First post, by JH64
- Rank
- Newbie
TL;DR: VirtualBox/VMware GPU driver with OpenGL, DirectX and Glide, download: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/releases
Update 2024-10-02:
Current version: SoftGPU 0.6.2024.40
Changelog:
- stability fixes - double buffering support (or emulation) - Hires <-> VGA mode switching correctly - Gamma support (disabled b […]
- stability fixes
- double buffering support (or emulation)
- Hires <-> VGA mode switching correctly
- Gamma support (disabled by default)
- Driver: HW cursor in 8/16/32 bpp (VMware, VirtualBox has this bug)
- Increased compatibility list
Update 2024-07-30:
Current version: SoftGPU 0.6.2024.36
Changelog:
- VMware vGPU10 support - fixed missing non English chars - fixed memory waste when allocating large regions - better handling […]
- VMware vGPU10 support
- fixed missing non English chars
- fixed memory waste when allocating large regions
- better handling out-of-memory errors
- profiles for different hypervisors
- Better HW detection
- Driver: fixed race-conditional bugs
- Driver: SVGA screen target support
- Driver: Smooth font support
- Driver: driver version reporting to HV
- Driver: better VMware support
- Mesa/SVGA: better memory limitation
- Mesa/SVGA: screen target support (vGPU10, VBox only)
- Mesa/SVGA: OpenGL 4.1 (vGPU10, VBox), 4.3 (vGPU10, VMware)
- Mesa/SVGA: better compatibility detection
- Mesa/LLVMpipe: LLVM 18.1.8
- Mesa/LLVMpipe: OpenGL 4.5
- Mesa/Nine: fixed diffuse lights
- Mesa: faster readpixels
- Wine: S3TC support
- Wine: explorer, iexplore blacklisted
- Increased compatibility list
Update 2024-04-13:
Current version: SoftGPU 0.5.2024.29
Changelog:
- Wine works on Windows 95 - OpenGlide works with MiniGL wrappers - Driver: VIDEOPARAMETERS support - SVGA/Mesa: added GMR cache […]
- Wine works on Windows 95
- OpenGlide works with MiniGL wrappers
- Driver: VIDEOPARAMETERS support
- SVGA/Mesa: added GMR cache (require 1024 MB RAM)
- Mesa: fixed page fault with llvmpipe/softpipe
- Wine: fixed creating shader object (even if no shader support)
- Wine: better restore screen after game/app quit
- OpenGlide: disabled fog (and problems with it)
- OpenGlide: restore screen after quit
- OpenGlide: SSE and MMX optimized format conversion
- Increased compatibility list
Update 2024-03-27: SoftGPU 0.5.2024.24 is out
Update 2023-08-31: I released new version: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/release … ag/v0.4.2023.18
It should be more stable, faster and supporting newer SVGA-II (gen. 10) rendering.
Performance results:
3Dmarks03: https://youtu.be/XB7GYypyA18
3DMark2001: https://youtu.be/DyrnMKvaaj8
3DMark2000: https://youtu.be/8OwfFozcICo
3Dmark99: https://youtu.be/jVp0jleQX_8
Update 2023-07-10: I released new version: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/release … ag/v0.4.2023.13
Now works with QEMU (2D only) and with VMware with HW 3D!
To enable 3D in VMware you must set VM Hardware compatibility to Workstation 9.x and Guest operating system to Windows 2000 Server.
Update 2023-05-14: I released new version with fixed some of critical bugs: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/release … ag/v0.4.2023.11
Some time ago I wanted create ISO with drivers and other support software for Virtual Win 95/98/Me. Also, I wanted include Mesa3D and WineD3D to run OpenGL and DirectX application and games (maybe slowly but they'll run). It wasn't as simple as I thought, I hit a wall a few times, but result is a bit complex package contain VGA driver, OpenGL driver (software or hardware), WineD3D wrapper (translating DX to OpenGL) and OpenGlide wrapper (translating Glide to OpenGL).
It can work on any virtualization software with supporting one of these virtual video adapters:
- Bochs VBE Extensions (Bochs: VBE, VirtulBox: VboxVGA, QEMU: std-vga)
- VMWare SVGA-II (VMWare Workstation/Player, VirtulBox: VMSVGA, QEMU: vmware-svga)
- VBox SVGA (VirtulBox: VBoxSVGA)
Software rendering is accelerated by LLVMpipe driver in Mesa3D and hardware rendering is possible in VirtualBox 7.0 and 6.1 though VMSvga/VboxSVGA video adapter (in theory it can work in VMWare and Qemu, but maybe need some work).
To use hardware rendering in VirtualBox you must set Video adapter to VMSvga (switch VM type to Linux because VirtualBox GUI forbids it). Set video memory to 128 MB and check Enable 3D Acceleration. Last step is turn off GPU10 feature, by this command:
VBoxManage setextradata "My Windows 98" "VBoxInternal/Devices/vga/0/Config/VMSVGA10" "0"
Windows 9x don’t like to switch GPU very much so I am recommending create new, fresh installation. This package is designed for installation on new fresh Windows (98 SE is recommended).
More documentation here: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu
Supported systems:
- Windows 95
- Windows 98
- Windows 98 SE
- Windows ME
Not all application works and there are lots of bugs, I still need wrote some documentation and clean code a bit.
Please note that this is an alpha release. But on the other side I think it can help a few people to run old games and applications under virtual machine 😀
Package is a bit large to attachment it but ZIP or ISO can be downloaded here: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/releases