Introduction

With the release of the latest 3dfx BETA driver for the Voodoo 4/5 PCI/AGP everyone has been going on about HSR & performance increases. So what exactly is HSR & how can I use it ? Read on.

HSR

HSR = Hidden Surface Removal. The basic concept behind HSR is fairly self explanatory from the name – What can’t be seen shouldn’t be rendered. This can of course greatly improve performance as the video card no longer renders objects which aren’t visible (Every video card around still renders a lot more than what is actually visible).

Although HSR is not performed by the graphics card, rather by the CPU (Or T&L unit potentially if available, although this is unavailable on the Voodoo 4/5). As a result performance gains from HSR are largely CPU dependant. Currently HSR exists in BETA form, so many of the graphical errors or other workarounds mentioned here will inevitably become redundant as 3dfx fixes & optimizes the implementation.

Enabling HSR

Click on Start, Run, type in regedit & hit Enter. Go to the following registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\DISPLAY\000x\Glide\Hidden Surface Removal], where x represents the folder with the Glide sub-folder.

Right click on the Disabled value & select Modify, change the value from 2 to 0 & hit Ok. This will enable the display of the Hidden Surface Removal setting in 3dfx Advanced Features. However to ensure the setting remains there you must make 1 more change. Right click on the Hidden Surface Removal folder & select Rename. Add a blank space after Removal. You can now exit regedit & adding this blank space (Thanks Jam). This will ensure that the setting is not removed from 3dfx Advanced Features after a reboot.