Patch #3 Technical Notes
(These are from some Official Origin posts)

-Directdraw Errors
Our executable is "linked" to DirectDraw's version 7 libraries. The version 6 libraries don't contain the function "CreateDirectDrawEx". So, even if this function isn't used, Windows tries to find the function when the program is simply loaded; so, you get the error no matter what. Yes, it's our fault we didn't catch this. But, the fix is simple. Install DX7 off your original Install CD, and it'll be fixed. And then, get the latest driver from your card vendor.

-ATI Rage Cards:
The Rage Pro and Rage 128 cards are incredibly sensitive to the driver you use; they're pretty finicky; we found that once we had the "right" driver, it worked fine with no problems, but the "wrong" driver just wouldn't work at all. You should try drivers from the ATI web site first; don't use the ones that are built into the DX7 install. If those don't work, try drivers from your card manufacturer, if they have any

My records show that EA got a positive test on the ATI Rage 128 chipset with an ATI Rage 128 All-in-Wonder card, with driver version 4.11.6216. .

The ATI web site is very confusing in its list of drivers; everything is named "Rage this" and "Rage that". EA's report uses the name "ATI All-in-Wonder 128" for the driver; you should make sure you have that one, if you have an All-in-wonder card. If you have a Rage Fury card that uses a Rage128 chipset, be sure you get a Rage Fury driver. (This is very confusing, I wish they'd name their cards a little better; this is one reason people have so much trouble with these cards, I believe.). You can right-click on your desktop, select Properties, then select Settings, then Advanced, to see which driver version your card is using.

-3Dfx Cards & Direct3D
You can actually still run under D3D rather than Glide; we may have a compatibility problem with the Banshee, I'll check on that.

To set up your system to run in D3D: Run FinalSetup, and select D3D with the "primary device" (if that's your Banshee) selected. Set your res to 640x480 to start with, to be safe. Choose 16-bit textures (be sure you install them first!)

Then, you have to edit your options.ini; set this line from:

Force4444Alpha=0
to:
Force4444Alpha=1
(This is because 3dfx chips don't support the 32-bit alpha format we use; they have to use a 4444 format rather than 8888).

Anyway, try this & let us know how it goes! This thread is a good place to reply to, I check on it from time to time.

later: OK, I checked our hardware test lab results; they indicate we do run on the Banshee in Glide mode. You should still try D3D on your system, just in case... The lab results also show we have a black screen lockup on the Voodoo Rush card, FYI.

-More on D3D
This is quite correct. Our use of various D3D alpha blending modes pushes the edge of D3D in a way that many other games don't. We are using "officially recommended" methods for accessing these modes; but not all vendors properly support them. Additionally, we worked hard with D3D experts, and engineers at 3dfx, nVidia and Matrox, to optimize our performance in these last 2 patches. Our performance went way up on most cards, notably the G200, G400, TNT, and TNT2 cards; but it went down on the GeForce. Go Figure! Welcome to D3D, folks. You will be seeing this with other games, believe me.

-GeForce Cards
Try the ever-more-popular setting in OPTIONS.INI:

Game Rasterizer=4
This is the recommended setting for GeForce owners!

Misc Tech Issues

-Origin Sound Programmer Posted a bit on 3d sound in Windows95

"The "I'm missing 3D sounds" bug appears to be a DirectX initialization problem in Windows95, which Microsoft and I are currently looking into. The only current, sure-fire ways to get your 3D SFX playing are:
1) Use Glide (stops D3D from initializing, which is apparently what is causing DS3D to not work)
-or-
2) Install Windows98 (this issue doesn't occur with Win98)

As for setting UseNotify to 1... I wouldn't recommend it. It causes all 3D SFX to be played/mixed in software - you get *NO* hardware accelleration (the setting was something I was experimenting with during development. There *may* be h/w support for the notification interface in future versions of DirectX, which would get some extra performance out of the game, but for now, I'd leave it at '=0')"

-Performance Tuning
A lot has been mentioned about manually adjusting your swap file settings. See Darksharps Tech Faq. I've not adjusted my setting because I've noticed no hard disk thrashing like everyone else. Occasionally I look down and see that it is in fact happening but, it isn't noticable. I would credit that to having put U9 on a seperate partition from Windows in addition to having an IBM Deskstar and 128 megs of Ram.
I can play the game for hours and not have a problem with it crashing. When it does, its specific. I turned off EAX in Covetous and I havn't had a crash yet.

If you have a VooDoo card. Make sure you're running Glide and not D3D.
If you have a D3D card (not 3dfx) Don't install Dx7, Dx6.1 is the best so far.
Set your swap file to twice the amount of ram you have. Nothing more, nothing less.
Memory leaks are rampant, stop every hour 1/2 and reboot.
Buying more memory is the biggest performance improvement.

Make sure your OPTIONS.INI file sets up stereo and not surround.

; SpeakerConfig has the following values:
; 1 - Headphones
; 2 - Mono
; 3 - Quad
; 4 - Stereo
; 5 - Surround
SpeakerConfig=4

Disable EAX

; Turn on and off EAX environmenta audio extensions (Echo's etc)
EnableAcoustics=0

-Tip
DON'T DELETE OPTIONS.INI! It's your friend--don't delete it! The game creates a "default" one if you do; but the default's WON'T be tuned to your system. You'll probably crash if you delete it. If you do delete it, either re-install, or run Hardware Setup & make sure every setting on the dialogs are appropriate for your system.

-Tip
DON'T INSTALL COMPRESSED TEXTURES UNLESS YOU HAVE A SAVAGE4! Some cards just don't run with Compressed Textures. Use 16-bit for D3D.

-Here's a description of some of the options you didn't know about, FYI: From CaptBill at engaged.com BBS.

MaxProcessPercent: We have a debug screen (not in the final game) that shows %CPU usage of various Processes in the our engine--this value affects that debug screen.

TestingMoongates: Unknown, lost in the mist of time.

AutomaticMonoScreen: Useful only if you have an MDA (Mono Display Adapter). Shows a frame-rate counter if set to 1.

MovesysMonoType: Another debug screen option.

drawCollisionCylinders: If enabled, will draw the "collision cylinder" for every creature in the world. We use it for debugging. Slows the game way, way down.

WarnSpeedLimit: if on, stop signs appear on the screen in areas that are too slow. We used this for tuning the speed of various areas of the game.

WarnPolyLimit: Stop sign for too many polys.

WarnMeshNumLimit: Stop sign for too many meshes.

WarnMeshRamLimit: Stop sign for too much RAM used by meshes.

TerrainGridColor: Unknown, lost in the mist of time.

TerrainLODTextures: Enables custom textures for far-away terrain. Should be 1.

TintProblemChunkCrossingItems: Unknown, lost in the mist of time.