Laura Croft Anniversary using DirectX 9c in Parallels is WORKING!

[bgose]

I've managed to get Tomb Raider Anniversary Demo working in a limited fashion under Parallels by installing DirectX 9c from Microsoft.

If you turn off the advanced features such as water effects, shadows, etc. it actually does pretty good. I've found that in windowed mode 1024x768 does OK, any bigger and it's too slow. Full screen is nice too, but a little small on my 23" Cinema HD.

[Ynot]

Wow, pretty good. :)

[unused_user_name]

What hardware is this running on?

[bgose]

I had to do some tweaking to Windows to get this to work so I'll share with you what I did.

#1 Download and install DirectX 9.0c from Windows.

#2 Copy the text below and paste it in notepad in windows. Save the file with the name "SwiftShader", then rename the extension to ".ini". The file should now have the name "SwiftShader.ini". (you could download SwiftShader from the internet, but it's hard to find)

[Caches]
; Vertex cache size
; Keep between 4 and 256
; Recommended: 64
VertexCacheSize=64

; Triangle batch size
; Keep between 1 and 256
; Recommended: 64
TriangleBatchSize=64

; Vertex shader and pipeline code cache size.
; Keep between 1 and 256
; Recommended: 256
PipelineCacheSize=256

; Rasterizer code cache size
; Keep between 1 and 256
; Recommended: 256
RasterizerCacheSize=256


[Quality]

; Maximum texture filter quality
; Linear, Average or Point
; Recommended: Linear
TextureFilterQuality=Linear

; Maximum mipmap filter quality
; Point, Polygon or None
; Recommended: Polygon
MipmapFilterQuality=Polygon

; Mipmap detail bias
; Keep between -8.0 and 8.0
; Recommended: 0.0
MipmapBias=0.0

; Render at half resolution
; Recommended: False
Scale2X=False

; Number of high-quality texture samplers
; Texture stages from 1 to N will sample at high quality
; Texture stages from N+1 to 8 will sample at low quality
; Useful for applications that always keep low-res lightmaps in
; particular texture stages.
; Keep between 0 and 8
; Recommended: 1 for UT2004, 8 otherwise
QualitySamplers=8

; Fast but lower precision perspective correction
; Recommended: True
FastPerspective=True

[Optimizations]

; Reduce overdraw if possible. May not work in many applications.
; Recommended: True for UT2004, False otherwise
OverdrawReduction=False

; Register copy propagation
; Recommended: True
CopyPropagation=True

; Eliminate redundant load operations
; Recommended: True
LoadElimination=True

; Eliminate redundant spill operations
; Recommended: True
SpillElimination=True

; Don't write back unmodified registers
; Recommended: True
DropUnmodified=True

; Write back minimal number of registers at jump
; Recommended: True
MinimalRestore=True

#4 Move the new .ini file into the Tomb Raider folder (or other game folder) as shown in the upper Windows explorer window.
#5 Restart Windows.
#6 Copy the d3d9.dll from C:\WINDOWS\system32 in your VM (this is a WINE .dll file that Parallels has created) and place it in the Tomb Raider folder as shown.
#7 Launch the game and have fun. Watch out for the two wolves at the beginning of the demo :)

NOTE: You will have to disable shadows, water effects, reflections, etc. if you want any speed out of the game, plus all those effects don't run correctly in the game anyway.

Keep in mind that this is a Graphics intensive program, and probably won't work on a laptop or other desktop Mac except the Mac Pro, you'll just have to try it out for yourself.

[bgose]

I'm using a Mac Pro quad core 2.66GHz with 2G ram, Parallels 3.0 Latest build w/ Windows XP (latest updates).

P.S. don't forget to enable DirectX support in parallels configuration or this isn't going to work!

[spectre]

Nice :) That... erm.. eyes ;) on the screenshots never stop to amaze :)
I think it's good idea to post this info to Shidayu's Wiki if you haven't already - http://forum.parallels.com/thread12826.html.

[bgose]

I'd love to be able to post this on the Wiki but I don't understand how to work the stupid page! Call me an idiot, but I just don't get what to do. Maybe someone else can do it if they're interested.

[bgose]

Okay, I put it in the Wiki.

What a pain in the butt!

[Ungenious]

You had to turn off all effects & run in 1024x768 on a MBP Quad Core + 2G RAM?

[bgose]

That's correct, you win the reading prize for today!:)

After re-reading Ungenious' post I have a correction, I am using a Mac Pro, not a MacBookPro. There is a slight difference there.

Keep in mind that I haven't done any amount of heavy testing or have even played for more than 2 minutes. I just thought it was cool that a DX9.0c game would even launch in Parallels. Don't be so negative about how poor the performance is, look at the potential Parallels has for running these types of games.

My hope is that somebody that knows how to tweak the *.ini file mentioned above can coax some more performance out of this setup.

I'm pretty excited about this!

[spectre]

Well, technically Parallels Desktop 3.0 is able to run some DirectX 9 applications. But saying that it supports DirectX 9 would be a serious overestimation - a lot of problems possible, including serious performance degradation of the 3D program. But we are working on it ;)

[bgose]

Spectre,

Can you expound on exactly what it is you're working on to enable more Direct X features and more importantly (for me) OpenGL?