Well, NFS2SE was a version of NFS2 which included additional cars and tracks. The interesting part was the ability to support 3d acceleration on 3dfx cards. Sadly, that capability was available for 3dfx cards only. Other brands of cards had to play the regular version. And the difference in graphics quality is... well, a big difference.
As an important note, make sure you have virtual memory available, since this game, like TNFSSE, requires it. I was baffled when it stopped working, until I found out the drive Windows was using for virtual memory had 0 bytes free and manually assigned another one. After that, the game was running fine again.
Well, some people started to develop "glide wrappers", programs that would
fool the computer into thinking it had a 3dfx card and instead translate the
glide calls to equivalent OpenGL or Direct3D calls. (These programs were
developed maily for use with other programs, but hey should work with NFS2SE
too). 3dfx declared such programs illegal, since many of them had been developed
by reverse-engineering their SDK. I wonder what will happen now, with 3dfx having
been bought by NVidia... I suppose they would declare them not-anymore-illegal,
since they themselves should have interest in their other cards being able to
run stuff that was 3dfx-only before. Anyway, other wrappers were developed without
the SDK thing. I've tried some and here I offer you my findings.
eVoodoo 1.4a
This one isn't so good, it features a problem that will make some text appear where the sky should be in certain tracks (most notably Outback). Also, you cans see the cars and other objects (boxes and other obstacles) through the hills and slopes. You see even the track lines through them! I hoped version 1.5 would correct this, but instead all I get is a black screen, although the game is apparently running (you can still hear the music and sound effects).
eVoodoo 3.1XP
This one is quite impressive, the graphics quality is astounding, the only annoyance is that, like with MGlide 1.46g, you have to disable the rearview mirror or you won't be able to see a thing. Oh, and also that 3-D objects aren't visible after a certain distance, appearing only after you get closer, but maybe I just misconfigured something. Overall, the graphics quality is astounding.
eVoodoo 3.2XP
This one is the next version after 3.1, and has the same problems, although I suppose some other things may have been fixed. This one is the most recent of all.
Glid3D 0.24
This one is a little better, you get a nice trouble-less sky, but you have the see-through problem and also what I would call "psichodelic cars", the cars and some other objects are rendered in the wrong colors.
xgl200 0.04a
This one has similar problems with the sky and the see-through thing, though the sky is rendered better. I think it's the alpha corection that has been done better than on eVoodoo. Since this one is still under development, I hope the author will eventually fix those problems.
MGlide 1.46e
This one is good, only the sky is a little "broken" and the cars are the wrong color, but no see-through bug or text-in-the-sky bug. The setup program must be run in 16-bit mode, though the game itself runs well in either 16-bit or 32-bit mode.
MGlide 1.46f
This one is an improvement over the previous version, the sky is perfect but the cars are all white. No see-through bug or text-in-the-sky bug. The setup program must be run in 16-bit mode, though the game itself runs well in either 16-bit or 32-bit mode.
MGlide 1.46g
This one is a further improvement over the previous version, the sky is perfect and the cars are the right colors, no see-through bug or text-in-the-sky bug. The setup program must be run in 16-bit mode, though the game itself runs well in either 16-bit or 32-bit mode. The only annoyance is that you have to disable the rearview mirror or you won't be able to see a thing.
MGlide 1.46h
This one is almost perfect, the problem is the author released it unfinished. The sky is perfect and the cars are the right colors, no see-through bug or text-in-the-sky bug. The setup program can be run in 16-bit or 32-bit mode, you don't have to disable the rearview mirror... BUT, though the game itself runs well in either 16-bit or 32-bit mode, once you exit from it in 32-bit mode you'll have some problems... And the main annoyance is the "grid effect" (on 2-D screens) or "cupula effect" (on 3-D screens). Look at these screenshots and you'll see what I mean. The worse part is when you notice it in the cars' textures in some tracks. Oh, but I can live with that. I wish the author had completed it...
