Universal fix for 8-bit paletted textures support?

As you may know NVidia and AMD/ATI dropped support for the " 8-bit paletted textures" - much used in '90 / early '00 games - in their GPUs/driver suites long time ago, in 2003-2004. Intel still supports it in the first i3/i5 GPU Gen (i3 530, etc.), and maybe in actual GPUs too (I don't know 'cause I don't own a Sandy Bridge processor or later ones)

For some games there's a specific fix (->FF series), but there's no "universal" fix for this texture-quality-killer issue. The problem is really annoying 'cause - with some good tweaking efforts - we (retrogamers ) can run an old game on a new platform (HW+OS) but nothig can fix the VERY BAD texture quality of 8-bit paletted texture without a proper GPU driver support:

(see the terrain in the good old MechWarrior 3 running on a Windows 8.1 64 bit system, GeForce 750Ti)



1) So there's some hopes for the future to get a generic fix?
2) Owners of Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge/Haswell processor can test&report?

P.S.: in advance, it's NOT a problem with "8 bit COLOURS" but with "8-bit paletted textures" ( http://www.cs.rit.edu/~ncs/Courses/570/UserGuide/OpenGLonWin-20.html )

 

Pallete support was removed since the Geforce 5 FX series

The ground textures look about the same as my Geforce 2 Unit I could be wrong.

You could run the game in a software mode which usually gets rid of the problem but not as Good Performance Wise. CPU doesn't matter what ur IGP or GPU is matter I will take a look though

 

It's not only a performance problem! Software mode=no filtering / lot of pixellation / no high resolutions
Mech3 isn't the only game affected, ALL those old games using paletted textures are affected (if you can run them! Take a look to Blood 2!).

There must be some kind of generic fix with all the actual processing power!

 

You're wrong

Take a look, my i3 530 iGPU:



Compare to the GeForce 750Ti picture



Or a Radeon 7850 picture:



Why on Earth a Radeon or a GeForce can't emulate the correct filtering - with their incredible power load - a simple 2008/2010 Intel Graphics can do?

 

Another game with this problem is Metal Gear Solid.
But, in that case, the game just won't launch.
And also Metal Gear Solid 2, where the screens in the tanker chapter, in the lower deck, are green, because of this.


This is interesting to do some tests...

 

Yes, the same problem.....but the game runs fine, with HW acceleration! (picture taken on my Radeon 7850 system)

 

Yeah, but, you used the HW fix, right?

Otherwise, the game WON'T run at all.

 

I know with arx fatalis you extact the Textures and then Update them to a format newer cards can process makes me wonder is there an extractor maybe for mw3 so one can do the same to the textures.. ARX Fatatlis on GoG is auto fixed this way now

 

This fix!

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid:_Integral#Graphics_issues_with_GeForce.2FRadeon_GPUs

 

so the geforce fx series cards dont have support for 8 bit paletted?

for my retro machine
I have fx card installed.

I switched it to my older geforce mx420. and I swear the textures look better:3eyes:

 

I know, I made it.
But, I thought you said with worked without it.

 

Tested now Mech3 on a HD4600 (i5-4200M) with lastest drivers.
It still support 8bit paletted textures

So there's no technical problem/limitation at all.....