List of games with 8-bit paletted texture support
Contents
- 1 Paletted texture effect summary
- 2 Graphics cards which support paletted textures
- 3 Graphics cards which don't support paletted textures
- 4 Paletted texture use in games
- 5 List of games which use paletted textures to increase visual quality
- 6 List of games which use paletted textures to reduce visual quality
- 7 List of which use paletted textures to improve performances
- 8 Related links
- 9 References
Paletted texture effect summary
A paletted texture is defined by giving both a palette of colors and a set of image data which is composed of indices into the palette. The paletted texture cannot function properly without both pieces of information so it increases the work required to define a texture. This is offset by the fact that the overall amount of texture data can be reduced dramatically by factoring redundant information out of the logical view of the texture and placing it in the palette.[1]
Graphics cards which support paletted textures
- 3dfx cards[2]
- NVIDIA GeForce 256 through GeForce FX[3]
- S3 Savage4[4]
- Trident Blade3D[5]
- 3Dlabs Permedia 2[6]
- Matrox Millennium II[7][8]
- Matrox Mystique[9]
Graphics cards which don't support paletted textures
- ATI Radeon cards[10]
- ATI Rage 128 Pro cards[11]
- Matrox G4xx cards[12]
- NVIDIA GeForce 6 series and later cards[13]
- S3 UniChrome Pro IGP[14]
Paletted texture use in games
How games make use of paletted textures depends entirely on developer intent. In some cases, paletted textures are used to render additional effects, thereby increasing the graphical fidelity of such games. In other cases, paletted textures are used as a means to improve game performance, but this sometimes causes a reduction of visual quality. Additional details are presented below.
List of games which use paletted textures to increase visual quality
- Driver (1999)[15][16]
- European Air War (1998)
- Final Fantasy VII (1998)[17][18]
- Final Fantasy VIII (2000)[19]
The games listed above use paletted textures to increase visual quality, and exhibit rendering issues on graphics cards that don't support this feature. This list is incomplete. It merely shows the currently known games for which 8-bit paletted texture use has been confirmed by testing.
List of games which use paletted textures to reduce visual quality
- Kingpin: Life of Crime (1999)[20]
- Quake II (1997)[21][22]
- SiN (1998)[23]
- Tomb Raider III (1998)[24]
The games listed above use paletted textures to improve performance, but do so at the cost of visual quality. Paletted texture use is optional in such games and is usually turned off by default. It is primarily meant for improving performance on low-end graphics cards which support this feature. This list is incomplete. It merely shows the currently known games for which 8-bit paletted texture use has been confirmed by testing.
List of which use paletted textures to improve performances
- Forsaken (1998)[25]
- GLQuake (1997)[26]
- Heretic II (1998)[27][28]
- Hexen II (1997)[29]
- Homeworld (1999)[30]
- Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000)[31]
The games listed above use paletted textures to improve performance without any apparent impact on visual quality. This list is incomplete. It merely shows the currently known games for which 8-bit paletted texture use has been confirmed by testing.
Related links
- Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures - forum discussion with screenshots
- List of games with table fog support
- List of games with EMBM support
References
- ↑ J. Kilgard, Mark, (March 24, 2004), NVIDIA Corporation, NVIDIA
EXT_paletted_texturespecification (link) - ↑ 3DFX Voodoo 3 paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX400 paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ S3 Savage4 graphics cards seem to support paletted textures when using older driver versions (screenshot)
- ↑ Trident Blade3D graphics cards seem to support paletted textures (screenshot)
- ↑ Permedia 2 graphics cards support paletted textures when the relevant driver setting is enabled (screenshot)
- ↑ Matrox Millennium II paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ Matrox Millennium II datasheet (PDF)
- ↑ Matrox Mystique advertisment, PC Magazine, February of 1997 (screenshot)
- ↑ ATI Radeon 9000 Pro missing paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ ATI Rage 128 Pro missing paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ Matrox G400 missing paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ NVIDIA GeForce 6200 missing paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ S3 UniChrome Pro IGP missing paletted texture support (screenshot)
- ↑ Driver configuration utility (screenshot)
- ↑ Driver gameplay video (YouTube clip)
- ↑ The unpatched retail version of Final Fantasy VII will not allow Direct3D acceleration on graphics cards which don't support paletted textures (screenshot)
- ↑ Even the fully patched 1.02 version of Final Fantasy VII displays visual differences on graphics cards which don't support paletted textures (screenshot)
- ↑ Final Fantasy VIII options menu (screenshot)
- ↑ Kingpin video options menu, manual and skybox (screenshots)
- ↑ Quake II options menu (screenshot)
- ↑ Quake II skybox rendering and manual excerpt (screenshot)
- ↑ SiN video options menu, manual and skybox (screenshots)
- ↑ Tomb Raider III setup program (screenshot)
- ↑ Forsaken options menu (screenshot)
- ↑ GLQuake documentation (screenshot)
- ↑ Heretic II in-game console output (screenshot)
- ↑ Heretic II Video Settings menu (screenshot)
- ↑ Hexen II in-game console output (screenshot)
- ↑ Homeworld video options menu (screenshot)
- ↑ Homeworld: Cataclysm video options menu and manual (screenshots)
