[Guide] How To Emulate Hardware Transform and Lighting in Software

If you're a netbook user, like me, you'll probably have run into areas like the Central Transfer Chamber, Rata Sum or the lowest level of Heart of the Mountain that will cause the game to crash and throw up a generic error message about updating your drivers or some such. If you email support about it, like I did, they'll politely tell you that you aren't using a supported card and you need to buy a better one.

No offense, but screw that!

Chances are, your video card is just a piece of plop and lacks hardware TnL (which, by the way, stands for Transform and Lighting) <<< this is a major issue! But it's also a solvable issue, whatever Support thinks!

Enter the Solution: http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/tools/3d_analyze/index.php

Step1: Download 3danalyze
Step2: Unzip it someplace easy to find
Step3: Run it
Step4: Find the gw.exe using the Select box in the top left
Step5: Look for the (nearby) box that says "force SW TnL" next to it
Step6: CLICK THAT BOX GOOD AND HARD
Step7: Hit the run button and never worry about a TnL related crash ever again.

Now, this will result in a noticeable drop in framerate in areas that require TnL -- that's because the program forces the CPU to make up for the lack of dedicated GPU infrastructure, and that's pretty costly in terms of cycles. But lemme put it this way -- you can either A) buy a whole new machine whose video card alone costs as much as your netbook or B) have standard performance in 99% of GW and a little stutter in a small number of areas (chiefly locations in EoTN) that you literally could not access before.

I dunno, it sells itself! Especially when the price of this program is, uh, zero dollars.

There are other options on the program that you can figure out at your leisure but, honestly, the SW TnL is the big one

So there, problem solved. I told ANet's support this solution -- here's hoping they give it to other irritated netbook players!

I got a netbook with 9400m and I have no problem whatsoever... just buy a netbook with ion graphics