                     -= VooDooMovie V1.4 =-
                    (c)1999 Tjalling Hattink
                 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
                 http://vdmovie.operation3d.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
  You have the full registered version. It's for personal use only.
              You are not allowed to spread it around!
---------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Introduction

This program is an addon for microsofts direct show (formerly known as
active movie). It replaces the original video renderer. The video
renderer is a part of the direct show system and is responsible of
showing the frames of a movie on the screen in a window. When
voodoomovie is enabled it will do the job instead. It shows the frames
stretched fullscreen on the 3dfx card. The software doesn't have to
stretch the frames anymore and the 3dfx uses the bilinear filtering to
make the movie look better. If you have a tv output you can even show
the video on the tv. Because this program only replaces the video part
the rest will be processed by the default parts. You can still use the
standard microsoft media player or active movie player to play your
movies.

This program is SHAREWARE. You will see a text coming up slowly when
you play a movie. If you register this text will be removed. You are
required to register after 14 days. At the end of this readme you
can read how to register.

2) Requirements

To use this program you need at least windows98, windows 95 or
windowsNT and a 3dfx, 3dfx2 or 3dfx3 card. Glide 2.3 or later should
also be installed and direct show. Direct show is installed by default
when you use media player 6.0 or higher versions. This player is
found in the windows98 install.

To use the other utils you also need mfc 4.2 or later but I assume it's
always installed.

3) Installing

Note: Before installing be sure to uninstall any previous version.
Otherwise you could get a mix up of the renderers.

To install this program just run setup.exe. It will prompt for a
directory to install to and a menugroup for the links. Then it
will install all the files and enables voodoomovie. There should be 5
links in your start menu. You can also uninstall the program using the
uninstaller in the control panel or using the uninstall link in the
start menu directly.

To see as much colors as possible during playback set your gamma
settings on 1. Otherwise you have less colors and the movie will
look blocky.

4) How to use

There are 5 links in the start menu:
- Disable VooDooMovie : This option disables (not uninstall) the
renderer and the default window renderer will be used.
- Enable VooDooMovie : This option enables voodoomovie again.
- Readme : Link to this readme
- Uninstall VooDooMovie : This uninstalls the renderer and
the normal window renderer will always be used again.
- Properties VooDooMovie : Here you can enter various settings for
the renderer. See below for more info.

When you start a movie and the renderer is enabled the 3dfx will be
turned on directly. If you play the movie on the monitor you can't
see the player anymore. You can change this behaviour in the properties
using the Show player when active setting. This setting is explained
later in this readme.

Because the player isn't visible you can't use the scrollbar or buttons
on it to navigate through the movie. Luckily most players react on
shortcut keys also. The player should be active when you use the keys.

I'll give the shortcuts of the 2 most used players:


[MEDIA PLAYER 6.0 or higher (installed by default in windows98)]

SPACEBAR                Play or pause an open media file. 
PERIOD                  Stop the player. 
PAGE UP                 Restart current clip or play previous clip
                        (Skip Back). 
PAGE DOWN               Play next clip in playlist (Skip Forward). 
LEFT ARROW              Momentary rewind. Rewind stops when you release
                        the key. (Doesn't always work) 
CTRL + LEFT ARROW       Continual rewind. Rewind continues until you
                        select another control. (Doesn't always work) 
RIGHT ARROW             Momentary fast forward. Fast forwarding stops
                        when you release the key. (Doesn't always work) 
CTRL + RIGHT ARROW      Continual fast forward. Fast forwarding
                        continues until you select another control.
                        (Doesn't always work) 
ALT + LEFT ARROW        Open the previous media file you played in this
                        session.  
ALT + RIGHT ARROW       Open the next media file in the list of files
                        played in this session. 
M or CTRL+M             Turn sound off or on. 
UP ARROW                Turn volume up. 
DOWN ARROW              Turn volume down. 
ALT-F4                  Close program. 


[Active movie player]

CTRL+LEFT ARROW         Rewind.
CTRL+P                  Pause.
CTRL+R                  Run/Start.
CTRL+RIGHT ARROW        Forward.
CTRL+S                  Stop.
CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT ARROW   Previous.
CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW  Next.
ALT-F4                  Close program.

Note: If you open a movie and nothing happens (only blank screen)
press SPACE (or CTRL+R for active movie player) to start playing.

Note: Don't press ALT-TAB during playing. The focus to the player will
be lost and you can't use any shortcut mentioned above. And voodoo3
drivers don't work properly also when using ALT-TAB. Use the
CTRL-SHIFT-A shortcut instead (see the properties, other settings for
more information)

Note: Never start two movies at the same time. The players don't know
that the other player uses the 3dfx also so you get a real mess.

The Properties:

[Video Modes] (Registered version only)

In the Video Modes section you can change the video mode and refresh
rate of the 3dfx. Most of the video modes and all the refresh rates
are directly derived from the glide documentation. There are some
combinations of modes and refresh rates that doesn't work on the
current 3dfx cards. If you enter the wrong videomode usually glide
doesn't initialise so you see nothing. Just experiment with this mode
to suit your best needs. Default mode is 640x480 60Hz.

Note: After changing the video mode you have to quit the player and
restart it otherwise the movie will be rescaled but the new resolution
won't be opened.

You can also set the brightness of the movie. This is basically the
alpha value of the 'movietextures'. The default mode is full (255).
When you move the slider to the left the picture will be darker. At
the most left the value is 0 and you have no picture at all.
Experiment with this mode to get the best picture on your screen/tv.
Especially fullbrightness is sometimes too white on tv's. Brightness
has nothing to do with the gamma of your card. You can use gamma also
to make the picture darker but gamma doesn't always work and isn't so
nice in darkening as brightness is (try it out yourself). Keep your
gamma on 1 and experiment with this mode instead. To set a new gamma
use a 3dfx tweak program.

[Movie Settings] (Registered version only)

In the Movie Settings section you can enable and disable keep aspect
ratio. When disabled the movie will always be stretched to full screen
without keeping aspect ratio (the length of new size / the height of
new size isn't the same as the length of original size / the height
of the original size). When enabled the aspect ratio will be held
and the movie won't be completely stretched to full screen. Default
setting is enabled.

The bilinear setting is for enabling and disabling bilinear filtering
during rendering. This setting is enabled by default. When turned on
the stretched pixels (normally little blocks) will be shaded so the
picture looks more blurry and less blocky. When turned off the 3dfx
card will only stretch. Turned off the renderer will be slightly
faster.

The tripple buffer setting is for enabling and disabling tripple
buffer mode. This setting is disabled by default. When enabled the
renderer might be slightly faster and smoother and 'tearing' during
the movie will be eliminated. But this mode takes more 3dfx memory so
on cards with only a few megs 800x600 or lower resolutions won't work
anymore.

The scale slider is for scaling the movie. Default setting is 1 (no
scaling). When slide to left the movie will be smaller. When the
slider is completely on the left you can't see anything at all.
When sliding to the left you'll zoom in on the movie (to the centre).
You can zoom in to max 4 times. You can't move around in the picture
but that will be supported in the future (when I make my own player).

[Color Modes]

In the Color Modes section you can enable of disable various bit modes:
8 Bit: the renderer uses a palette of 256 colors and the quality is not
so good. But some videos can only play in this mode. However, try this
mode when you play videos on the tv and you have a slow processor. It's
quite fast and you don't see that much difference with the 16 Bit mode
on the tv. Try it!
16 Bit 555: the render uses 5 bits for Red, Green and Blue. It's almost
the same as 565
16 Bit 565: the render uses 5 bits for Red and Blue and 6 bits for
Green. This mode gives the best quality for 16 bits and doesn't take
too much cpu time.
24 Bit: the render uses 8 bits for Red, Green and Blue and is the best
quality possible on the 3dfx card. Only this mode takes much more cpu
time because I have to upload very small textures. The voodoo1 cards
can't keep up at all for big movies because of too much data upload
to their texture memory.

Default are the 8 and 16 bit modes enabled and 24 bit mode disabled.
Usually you don't have to change any settings, if you have a very fast
computer and a voodoo2 you can try the 24 bits mode. I still have to
optimize this one. Just try it once to see the quality difference.

The renderer always tries to use the best bit mode available. That
depends on what you enabled and what bit modes the movie supports.

[Other Settings]

In this section you can set mischellaneous properties. The only setting
now is Toggle 2D/3D with CTRL-SHIFT-A. When disabled the 3dfx card will
become active when a movie starts playing and becomes inactive after the
player is finished. (An active 3dfx card means that it shows its
picture on the monitor instead of the 2d card, when it's inactive the
2D card shows its picture on the monitor)

When the Toggle 2D/3D with CTRL-SHIFT-A is enabled you can make the 3dfx
card inactive by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-A anytime. The 2D screen becomes
visible and you can access the player. You can use the buttons and
scrollbars to navigate through the video while the player is visible.
When you press CTRL-SHIFT-A again the 3dfx card becomes active again
and you can see the movie playing. You can toggle between the 2D and
3D screen with CTRL-SHIFT-A all the time.

Before you go back to 3D mode select the media player first. If you
don't do that you can't use any other shortcuts during playing anymore
(like space for pause).

This setting is useful when you have your 2d card linked through your
3dfx card or you have a 2d/3d combination 3dfx card (rush/banshee).
If you connected your 3dfx card to a separate monitor or tv then you
can better disable this setting which is the default setting.

5) Bugs and future plans

This program is tested on pure3d, flash3d, monster3d, miro hischore3d,
miro hischord3d2, hercules stingray3d and other rush cards and the
creative voodoo2 card. The rush card is still acting somewhat buggy so
I'll try to get my hands on one soon and fix it all. The voodoo2 bug
should be fixed by know.

Please let me know if it doesn't work on your card or if you find
another bug. You can mail me at tjalling@s3dnews.net. If you send in
please tell which version of this program you use and what kind of
hardware and software (windowsNT/95/98) you use.

Never start 2 movies at the same time. This situation isn't proberly
handled and can't be prevented properly.

Currently I use the standard player but I'll develop my own player that
is also visible on the 3dfx screen.

6) Registering

This software is shareware. You may evaluate it for 14 days.
After that you are required to register. The registration fee
is $15 or 25 DFL. To register use the homepage. There you can pay
online with your credit card. For futher instructions go to the
purchase section. The homepage url is http://vdmovie.operation3d.com

If I receive enough support I'll keep developing on this program. If
you have any suggestions or bugs please mail me on tjalling@3dnews.net.
I need it to make this program better.

It's allowed to spread this program only when there's no fee charged
for it (except for media costs) and no files are changed in this
package.

For dutch people you can also register by transferring money via the
bank or giro. Mail me for details.

7) Updates

I hope to update this program with extra functionality and ofcourse
bugfixes. To obtain the latest version check out 
http://vdmovie.operation3d.com

where I'll always release the latest version.

8) Troubleshooting

There are some situations in which the 3dfx renderer doesn't work.
During installing the setup could give an error like this:

	c:\win95\system\3dfxrend.ax
	unable to register the dll/ocx (Loadlibrary failed)

There are other variants but they all mean the same. The renderer
couldn't be fit in the active movie system or your glide is not
functioning. Reinstall glide or active movie and this error is 
usually gone. Even reinstalling windows does help. Active movie is
easy to corrupt (e.g. by installing other movie programs)
unfortunately.

Sometimes you get a fatal error when starting a movie. Just try again,
usually it works. I don't know where this error comes from so it's
very hard to fix. Because a 2nd try almost always work I'm not going
to fix it in the near future.

If voodoomovie hangs when you open a movie try disabling your splash
screen in the driver settings (not voodoomovie settings). It could
solve the problem.

For more information check out the homepage.

9) Disclaimer

The usage of this program is at your own risk! I assume no liability,
whatsoever. Although this program has been extensively tested, you
are adviced that random problems might occur. I'm in no way
responsible for any damage caused by this program to the system or
in any other way.

10) History

V1.4  - Replaced the player visible option by toggle 2D/3D with
        CTRL-SHIFT-A setting, which is much easier to use. VDM should 
        also work on the banshee and voodoo3 by now.

V1.3  - Add option to make player visible (by disabling the 3dfx card)
        when the player window is active. Some bugfixes.

V1.2  - Changed name to VooDooMovie. No futher bugfixes needed.

V1.2B - Fixed misaligning (diagonal picture) bug for some movies.
        Improved the 24 bit mode a little bit.

V1.1  - Added 24 bits mode but is quite slow. Voodoo2 bug hopefully
        fixed.

V1.0  - First version. Only supported 640x480 60 Hz fullscreen with
        8 and 16 bit colormodes. It was only tested on pure3d and
        flash3d. It doesn't work good on voodoo2 cards.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for using this program and have fun with it!

Tjalling Hattink