. Mit freundlichen Gruessen Anja Smeilus ------------ IDG Magazine Verlag GmbH Redaktion PC-WELT Brabanter Str. 4 80805 Muenchen Tel. 0 89 - 3 60 86-297 Fax 0 89 - 3 60 86-459 E-Mail agree@pcwelt.com PC-WELT Die PC-WELT, eine Schwesterzeitschrift der PC World (USA), ist ein Fachmagazin fuer fortgeschrittene PC-Anwender. Mit einer verkauften Auflage von 373.119 Exemplaren (IVW 3/98) ist die PC-WELT der meist verkaufte PC-Monatstitel in Europa. TESTIMONY #14 ------------- From: Jean-Francois LeBlanc Subject: APK 3dFx Tuning Engine-Comments To:alexkowalski@mindspring.com Hello Alex I would just like to comment on your 3DFX utility, APK 3dFx Tuning Engine 98++. Before useing this program, i couldn't figure out what was wrong. I mean my system isn't that bad (200MMX,32MB,Voodoo2 12MB)but it ran games at about 20-25fps. I downloaded your program from www.winfiles.com (as to your request) and now my games run at over 30fps. I'm very satisified with your product, and come payday I will register to show my love for this program. Thanks Again!!! Frenchy TESTIMONY #15 ------------- Hey man. I just want to tell you that your program is the one that gives the edge. I bounced my FPS on Quake 1 from 60 to 89 FPS on timedemo 1 & 2. Im running a P2 412 (4 x 103), 128mb ram (pc100), 12mb Mon 3d 2. ALL i HAVE TO SAY IS KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK. I've got your page marked. Tim Kanive TESTIMONY #16 ------------- Alexander Peter Kowalski wrote: Oh, It’ll go well! I raised my system 25 frames per second on GLQuake (from 50fps to 75fps!!!) and on Quake II, I went from 22 frames per second to 40 frames per second! These are increases of 25 and 18... huge percetages!!! 50% and 30+ % increases on both games with NO flexing or screen idiosyncracies! Be sure the first time you run it to disregard the tiny error, run the backup button first! Then shut it down with the exit button, and restart it and tune! APK Phil Hall wrote in reply (regarding the efficacy of the program in Service Release #4): I just retuned using your program. It works! With my system (a PII 333 with 64MB ram and a CL V2) and making only “conservative” changes I got a 2.75 fs improvement in quake 2. I’m going to recommend this program to everyone I know! Phil Hall PS you can use this as another testimonial is you like. TESTIMONY #17 ------------- Hi Alex. I just wanted to tell you that I downloaded your 3DFX Tuner last night and then tried Freespace The Great War with it. Although I have no way of telling what my old versus new frame rates are, I noticed a huge performance increase. Previously, I had bog downs running the game on my Voodoo2 equipped AMD PR166 with 48 meg ram. Things were so silky smooth and fast (Lightning FAST!!!) that I actually had trouble keeping fighters in my gunsights. I have to learn not to overcompensate when I'm flying. Later today I am going to try Prophecy and Baldurs Gate and see if they smooth out any. Thank you for such a wonderfully fast tuning for a great video card. James Macarthur james.macarthur2@sympatico.ca TESTIMONY #18 ------------- Hi there, I just thought I'd add my testimony to your tweaking program. I ran your tweaker, changed JUST ONE option (refresh rate, change from 60 to 75) and guess what? I jumped FIFTEEN fps in Falcon4!! Normally I'd get 18 to 20 FPS in the cockpit view, but after changing the refresh rate, it upped to 35-44fps! And when I switched over to the virtual cockpit view, normally I'd get about 25 to 35fps but now I am getting 55 to 65fps! I don't know why when I changed the values manually in the past, the framerate still sucked. Probably because all I did were just batch file changes. I didn't touch the registry nor did I create a Voodoo2.ini file. Anyway, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! ps: I know it's not Quake but us flight-simmers use Falcon 4 as a benchmark just like Quakers use Quake as a benchmark for framerates :) pps: You don't have to reply to this email if you don't want to.. I know you must get alot of emails thanking you for this util. By the way, your homepage at mindspring is gone... ____ |___) - To email me, remove the ".sg" in the header |eter - Homepage is at http://www.swiftech.com.sg/~petertan - Unite for Java! - http://www.javalobby.org PGP Fingerprint: 8A4E C2D6 B1BA 3DA4 4B15 4AD1 91B8 7F76 BC2E DA85 Search the PGP keyserver at MIT for "Peter Tan" for my key END TESTIMONY EXCERPTS ====================== Why I wrote it --------------- I am an NT user who loves GLQuake, Quake II, and Hexen II / GLHexen... and I am alone, right? Now way! I was reading the information given to users at www.3dfxmania.com on how to "overclock" your 3dfx boards and drivers thru software parameter tuneability of drivers for boards like Diamond Monster 3d. I used the settings and indeed, things sped up drastically... only problem was, it was a manually done pain in the behind... Computers were designed to automate things, not make them complex... read on. Being a Win32 Senior Software Engineer, I decided to design one that was better than anyone else's out there for NT (or 95 and 98 for that matter!). NT does a better job of everything including OpenGL and 3dFx. I began to see tweakers for this stuff, but it was not up to my standards... things like batch file generators or programs only for autoexec.bat and DOS/Windows95. Nothing for NT... Well, the wait is over... The APK 3dFX Tuning Engine for NT (and since release 5.0, for 95/98 as well) is here! It directly poles the Environment in NT Memory thru the Win32 API and pokes it back to place the settings into memory for instant use. Not only that, but it places those settings there for future reuse and allows tuning on the fly of all settings for 3dFX and OpenGL enhanced boards and drivers! Created with Borland Delphi 3.0 32-bit code and the Win32 API for speed and performance! It also includes a Quake Help file with all the necessary settings for GLQuake and also many error trappers and redundancies for checking your settings. It allows you to reboot 95/98/NT also after making changes should you wish to, or list all your System information for reference for helping you make your tuning decisions. Enjoy, hope to see you on QuakeWorld Sometime... APK (Alexander Peter Kowalski)