I tried 2.81 a week back, it was running fine although I tested Windows 7

EmulateHeap is corrected now, but not by Microsoft

I haven't played POP3D in long because of the ridiculous behaviour of QT.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-05-01, 19:59:

I tried 2.81 a week back, it was running fine although I tested Windows 7

EmulateHeap is corrected now, but not by Microsoft

I haven't played POP3D in long because of the ridiculous behaviour of QT.

DXWND? It seemed promising at the time, or did other developers become interested in the subject? POP 3D works well for me, I just needed to install the latest Quicktime, the only problem was DDrawCompat, which I needed a specific build to work.

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-05-01, 21:11:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-05-01, 19:59:

I tried 2.81 a week back, it was running fine although I tested Windows 7

EmulateHeap is corrected now, but not by Microsoft

I haven't played POP3D in long because of the ridiculous behaviour of QT.

DXWND? It seemed promising at the time, or did other developers become interested in the subject? POP 3D works well for me, I just needed to install the latest Quicktime, the only problem was DDrawCompat, which I needed a specific build to work.

The author of otvdm showed interested and corrected it.
Re: So Windows 11 22H2 is super cautious (or super buggy)?

DDrawCompat isn't supported by the dev for VMs, although I will want to hear which build worked for you

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-05-01, 21:19:

The author of otvdm showed interested and corrected it. Re: So Windows 11 22H2 is super cautious (or super buggy)? […]
Show full quote

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-05-01, 21:11:

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-05-01, 19:59:

I tried 2.81 a week back, it was running fine although I tested Windows 7

EmulateHeap is corrected now, but not by Microsoft

I haven't played POP3D in long because of the ridiculous behaviour of QT.

DXWND? It seemed promising at the time, or did other developers become interested in the subject? POP 3D works well for me, I just needed to install the latest Quicktime, the only problem was DDrawCompat, which I needed a specific build to work.

The author of otvdm showed interested and corrected it.
Re: So Windows 11 22H2 is super cautious (or super buggy)?

DDrawCompat isn't supported by the dev for VMs, although I will want to hear which build worked for you

Thanks for the reply, I intend to try it soon.

To be honest, I noticed this observation recently on Github, but it works despite not being supported, even in the latest version 0.6.0.

I've been testing since 0.3.2 and have had success in both VirtualBox and VMware. The games I tested were Beachhead 2000, Die Hard Trilogy and Resident Evil 2, all American editions.

Beachhead 2000 works perfectly after setting the color mode to 16 bits in the launcher. I don't remember if the DLL needs to be in the directory of both executables;

Resident Evil 2 is a peculiar game, because the full installation does not copy all the data to the hard drive. However, if you copy the data to any folder and place the exe next to it, it will work with the wrapper;

Die Hard Trilogy has a strange color palette and only runs in software mode, but this also happens on my Windows 11 host with GT1030, curiously it is able to run in hardware mode perfectly with the Intel UHD 620 iGPU.

It's an interesting coincidence so I'll settle for whatever works, and I shouldn't and wouldn't encourage anyone to bother Narzoul with it.

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-05-02, 00:27:

I've been testing since 0.3.2 and have had success in both VirtualBox and VMware. The games I tested were Beachhead 2000, Die Ha […]
Show full quote

I've been testing since 0.3.2 and have had success in both VirtualBox and VMware. The games I tested were Beachhead 2000, Die Hard Trilogy and Resident Evil 2, all American editions.

Beachhead 2000 works perfectly after setting the color mode to 16 bits in the launcher. I don't remember if the DLL needs to be in the directory of both executables;

Resident Evil 2 is a peculiar game, because the full installation does not copy all the data to the hard drive. However, if you copy the data to any folder and place the exe next to it, it will work with the wrapper;

Die Hard Trilogy has a strange color palette and only runs in software mode, but this also happens on my Windows 11 host with GT1030, curiously it is able to run in hardware mode perfectly with the Intel UHD 620 iGPU.

It's an interesting coincidence so I'll settle for whatever works, and I shouldn't and wouldn't encourage anyone to bother Narzoul with it.

Interesting, I was testing 0.5.0 DDC and it didn't work on my Win10 machine on VMware. I don't recally seeing anything strange with DHT, although I tried it without any wrapper.

Coming to POP3D, does Dege have a QuickTime version recommedation? It was a nighmare setting it up 5 years ago on Windows 10, sometimes the video would skip, sometimes unscaled, sometimes in background

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-04-27, 23:15:

Well, I'd like this to at least be seen as a curiosity test, but anyway — with the Shim EmulateHeap broken since Windows 11 22H2 […]
Show full quote

Well, I'd like this to at least be seen as a curiosity test, but anyway — with the Shim EmulateHeap broken since Windows 11 22H2, and fearing that it might never be fixed (so far, it hasn't), I started looking for a more comprehensive alternative to run some games that depend on it.

In search of more stability, I tried using dgVoodoo2 in conjunction with VMware, and the result surprised me — practically all the games I usually run on my host system worked fine on a Windows 7/8.1 guest.

However, after version 2.8.0, no game displays anything on the screen. The wrapper is detected, the watermark shows up, but there's no actual rendering — only audio continues normally, as if I were playing a blind version of the game.
I've been following discussions about this and understand the position regarding support for other platforms, but on the other hand, I haven't seen many people approach the tool in this way, so I thought it might be interesting to share this experience.

I've known about the tool for about five years now, and I have to say it's an amazing piece of work by the developer. So it's totally understandable if not supporting VMware and its SVGA 3D driver was a deliberate decision.
Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in the future of Windows. Emulation is still very demanding, and many games have small issues on Windows 11 compared to 10 (for example, Prince of Persia 3D refuses to exit the game through the menu unless you try two or three times — it's not a wrapper issue, but simply something that was introduced and I can't find the cause).
I just think it might be a good idea to "freeze" everything in a not-so-crappy final version of Windows.

The guest OS in the screenshots is Windows 11 22H2, but the issue occurs on any Windows 7/8/8.1 guest as well. Thank you in advance

Well, I don't know. I mean, I remember I got a report back in 2-3 years ago that dgVoodoo is broken from version 2.76 is broken is VMWare, but I never checked it out.
So, if 2.79 is working, it's surprising for me, altough the DX11 support must have been improved in VMWare and that's why it is.

I cannot really say anything about it, you can check out if the DX11 debug layer inside VMWare with the broken dgVoodoo version says something.
But I don't test dgVoodoo in virtual enviroments, the primary purpose of dgVoodoo (besides me toying/tinkering with it) is to run old games natively, supposing that Win32 is still there to run them on.

It's sad to hear it's more and more broken, but if it becomes mostly unusable then I'll discontunie dgVoodoo too. Emulated environments does not need dgVoodoo.

Let's try once more, does log say anything useful?
Edit: I decided to test the native and dgVoodoo2 difference and it crashes before a IDirectDrawSurface4::Blt: command

Dege wrote on 2025-05-02, 08:27:

Well, I don't know. I mean, I remember I got a report back in 2-3 years ago that dgVoodoo is broken from version 2.76 is broken […]
Show full quote

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-04-27, 23:15:

Well, I'd like this to at least be seen as a curiosity test, but anyway — with the Shim EmulateHeap broken since Windows 11 22H2 […]
Show full quote

Well, I'd like this to at least be seen as a curiosity test, but anyway — with the Shim EmulateHeap broken since Windows 11 22H2, and fearing that it might never be fixed (so far, it hasn't), I started looking for a more comprehensive alternative to run some games that depend on it.

In search of more stability, I tried using dgVoodoo2 in conjunction with VMware, and the result surprised me — practically all the games I usually run on my host system worked fine on a Windows 7/8.1 guest.

However, after version 2.8.0, no game displays anything on the screen. The wrapper is detected, the watermark shows up, but there's no actual rendering — only audio continues normally, as if I were playing a blind version of the game.
I've been following discussions about this and understand the position regarding support for other platforms, but on the other hand, I haven't seen many people approach the tool in this way, so I thought it might be interesting to share this experience.

I've known about the tool for about five years now, and I have to say it's an amazing piece of work by the developer. So it's totally understandable if not supporting VMware and its SVGA 3D driver was a deliberate decision.
Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in the future of Windows. Emulation is still very demanding, and many games have small issues on Windows 11 compared to 10 (for example, Prince of Persia 3D refuses to exit the game through the menu unless you try two or three times — it's not a wrapper issue, but simply something that was introduced and I can't find the cause).
I just think it might be a good idea to "freeze" everything in a not-so-crappy final version of Windows.

The guest OS in the screenshots is Windows 11 22H2, but the issue occurs on any Windows 7/8/8.1 guest as well. Thank you in advance

Well, I don't know. I mean, I remember I got a report back in 2-3 years ago that dgVoodoo is broken from version 2.76 is broken is VMWare, but I never checked it out.
So, if 2.79 is working, it's surprising for me, altough the DX11 support must have been improved in VMWare and that's why it is.

I cannot really say anything about it, you can check out if the DX11 debug layer inside VMWare with the broken dgVoodoo version says something.
But I don't test dgVoodoo in virtual enviroments, the primary purpose of dgVoodoo (besides me toying/tinkering with it) is to run old games natively, supposing that Win32 is still there to run them on.

It's sad to hear it's more and more broken, but if it becomes mostly unusable then I'll discontunie dgVoodoo too. Emulated environments does not need dgVoodoo.

I'm at work, I'll debug as soon as possible.

DirectX 11 support has really improved a lot. VMware 15.x was not able to initialize the Wrapper, in 17.x things changed completely, however I only had success on Windows hosts with DirectX 11. VMware on Linux is able to initialize the wrapper but the performance is terrible.

I also follow the KJliew project, which seems to be more promising in conjunction with KVM, but I can't afford to pay $90 right now just to try out the improved WineD3D libraries, and although I can compile the project, my focus is on D3D/DDRAW games.

Dege wrote on 2025-05-02, 08:27:

Well, I don't know. I mean, I remember I got a report back in 2-3 years ago that dgVoodoo is broken from version 2.76 is broken […]
Show full quote

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-04-27, 23:15:

Well, I'd like this to at least be seen as a curiosity test, but anyway — with the Shim EmulateHeap broken since Windows 11 22H2 […]
Show full quote

Well, I'd like this to at least be seen as a curiosity test, but anyway — with the Shim EmulateHeap broken since Windows 11 22H2, and fearing that it might never be fixed (so far, it hasn't), I started looking for a more comprehensive alternative to run some games that depend on it.

In search of more stability, I tried using dgVoodoo2 in conjunction with VMware, and the result surprised me — practically all the games I usually run on my host system worked fine on a Windows 7/8.1 guest.

However, after version 2.8.0, no game displays anything on the screen. The wrapper is detected, the watermark shows up, but there's no actual rendering — only audio continues normally, as if I were playing a blind version of the game.
I've been following discussions about this and understand the position regarding support for other platforms, but on the other hand, I haven't seen many people approach the tool in this way, so I thought it might be interesting to share this experience.

I've known about the tool for about five years now, and I have to say it's an amazing piece of work by the developer. So it's totally understandable if not supporting VMware and its SVGA 3D driver was a deliberate decision.
Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in the future of Windows. Emulation is still very demanding, and many games have small issues on Windows 11 compared to 10 (for example, Prince of Persia 3D refuses to exit the game through the menu unless you try two or three times — it's not a wrapper issue, but simply something that was introduced and I can't find the cause).
I just think it might be a good idea to "freeze" everything in a not-so-crappy final version of Windows.

The guest OS in the screenshots is Windows 11 22H2, but the issue occurs on any Windows 7/8/8.1 guest as well. Thank you in advance

Well, I don't know. I mean, I remember I got a report back in 2-3 years ago that dgVoodoo is broken from version 2.76 is broken is VMWare, but I never checked it out.
So, if 2.79 is working, it's surprising for me, altough the DX11 support must have been improved in VMWare and that's why it is.

I cannot really say anything about it, you can check out if the DX11 debug layer inside VMWare with the broken dgVoodoo version says something.
But I don't test dgVoodoo in virtual enviroments, the primary purpose of dgVoodoo (besides me toying/tinkering with it) is to run old games natively, supposing that Win32 is still there to run them on.

It's sad to hear it's more and more broken, but if it becomes mostly unusable then I'll discontunie dgVoodoo too. Emulated environments does not need dgVoodoo.

Here it is, despite mentioning DHT, no matter what game I run, it would result in a black screen anyway.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-05-02, 06:43:

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-05-02, 00:27:

I've been testing since 0.3.2 and have had success in both VirtualBox and VMware. The games I tested were Beachhead 2000, Die Ha […]
Show full quote

I've been testing since 0.3.2 and have had success in both VirtualBox and VMware. The games I tested were Beachhead 2000, Die Hard Trilogy and Resident Evil 2, all American editions.

Beachhead 2000 works perfectly after setting the color mode to 16 bits in the launcher. I don't remember if the DLL needs to be in the directory of both executables;

Resident Evil 2 is a peculiar game, because the full installation does not copy all the data to the hard drive. However, if you copy the data to any folder and place the exe next to it, it will work with the wrapper;

Die Hard Trilogy has a strange color palette and only runs in software mode, but this also happens on my Windows 11 host with GT1030, curiously it is able to run in hardware mode perfectly with the Intel UHD 620 iGPU.

It's an interesting coincidence so I'll settle for whatever works, and I shouldn't and wouldn't encourage anyone to bother Narzoul with it.

Interesting, I was testing 0.5.0 DDC and it didn't work on my Win10 machine on VMware. I don't recally seeing anything strange with DHT, although I tried it without any wrapper.

Coming to POP3D, does Dege have a QuickTime version recommedation? It was a nighmare setting it up 5 years ago on Windows 10, sometimes the video would skip, sometimes unscaled, sometimes in background

On the subject, here is a test with a Windows 8.1 x64 guest with DDrawCompat 0.3.2 working properly, I played about 7 levels and everything went well, this game is very difficult.

I tested other games too, like M1 Tank Platoon II, this one has problems with DDrawCompat both in Windows 24H2 and in my VMware guests.

However, I can run it with DXWND and 9XHEAP from otvdm dev, replacing the dll that came with DXWND.

The problem with DDrawCompat again happens on both sides, 0.6.0 is able to initialize the game, but there is extreme stuttering with mouse movement, however if I run the same with DXWND it works, setting it up properly so that it does not intercept the calls. I also tested the combination with dgVoodoo2 2.86, both worked on my Windows 11 24H2 host

Note: My M1TP2 is the GOG Version

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-05-04, 17:37:

On the subject, here is a test with a Windows 8.1 x64 guest with DDrawCompat 0.3.2 working properly, I played about 7 levels and […]
Show full quote

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2025-05-02, 06:43:

Saliva_de_Midas wrote on 2025-05-02, 00:27:

I've been testing since 0.3.2 and have had success in both VirtualBox and VMware. The games I tested were Beachhead 2000, Die Ha […]
Show full quote

I've been testing since 0.3.2 and have had success in both VirtualBox and VMware. The games I tested were Beachhead 2000, Die Hard Trilogy and Resident Evil 2, all American editions.

Beachhead 2000 works perfectly after setting the color mode to 16 bits in the launcher. I don't remember if the DLL needs to be in the directory of both executables;

Resident Evil 2 is a peculiar game, because the full installation does not copy all the data to the hard drive. However, if you copy the data to any folder and place the exe next to it, it will work with the wrapper;

Die Hard Trilogy has a strange color palette and only runs in software mode, but this also happens on my Windows 11 host with GT1030, curiously it is able to run in hardware mode perfectly with the Intel UHD 620 iGPU.

It's an interesting coincidence so I'll settle for whatever works, and I shouldn't and wouldn't encourage anyone to bother Narzoul with it.

Interesting, I was testing 0.5.0 DDC and it didn't work on my Win10 machine on VMware. I don't recally seeing anything strange with DHT, although I tried it without any wrapper.

Coming to POP3D, does Dege have a QuickTime version recommedation? It was a nighmare setting it up 5 years ago on Windows 10, sometimes the video would skip, sometimes unscaled, sometimes in background

On the subject, here is a test with a Windows 8.1 x64 guest with DDrawCompat 0.3.2 working properly, I played about 7 levels and everything went well, this game is very difficult.

I tested other games too, like M1 Tank Platoon II, this one has problems with DDrawCompat both in Windows 24H2 and in my VMware guests.

However, I can run it with DXWND and 9XHEAP from otvdm dev, replacing the dll that came with DXWND.

The problem with DDrawCompat again happens on both sides, 0.6.0 is able to initialize the game, but there is extreme stuttering with mouse movement, however if I run the same with DXWND it works, setting it up properly so that it does not intercept the calls. I also tested the combination with dgVoodoo2 2.86, both worked on my Windows 11 24H2 host

Note: My M1TP2 is the GOG Version

Yes I had tested M1TP2 as well on GOG version and similar results on DxWnd

To my knowledge DDC uses a lot of driver dependant features to improve its functionality, which required development far from the "generalised technique" since 0.3.0. Since 0.4.0 it was increased even more so stuffs that worked previously work even less now. And throwing in shaders also maybe complicated things.

If I had to think that way, dgVoodoo2 added something too much Intel/AMD/Nvidia dependant that it breaks on VMware drivers.

DxWnd uses whatever the plain driver calls so its still free of both the problematic situations. It still fails in a few cases like Z Buffer initialisation or some DD CAPS, but its probably the lack of trying to emulating such things that kept is solid still on backwards compatibility.

Thx. Other wrappers do not use DX11 so they are irrelevant in this regard.
If I get it right there are no DX11 debug layer errors inside the virtual machine. If VMWare DX11 implementation improves, then dgVoodoo will work.

Anyway, having dgVodooo working on VMware is out of scope, you can be fine with other stuffs as you demonstrated.