Game:

Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (2001)

Duration: 10:21

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OFP/CWA runs on Glide (3dfx), Software and Hardware T&L (DX8 compatible graphics chip required for CWA), but with alternative renderers we can make it run on different APIs too and give it effects or features that aren't in base game. Here I'm showing the ones I tried out myself and how they compare. They are as follows:

0:00 Software Rendering (Swiftshader) - Swiftshader is a 3D software rendering program that serves as a bridge between DirectX/OpenGL and CPU-only rendering. I've managed to enable it in OFP/CWA and as you can see, it turns the game into "Operation Minecraft" with those large square pixels (note that it can render filtered graphics too but I picked such a look because it's associated with software rendering). The interesting part of this program is that it can make use of multi-threaded rendering, meaning that if you have a CPU with very many cores, it will use them to render the game. As such, this is a cool benchmark for raw CPU rendering power, but you will soon realize that CPU-only rendering is better left in the past, as modern graphics cards/chips handle it much more efficiently.

1:42 Kegetys DXDLL (DX8) - Kegetys DXDLL was the first such program written exclusively for OFP. It brought a lot of cool new effects to the game such as bump mapped water reflections, bloom, night shader removal (colours during night time), enhanced NV effect, etc. It's fully compatible with CWA too and it requires a 100% DirectX 8 compatible graphics card or chip (meaning Nvidia GeForce 3 or ATi Radeon 8500 and up). Overall, this is the most popular alternative renderer for OFP/CWA which I also recommend to every OFP/CWA player.

3:46 ENB (DX9) - ENB is a generic post-processing program written by a Russian programmer (the home page is ENBdev.com). It works with a number of different games, including OFP/CWA. But since there is no specific OFP/CWA configuration out there, we have to resort to existing ones such as the one for Mafia or Oblivion. The most notable new effects are motion blur (which I demonstrate in the video), depth of field, bloom, ambient occlusion and so on. Some of the more advanced effects like reflections and parallax mapping do not work in OFP/CWA. It should be noted that while it's interesting, it doesn't really improve the look of the game that much, can be taxing on the hardware and infact makes it harder to play if you overdo with the filters.

4:15 Reshade (DX9/DX10) - Reshade is an evolution of Sweet FX, the universal generic post-processing program. While it is not written for any specific game, almost any game that runs under Direct X (8 and up) or Open GL can be made compatible with it. It adds quite a lot of new effects, mostly picture enhancing ones, but also random filters. It requires a strong graphics card/chip to run well and you can customize it to your taste. Worth a try if you want to see how OFP/CWA looks like with modern/advanced effects and have a good enough GPU.

8:35 Flashpoint 2.05 (OpenGL/WIP) - Last but not least we have FP 2.05, a special, fan-made remake/rework of OFP/CWA. It is work in progress but I'm showing this early version here. It runs under OpenGL and adds new graphical features like shadow mapping, with more effects to be added. But it's not just a graphics improvement like the other programs here, it also adds 64-bit memory usage, multi-core support, new physics engine, join in progress and other cool stuff. For sure, this remake/rework has the potential to breathe new life into OFP/CWA.

You can download them all here: https://www.mediafire.com/?ffcx4qaw64gtamy

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