We waited long time for something like this..

Someone had to drive whole graphics drivers are there are zillions of MDs in Nvidia or ATI drivers.. so even when you do it right by all standards, some games which are using some Nvidia and ATI shortcut could be and would be broken.. and make it more and more compatible would be huge project. Us any good project or emulator it need some compatibility matrix, like nGLide etc have.

In documentation is only how to setup it with VirtualBox, its it tested with Vmware Workstation? I prefer use Vmware if i can choose, but Virtualbox is still much better than akward Qemu on Windows.

ruthan wrote on 2023-05-24, 00:59:

We waited long time for something like this..

Someone had to drive whole graphics drivers are there are zillions of MDs in Nvidia or ATI drivers.. so even when you do it right by all standards, some games which are using some Nvidia and ATI shortcut could be and would be broken.. and make it more and more compatible would be huge project. Us any good project or emulator it need some compatibility matrix, like nGLide etc have.

In documentation is only how to setup it with VirtualBox, its it tested with Vmware Workstation? I prefer use Vmware if i can choose, but Virtualbox is still much better than akward Qemu on Windows.

I was thinking precisely that, which is why I asked in a previous comment on the possibility of taking emulated GPU code from 86 box, handling it on the GPU rather than CPU, and then passing that through. Probably not a great idea, but perhaps there are avenues around this to pursue.

I have tried with Vmware Workstation 17... Win98 SE - I enabled Accelerate 3D in Vm settings and used existing Vmware installation ... i tried it without it its the same.. All HW virtualization checkboxes enabled.. Sound card default so its using SB PCI WDM driver. Preferences - Input optimalized for Games - it helping with mouselook in some games..
Core i9 Windows 10, Nvidia 1070.

Installation:
- just start existing Win98Se vmare machine, with DirectX 9.0C already installed and some MS other patches, insert SoftGPu iso, install it, with predefined settings..

Install not changed graphics drivers.. so have to manually force graphics driver through Display propeties advanced and point it to 2023 Vmware SVGA version (PCI adapter added to name..) and point it to SoftGPU driver folder ..
BTW with default Vmware driverr glcheck just crash, that should be handled better..

After using rigth driver GLchecker is running.. All benchmarks are running.
Renderer is printing llvmpipe.. Implementator: Vmware.. What regarding of documentation - https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu is not ideal, that should be SVGA3D.. there is nothing in documentation how to get to right state 🙁

Direct3D Dxdiag test is running fine, Ddraw acceleration is enabled, that is good sign..

Games testing:
- im using Fraps for FPS monitoring..
Conan - Cauldron Demo - Running - graphics fine - 640x480 - 8 FPS - unplayble..
After game exit.. everything broke.. i saw only 640x480 part of 1280x960 desktop so i tried to adjust Vmware window size.. picture fell apart and its broken even after restart.. and i dunno how to fix it:( This is windows login screen..
Even restart of physical machine not helped.. It really does not like that Vmware windows resize, which is build in standard Vmware driver.. i dunno if it could be disable somwhere in *.vmx file etc..

So it needs real Vmware tutorial, more testing and lots of work to claims that its running with Vmware..

Game testing, affter virtual disk rollback- Work in progress:
GlQuake - start crash..
Quake 2 demo - start crash
Daikatana demo - running, but 8-15 FPS..
Hexen2 demo - start crash, i tried to remove opengl32.dll from game directory it does not helped..
Quake 3 demo - 640x480, 30 -50 FPS, small map with 1 bot
Diablo 2 demo - Glide - fine
Diablo 2 demo -D3D - fine
MDK 2 Demo - 800x640 OpenGL - first scene - 38-45 FPS..
Soldier of Fortune demo -crash
Dark stone demo - fine
Turok demo - fine, 30 FPS
Die by the Sword demo - 3dfx, black screen, only game sound..
Warcraft 3 demo - 10-20 FPS, rendering is fine..
Vampire Masquearade demo - working, Fraps is not working.. but seems playble, but after exit.. again that broken display driver wrong windows angle effect, but now restart fixed it..
Unreal tournament 99 demo - D3D - 1600x1200 full details - 10-15 FPS in Turbine map..

I also tried to open command.com Dos text windows - got only white background lots.. Russian Bear Vesa driver used to have similar problem.. // Update after some windows redrawn and use of other games it finnally displayed, but windows are not movable.. text cursor is not blinking and there are dead for use..

Conclusion with llvmpipe mode:
- its working for lots of games..
- game OpenGL games like Vampire are too dark and brightness settings is not working..
- OpenGL compatibility Quake based games is not great..
- Direct3D and Glide seems to work better
- its not fast enough on my machine..
- comparisons with **Banned project*much easier to setup, no need to play with ugly starting batched and Qemu bugs.. better developer, Direct3D is for free.. no need to copy dlls to game directories.. but not fast enough 🙁

Can you please not mention that other project in this thread or forum? The individual associated with that project was banned and will continue to be banned and we really don't want to have to deal with that mess again.
Thanks

Censored, but i dont follow it for long time.. but last what i heard is that someone here.. created here some thread with some builds without original not nice author.. maybe it was removed too..

BTW its mentioned in 3rd post and other too..

I have tried Virtualbox 7- with SB16 emulation, hard part is not forget to set Linux OS as OS type.. and run that command line command to adjust vm settings, because some hint what to change by text editor would be better..
Glchecker.. reporting proper SVGA3D driver.. HW is still the same Core i9 9900K, 32 GB DDR 3600 MHz, Geforce 1070, Win10 64bit.. CPu HW acceleration in Bios enabled (VT-X<Nestled paging -Enabled,Unrestricted - Enabled, Paravirtualization: KVM - all from Virtualbox bottom window toolbar). Virtuals are on Sata Samsung 870 SSD

Because im lazy and like to do it dirty way.. I just copied Vmware Win98 virtual disk, put into Virtualbox.. it booted, redetected virtual HW, uninstall Vmware drivers.. i have to do same trick to force newer Vmware drivers from SoftGPu cd and it worked..

Its not great and shinny.. Terrrain benchmark is just grayscale..

Compatibility (Work in Progress):
- All mentioned games bellow are games demos, not full games, installation are smaller are, its much easier to retesting, comparison of results..
- im Testing even 2D games, because if we searching for some ultimate Win9x virtualization, all games should work there..

Good / Playable:
Quake 2 is running 1600x1200 70-84 FPS.. under OpenGL.. im not sure but it maybe capped by some virtual monitor refresh rate, or by driver it selft or by Quake 2 demo.. but its fast enough..
Hexen 2 demo - OpenGL.. with AC97 its working fine 640x480 72 FPS lock in first map, 1600x1200 - 40-65 FPS.. so not fast enough.
Gothic1 - With AC97, 800x600.. Fraps its not working but its 15+ FPS at the start.. playable..
Daikatana demo - 1600x1200 graphics fine, firsts scene, 30-45 FPS..
NHL2000 - fine
Half-life demo- OpenGL 800x600, first scene - 55-60 FPS..
Clive Barkers Undying - D3D + Glide fine 800x600 30-60 FPS
Sin - 45 - 65 FPS.. resolution seems to be desktop resolution - in my case 1280x960 and you cant change it in menu in the demo..
Croc 2 - 640x480 - D3D fine
Drakan demo - 800x600 D3D fine
Blood 2 - D3D - 800x600 fine
Myth II - Fraps its not working. D3D but it seems fine
Crusade of Might and Magic - 640x480, fine
Disciples II demo - 2D fine.. but some black screen in menu, in needs some additional click, key presses to refresh and get screen..
Age of Empires - 2D - some graphics glitches in the menu..
Heretic II - demo is broken - full patched game, 1600x1200, 30 FPS lock, fine..
Flatout 2 - 800x600 - max details - 30-55 FPS, fine..
Diablo 2 D3D - fine
Giants - Citizen Kabuto - 800x600 all fine
Terracide - playable 640x480, some glitches in bottom of screen, im not sure about lights, there is some blinking at the start, im not sure if its intended..
Thief - Fraps is not working, but seems fine..
DeusEx - 800x600 seems fine, GLide is less dark..
Descent 3 demo 2- had some bluescreen in WISPX.. i had to uninstall IPX protocol, but my networking is broken some Win98 SP3 bug maybe, i met same bug in multiple machines, im unable to fix it.. better some Win9X improving patches is networking fine.. but after it sooner or later get broken and i did lots of thing to fix it, spend hours on it, but without success 🙁
- D3D - Crash when mission is loaded.. ; Glide - its classic 640x480 35-55 FPS game.. ; OpenGL - black screen right after game start..
Rollcage 2 - no working Fraps counter, but its playable..
Age of Empires 2 - 2D, black cube on mouse cursor in menu as in other games, otherwise fine..
Age of Wonders - 2D, fine

Bad / Not playable:
Diablo 1 - logo and black screen with sound..
GLQuake 1 - 1600x1200 - 55 - 88 FPS is not stable nice 60 FPS it would be better, sound few seconds of with SB16. BTW there FPS lock utility for Win9x if not it would be nice if it could be forced on driver level, through some control panel..
Quake 3 temple of retribution - 20-35 FPS too slow, sound seem to have some delay or something (SB16), maybe AC97 would be better..
Warcraft 3 demo 800x600 high detail - first level scene - 20-35 FPS..
Conan - 640x480 level intro is stuterring, in game is missing main character model.. 20-35 fps in first simple scene.. Broken windows resolution after game exit, not set back to original desktop resolution..
Unreal Tournament 99 - 1600x1200 D3D full details Turbine 20-60 FPS, average 38 FPS.. but sound is for sure few seconds off, delayed.. (SB16)
Doom3 - full hacked to run on Win98.. free during level intro scene video.. with message Initiating Scan..
Half Life demo - Software - half broken graphics in menu, loading screen and nothing, i can get back to menu now its not broken, but not ingame, just getting sound..
Carmaggedon 2 - D3D - 15-25 FPS in 640x480 too slow to play..
Carmaageddon 2 - Glide - 15 FPS, but some textures are missing..
Evolva - white screen freeze..
Mafia - 800x600, too slow 15-25FPS...
Far Cry 1 - menu ok, start game freeze..
Unreal Tournament 2003 - menu ok, start game crash..
Rayman 2 - Graphics dll not load start error window message..
Unreal tournament 2004 - D3D 800x600 full details, 1-45 FPS, unplayable..
Severable - Blade of Darkness - 800x600 D3D some problem with game steep, too fast.. i installed Win9x Speedfix so it has to be something else..
Ashghan demo - D3D and 3dfx both mods start crash..
Alien vs Predator Marine demo - menu ok, start of mission crash
Morrowind - 800x600, first scene 5-15 FPS uplayable..
Max Payne - 640x480, 15-55 FPS, its seem playable until you get that low fps drops under 25 fps..
Incoming game and especially game is problematic - patches for demo probably dont exist.. rendering is fine, but is way too fast..
Half life 2 - black screen after menu..
Vampire Bloodlines - broken colors in the menu, crash during level loading
Mount and Blade - critical error during game execution
Pain killer - 800-600 30 FPS, but got some very low FPS dips
Motorhead - demo supports only Software redering and its too slow..
Return to Castle Wolfenstein SP demo - it cant detect 3D card, start crash..
Serios Sam - start black screen
Carmaggeddon 2000 - blackscreen
Die by the Sword - 3dfx - black screen only sound..
Forsaken - logos fine, but black screen only sound in menu
Myth I Fallen lords - 3dfx, 640x480.. 10-15 FPS in first mission with few pawns.., Black bars on cursor in menu.
Dark Colony - 2D - too fast scrolling and it did not found any speed settings..
Croc - black screen, music only..
Revenant - D3D - main character is now visible..
Sega Rally - start crash
Sega Rally 2 - start crash
Kings Quest VIII - start crash..
Knight of the Temple 1 - rendering fine, 50-60FPS, but game runs super fast - unplayable..
Knight of the Temple 2 - 5 FPS, invisible characters.. this is one of heaviest Windows 98 games.. if we would be able to run this, we can run almost everything
Heavy Metal Fakk 2 - game cant detect Videocard same problem as Return to Castle wolfenstein same engine, some *.dlls inside games directory..
Requiem Avenging Angel - it needs patched executables to avoid Dx6 error, its in my testing package.. Glide version post some Direct input error- in first execution, second is fine(or second after D3D) but no textures, D3D runs but again too fast bug..
Expandable - full version from gog, its running out of box - too slow 10 FPS or so..
NewMan Hass F1 - start whitescreen freeze..
Wheel of Time - D3D 800x600 high details - too choppy, GLide - is the same..
No one lives forever - start on Loading screen is blicking, but if music is still playing its fine, but again its too slow to play
Midnight Club II - too slow 2-5 FPS
NHL 2001 + NHL 2002- 3Dsetup cant find any 3D card...
NHL2003 - start crash
HomeWorld - menu rendering is super slow, game in OpenGL is the same..
Rollcage 1 - D3D - 5 FPS
Hulk - missing models, like a lot lastest Win9x games, otherwise 640x480 35 FPS..
Medal of Honor - start crash
CnC General - start crash

It has still some Win9x graphics drivers problem like broken desktop draw after games exits..

So its faster more compatible, probably faster or on level with things like PCem emulator for some games, for some much faster, but its sort of hit and miss right now.. but not expect to play 1600x1200 a bit more modern titles, i mean even not in Quake 3 right now.. it needs some optimizations.. if sound could not be fixed its dead end (SB16).. but from project description sound maybe be working fine for some users..

Because Fraps for Windows98 sucks.. but there is nothing better.. I would recommend to add build in FPS counter in driver.. and add some Windows 9x control panel to enable/disable it.

I think than is unclear what is performance goal of this project.
Well its nice technology demo so far.. Its aimed to run 640x480 early Win9x games at 30 FPS or something higher? Would it need faster CPU is other of magnitude to run some higher resolutions? Or there is real room to make it faster?

My wild guess is that because performance is very inconsistent from real HW requirements.. some harder to run games are running quite fast.. some easy to handle like Carmageddon 2 run slow.. is that is implementation problem, not some hard raw performance wall / limit..

I really hope that someone else will create some online compatibility matrix sheet.. i did my share of them 🙁

Otherwise my old Win9X game demos testing package could be very handy now:

Archive links:
https://mega.nz/file/JI5j2Z6T#JV3uA0fJfk2Ub2Y … oH7q2GePSy8Wqp8
https://mega.nz/file/gcoS1CBL#qsq32tHL_20wVQS … tJfDvLKWg2hrMKU
https://mega.nz/file/dRhBDYwS#f0Tyw88iLbz45GC … CBTKVm1v2tLM2Qc
https://mega.nz/file/sdZEGARS#-J6xxg-oq9Ppc04 … QBclPUn2Szhukd4

Archive password:
gustav

I dont understand that AVX reports / support.. my AVX regarding of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Vector_Extensions , should support it but.. SoftGPU reporting AVX: NO, just SSE on.

AC97 sound works fine for Win9x game, question is why.. Is Virtualbox SB16 so bad.. or its just some incompatibility with SoftGPU which are making to add these very long delays?

ruthan wrote on 2023-05-27, 01:18:

I have tried Virtualbox 7- with SB16 emulation, hard part is not forget to set Linux OS as OS type.. and run that command line c […]
Show full quote

I have tried Virtualbox 7- with SB16 emulation, hard part is not forget to set Linux OS as OS type.. and run that command line command to adjust vm settings, because some hint what to change by text editor would be better..
Glchecker.. reporting proper SVGA3D driver.. HW is still the same Core i9 9900K, 32 GB DDR 3600 MHz, Geforce 1070, Win10 64bit.. CPu HW acceleration in Bios enabled (VT-X<Nestled paging -Enabled,Unrestricted - Enabled, Paravirtualization: KVM - all from Virtualbox bottom window toolbar). Virtuals are on Sata Samsung 870 SSD

Because im lazy and like to do it dirty way.. I just copied Vmware Win98 virtual disk, put into Virtualbox.. it booted, redetected virtual HW, uninstall Vmware drivers.. i have to do same trick to force newer Vmware drivers from SoftGPu cd and it worked..

Its not great and shinny.. Terrrain benchmark is just grayscale..

Compatibility:
- All mentioned games bellow are games demos, not full games, installation are smaller are, its much easier to retesting, comparison of results..
- im Testing even 2D games, because if we searching for some ultimate Win9x virtualization, all games should work there..

Good / Playable:
Quake 2 is running 1600x1200 70-84 FPS.. under OpenGL.. im not sure but it maybe capped by some virtual monitor refresh rate, or by driver it selft or by Quake 2 demo.. but its fast enough.. Im not tested sound, it could be broken too..
Hexen 2 demo - OpenGL.. with AC97 its working fine 640x480 72 FPS lock in first map, 1600x1200 - 40-65 FPS.. so not fast enough.
Gothic1 - With AC97, 800x600.. Fraps its not working but its 15+ FPS at the start.. playable..
Daikatana demo - 1600x1200 graphics fine, firsts scene, 30-45 FPS..
NHL2000 - fine
Half-life demo- OpenGL 800x600, first scene - 55-60 FPS..
Clive Barkers Undying - D3D + Glide fine 800x600 30-60 FPS
Sin - 45 - 65 FPS.. resolution seems to be desktop resolution - in my case 1280x960 and you cant change it in menu in the demo..
Croc 2 - 640x480 - D3D fine
Drakan demo - 800x600 D3D fine
Blood 2 - D3D - 800x600 fine
Myth II - Fraps its not working. D3D but it seems fine
Crusade of Might and Magic - 640x480, fine
Disciples II demo - 2D fine.. but some black screen in menu, in needs some additional click, key presses to refresh and get screen..
Age of Empires - 2D - some graphics glitches in the menu..
Heretic II - demo is broken - full patched game, 1600x1200, 30 FPS lock, fine..
Flatout 2 - 800x600 - max details - 30-55 FPS, fine..
Diablo 2 D3D - fine
Giants - Citizen Kabuto - 800x600 all fine
Terracide - playable 640x480, some glitches in bottom of screen, im not sure about lights, there is some blinking at the start, im not sure if its intended..
Thief - Fraps is not working, but seems fine..

Bad / Not playable:
Diablo 1 - logo and black screen with sound..
GLQuake 1 - 1600x1200 - 55 - 88 FPS is not stable nice 60 FPS it would be better, sound few seconds of with SB16. BTW there FPS lock utility for Win9x if not it would be nice if it could be forced on driver level, through some control panel..
Quake 3 temple of retribution - 20-35 FPS too slow, sound seem to have some delay or something (SB16), maybe AC97 would be better..
Warcraft 3 demo 800x600 high detail - first level scene - 20-35 FPS..
Conan - 640x480 level intro is stuterring, in game is missing main character model.. 20-35 fps in first simple scene.. Broken windows resolution after game exit, not set back to original desktop resolution..
Unreal Tournament 99 - 1600x1200 D3D full details Turbine 20-60 FPS, average 38 FPS.. but sound is for sure few seconds off, delayed.. (SB16)
Doom3 - full hacked to run on Win98.. free during level intro scene video.. with message Initiating Scan..
Half Life demo - Software - half broken graphics in menu, loading screen and nothing, i can get back to menu now its not broken, but not ingame, just getting sound..
Carmaggedon 2 - D3D - 15-25 FPS in 640x480 too slow to play..
Carmaageddon 2 - Glide - 15 FPS, but some textures are missing..
Evolva - white screen freeze..
Mafia - 800x600, too slow 15-25FPS...
Far Cry 1 - menu ok, start game freeze..
Unreal Tournament 2003 - menu ok, start game crash..
Rayman 2 - Graphics dll not load start error window message..
Unreal tournament 2004 - D3D 800x600 full details, 1-45 FPS, unplayable..
Severable - Blade of Darkness - 800x600 D3D some problem with game steep, too fast.. i installed Win9x Speedfix so it has to be something else..
Ashghan demo - D3D and 3dfx both mods start crash..
Alien vs Predator Marine demo - menu ok, start of mission crash
Morrowind - 800x600, first scene 5-15 FPS uplayable..
Max Payne - 640x480, 15-55 FPS, its seem playable until you get that low fps drops under 25 fps..
Incoming game and especially game is problematic - patches for demo probably dont exist.. rendering is fine, but is way too fast..
Half life 2 - black screen after menu..
Vampire Bloodlines - broken colors in the menu, crash during level loading
Mount and Blade - critical error during game execution
Pain killer - 800-600 30 FPS, but got some very low FPS dips
Motorhead - demo supports only Software redering and its too slow..
Return to Castle Wolfenstein SP demo - it cant detect 3D card, start crash..
Serios Sam - start black screen
Carmaggeddon 2000 - blackscreen
Die by the Sword - 3dfx - black screen only sound..
Forsaken - logos fine, but black screen only sound in menu
Myth I Fallen lords - 3dfx, 640x480.. 10-15 FPS in first mission with few pawns.., Black bars on cursor in menu.
Dark Colony - 2D - too fast scrolling and it did not found any speed settings..
Croc - black screen, music only..
Revenant - D3D - main character is now visible..
Sega Rally - start crash
Sega Rally 2 - start crash
Kings Quest VIII - start crash..
Knight of the Temple 1 - rendering fine, 50-60FPS, but game runs super fast - unplayable..
Knight of the Temple 2 - 5 FPS, invisible characters.. this is one of heaviest Windows 98 games.. if we would be able to run this, we can run almost everything
Heavy Metal Fakk 2 - game cant detect Videocard same problem as Return to Castle wolfenstein same engine, some *.dlls inside games directory..

It has still some Win9x graphics drivers problem like broken desktop draw after games exits..

So its faster more compatible, probably faster or on level with things like PCem emulator for some games, for some much faster, but its sort of hit and miss right now.. but not expect to play 1600x1200 a bit more modern titles, i mean even not in Quake 3 right now.. it needs some optimizations.. if sound could not be fixed its dead end (SB16).. but from project description sound maybe be working fine for some users..

Because Fraps for Windows98 sucks.. but there is nothing better.. I would recommend to add build in FPS counter in driver.. and add some Windows 9x control panel to enable/disable it.

2 things:
1. were you able to fix the brightness for glquake? Because for me, the brightness is busted.
2. did you trying running deus ex? And is the brightness busted for that as well?

For anyone interested.

Here are the latest Virtualbox versions compatible with each Host Windows OS:

2000 v2.0.4-38406 (Modified via Blackwingcat files)

XP 32bit SSE1 v4.3.40
XP 32bit SSE2 v5.2.44-139111
*XP 32bit v6.0.24-139119

11. Download https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.0.24/VirtualBox-6.0.24-139119-Win.exe
22. Execute "VirtualBox-6.0.24-139119-Win.exe -extract -path=.\extracted"
33. When done a dialog should pop up stating that the files were extracted.
43. Execute the .msi for your platform
5
6If you receive the below error on attempting to run a VM then you will need to update your certificates.
7
8Root Certificates and Revoked Certificates for Windows XP
9https://msfn.org/board/topic/175170-root-certificates-and-revoked-certificates-for-windows-xp/
10
11
12"
13<html><b>WinVerifyTrust failed on stub executable: WinVerifyTrust failed with hrc=CERT_E_CHAINING on '\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VirtualBoxVM.exe' (rc=-22919)</b><br/><br/>Please try reinstalling VirtualBox.<br><br><!--EOM-->where: VirtualBoxVM
14what:  1
15VERR_LDRVI_UNSUPPORTED_ARCH (-22919) - Unsupported image target architecture.
16</html>"

Vista 32bit SSE1 v5.0.40
Vista 32bit SSE2 v5.2.44-139111
*Vista 32bit v6.0.24-139119 (Untested)

Vista 64bit Binary Translation + XPDM v6.0.24
Vista 64bit No Binary Translation + WDDM v6.1.18

7 64bit No Binary Translation + WDDM v6.1.44
7 64bit No Binary Translation v7.0.8

Here are the latest Vmware Workstation versions compatible with each Host Windows OS:

9x-NT4 v4.5.3-19414

2000 v7.1.3 (Modified using BlackWingCat files)

XP 32bit v7.1.6
XP 64bit (64bit CPU required) v10.0.7

Vista 32bit v7.1.6
Vista 64bit (64bit CPU required) v10.0.7

7 64bit (64bit CPU required) Binary Translation v12.5.9
7 64bit (64bit CPU Required) No Binary Translation v15.5.6-16341506

8+ v17.0.2

The goal of my project is the creation of GPU driver for Virtual Windows 9x supporting DirectX/OpenGL/Glide acceleration. Current state: only VirtualBox is working decently and only OpenGL is accelerated natively (DirectX and Glide are translating to OpenGL with WineD3D, resp. OpenGlide). I currently working on driver itself and I am successful so far, but I probably needs few months until I complete native DirectX support (translating DX commands to Mesa without Wine).

Some answers:

@MrMateczko: I have some hardware, but I lack time 😀 And there is one big problem – the basic driver – I cannot create something universal and faster than already exists VBEMP 9x project. I would potentially create something like VBE with ICD OpenGL support and everything else in software – but I think that is too slow. In theory I could create driver for one concrete real GPU (maybe family but it depends) which is well supported in Mesa and Linux (I need some source of information to draw from). But which GPU can be it?

@MechanicalSanity: some XP support was in the plan but currently I am focusing on 9x. There is huge difference – the driver itself – NT and Window 95 display driver architecture [the 9x is backward compatible with Windows 3.x ❗] is completely different. Even difference between XPDM and WDDM isn’t too significant so it’s possible port Windows 7 driver back to XP. At minimum OpenGL should work and DirectX can be run though Wine (same way as in VirtualBox 6.0 and older). But lets done 9x driver first.

In the theory can be OpenGL the fastest because is native and Glide and DirectX are translating by wrappers to it. Glide could be faster than DirectX because it is less complex than DX. In practice there are few glitches: behaviour of Virtual GPU (VGPU) is much different to real GPU. For example, accessing system memory by VGPU have same speed as accessing video memory. Every VGPU call have certain performance loss – one complex shader on VGPU is much faster than plenty simple instructions. That’s why is Quake 3 very slow compared to newer DirectX games (Wine uses as many extension/shaders as the GPU can handle). Glide is usually fastest but OpenGlide compatibly isn’t very great, and many games have graphical or performance problems.

SoftGPU does nothing with sounds – VirtualBox sound is bit awful, SB16 emulation is very trivial and after some testing, I can recommend using AC97 in almost all circumstances (which isn’t great but much better). I’m currently focussing on graphics; sound will come later.

Full emulation of Voodoo cards or some other video card with drivers for 9x could be possible but I think the potential problems are greater than the benefits.

I think that GLQuake is setting the brightness on some system level, and this is completely ignored, I’ll have look and it. I not tried Deus Ex yet - I'll try!

@ruthan: With VMware is one big problem, GPU acceleration isn’t enabled by default (regardless of the state of the checkbox). The VMware tools on guest are communicating with hypervisor and if have right VMware tools to right VMware version and to right host and guest OS and even when the stars are in the right constellation then the HW acceleration will be exposed to the guest. I don’t know right guest<-> hypervisor communication but if someone observe it (from example from Linux VMware tools) I gladly add it to SoftGPU. I currently done only light testing to VMware player, if I will have some time, I could do more complex testing.

GLQuake, Quake 2 and other Quake 2 engine-based games (Quake 3 demo and Quake 3 TA are affected as well) = you must limit GL_EXTENSIONS string. Example for Q2 is in docs: https://github.com/JHRobotics/mesa9x#configuration. Second problem can be MiniGL driver – if you have opengl32.dll in game directory, just delete it, these MiniGL drivers only create call loop (opengl -> glide -> opengl -> glide …).

@DosFreak: OK, I will respect that.

@ruthan: thanks for the list and the testing. As I already said – VGPU is different to real GPU – complex action is faster (because GPU on host is much faster than anything what was under Windows 9x) bud every action has come performance loss (you must stop virtual machine execution, do the action, and start virtual machine execution again) so many simple actions are very slow.

I still do relative extensive developing so performance may be vary but I plan to create of some compatibility matrix immediately after the project have some stability. Current milestone is native DirectDraw/DirectX HAL because WineD3D is currently a source of more bugs.

Thanks to everyone who writes here what works and what doesn't - it's an important source of material for me to test 😀

1. were you able to fix the brightness for glquake? Because for me, the brightness is busted.
2. did you trying running deus ex? And is the brightness busted for that as well?

There is not reason, why it should work for me, when its not working for you.. but won over my laziness..
1) GLQuake brightness slider does nothing..
2) Deus Ex demo - D3D and Glide slider does nothing, but Glide version is less dark.
I tested Unreal Tournament 99 is same engine D3D - brightness slider does nothing..

I think that such thing simply is not yet implemented. Im not even sure than i found game then it worked..

GLQuake's brightness never worked. Later builds of GLQuake had a command-line parameter to boost the texture 'gamma' up (i.e. glquake -gamma 0.4) but never any real-time screen gamma changes ingame. It's usually gamma 1.7 on 3dfx MiniGL (with glquake's own gamma set to 1.0 to not affect any textures) but dark everywhere else.

Quake setting system colors started with Quake3 where it does it for implementing overbrights. (if q3 looks kinda half dark, then it's wrong)

Verified VirtualBox-6.0.24-139119-Win.exe working on XP 32bit. Added info to above post.
Could be useful since you could run 16/32bit games on XP that potentially work fine (in XP) while in virtualbox with this project (in 9x) they may not so could be used to troubleshoot more easily.

Something that may or may not be useful for softGPU but for Vmware Workstation if you set the hardware version of the VM to 9 or lower then 3D acceleration will work on Windows 2000 on even on the latest versions of Vmware workstation.

@JH64 : I asked for performance goal that is something different, than overall project goal that is clear for me..
Response make difference between great technology demo and only so far working way how to enjoy Win9x virtual machine gaming on Windows (Linux has KVM GPU passthrough work around hassle), except 1 more problematic project based on user unfriendly Qemu and very unfriendly developer to make it hard to run to force people to obey, workship and pay..

You should have some expectations / forecast how far you can push it..

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So if understand correctly if game supports OpenGL it should be fastest and less buggy? If its true Quake 3 performance so far does not give us much hopes for high res gaming, its not fast enough on 640x480 max details on my CPU.. Unless Quake 3 is some specific bad case (well i found it explained below it the text.. well explained, but its not great for us 🙁 ).. I retested Quake 3 it with AC97 performance is the same.

Specific real GPU emulation:
- i tested lots of GPu in Windows 9x and there is not silver bullet, newer Nvidia /ATO cards are fastest, but compatibility is not great specially with older games which are not running well on XP.. So people usualy have multiple retro Win9x machines, because of that.
- older card like Voodoos are too slow.. even these super expensive / rare Vooodoo 5..
- so you have at least 3 options:
a) Implement emulation more era specific cards - 2 or 3 could be enough.. or simply limit the scope and change to 1 era.. i would say that PCem,x86 and Dosbox Win9x image covers very early Pentium 60 MMX era to PIII / K6-3 400 MHz era, if depends how beefy HW you are using.. I contradiction banned project can run Quake 3 1600x1200 max details 60 FPS on 10W netbook.. where PCem would run it at 2-3 FPS..
b) Implement your virtual ultimated video card which would have some clever logic what feature use when..
c) Use present implementation.. im not sure how far its from option B..

Ultimate solution would be have emulated card, which never existed, which could support every of 3 main 3D APi and would have enough performance to run games from 95 to lastest 2005 or so Win9x supported game (even they running on XP too). That would even do virtualization big Oomph - to so that it can do other big thing for gaming that any real HW cant do expect all other general not gaming benefits of virtualizations.

Virtual vs Real GPU implementation bottlenecks:
- i understand it, that explanation is very good, you dont have to understand to any low level details to get it.. but we are back in original question, what can do something about bottlenecks, how much limiting they are?.. how far its possible to optimize it with present HW and SW possibilities, limitations..

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Overall situation:
As everyone im sick of all these online discussion where some people without real knowledge in first sentence will tell you that you dont need retro PC HW.. because you can virtualize everything..
You have to point them to try Qemu / Vmware and Virtual box.. Windows 9x machine to discover that there is not driver for any 3D graphics from creators, that they stopped to impelement new features for these old OS long ago etc.. And that only solution would be wrote whole new drivers / wrapper, whatever you call..

You tried it what is absolutely great, but i would name present stated nice technology demo, good start.. to make it as real physical machine alternative, it would need huge amount of work.. lots of people involved to help etc.. and to not waste whole that effort.. is valid to ask, what goals are reasonable.. and so far biggest problem seems to be performance so far..

Because if PCem or similar project can beat this solution in performance with all whole HW components virtualizations using real rom.. it seems as better way than using existing virtualization sw engines, because these whole machines emulators would have provide much better compatibility just based on whole that main idea, but they are also very slow..

If your solution could be faster and some banned project clearly is.. but i cant say how much is different your and its implementation idea, because whole that banned project looks like 1 big wrapper hack which renders everything outside virtual machine window without even returning picture into it..
There is question much more performance in comparison with PCem we can get, if a lot / enough, its up to all potentional users/developer to say what exactly is enough for them), project make sense for use gaming, if not nice technology demo / technical achievement etc.. but nothing for real daily gaming, not real solution..

If i would look for reasons why it could fail i see at least these:
- Im not sure how much you are limited of Virtual Box internal features.. if would do whole own fork of it to fix some its internal flaws, it would be too much to maintain, but some internal thing could be so broken that there would not be other way. Qemu would be the same, but other guy is trying to do it.. Vmware is close sourced.
- Technical reasons which you mentioned how it works, simply impossibility to do it fast enough to make difference.. if that is the case..
- use of some existing software packages as old version Wine, which has lots of bugs and limits and it could be huge limiting factor or you would have to fort it and start to fix these old versions..
- Amount of work to make reasonable amount of games compatible.

It simply make sense to think about first three points before you start to push compatibility, i think you already did, but would like to know the results 😀

Performance testing and tuning is my daily work.. but i now very little about these low level graphics stuff and you project implementation.. but you always have to set some reasonable SLA, expectations.. have some goals / forecast for performance in general based on knowledge of used technology otherwise you are doomed..

leileilol - is right about GLQuake brightness, as usually, he has good memory, i dont..

leileilol wrote on 2023-05-28, 00:04:

GLQuake's brightness never worked. Later builds of GLQuake had a command-line parameter to boost the texture 'gamma' up (i.e. glquake -gamma 0.4) but never any real-time screen gamma changes ingame. It's usually gamma 1.7 on 3dfx MiniGL (with glquake's own gamma set to 1.0 to not affect any textures) but dark everywhere else.

Quake setting system colors started with Quake3 where it does it for implementing overbrights. (if q3 looks kinda half dark, then it's wrong)

I tried glquake with 86box before, and brightness slider does work for sure on voodoo cards.

JH64 wrote on 2023-05-27, 23:24:

@MechanicalSanity: some XP support was in the plan but currently I am focusing on 9x. There is huge difference – the driver itse […]
Show full quote

@MechanicalSanity: some XP support was in the plan but currently I am focusing on 9x. There is huge difference – the driver itself – NT and Window 95 display driver architecture [the 9x is backward compatible with Windows 3.x ❗] is completely different. Even difference between XPDM and WDDM isn’t too significant so it’s possible port Windows 7 driver back to XP. At minimum OpenGL should work and DirectX can be run though Wine (same way as in VirtualBox 6.0 and older). But lets done 9x driver first.

In the theory can be OpenGL the fastest because is native and Glide and DirectX are translating by wrappers to it. Glide could be faster than DirectX because it is less complex than DX. In practice there are few glitches: behaviour of Virtual GPU (VGPU) is much different to real GPU. For example, accessing system memory by VGPU have same speed as accessing video memory. Every VGPU call have certain performance loss – one complex shader on VGPU is much faster than plenty simple instructions. That’s why is Quake 3 very slow compared to newer DirectX games (Wine uses as many extension/shaders as the GPU can handle). Glide is usually fastest but OpenGlide compatibly isn’t very great, and many games have graphical or performance problems.

SoftGPU does nothing with sounds – VirtualBox sound is bit awful, SB16 emulation is very trivial and after some testing, I can recommend using AC97 in almost all circumstances (which isn’t great but much better). I’m currently focussing on graphics; sound will come later.

Full emulation of Voodoo cards or some other video card with drivers for 9x could be possible but I think the potential problems are greater than the benefits.

I disagree when you say the trouble with outweigh the benefits. Currently, the one thing holding back retro pc gaming for me is accurate voodoo gpu emulation. CPU is whatever. Projects like pcem insist on accuracy, thus being super slow when trying to get to more beefier games. Virtualization only has the wrappers, which IMO, ruins the experience a little. And the gpu would never be the issue. The CPU emulation is what is holding performance back a lot of the time.
It has been confirmed that 3dfx gpu passthrough on kvm is 100% viable, and that would essentially be what we would be recreating, only emulating that gpu. And since 86box or other emulators already have coded the gpus, it is a jumping off point we could consider.

However, regardless of how much benefit this would bring, I recognize that such a task would still be monumental, and if you do not want to do it, I will push no further. Coding is hard, and a pain at times. I have no right or justification to demand anything, but I did want to say my thoughts on the matter, which is why I wrote this paragraph above.
Although, I am surprised that no one has attempted this, or talked about this more on forums or something. I mean, this can't be a new idea, can it? Especially since a compatibility layer would be harder to maintain than emulated code, at least from what I can tell.

as for xp support, I ain't worried. Windows 98 SE needs more support right now, and I can certainly live without xp.

Thanks for your response, and I hope for only the best for you. You are doing amazing work, and I will be following closely.