Highly useful! Thanks for working on this and for sharing it.

A free and non-cringe version of *Banned project*? Count me interested!
Can this be adopted outside of Virtual Machines?
I guess my dream to run GTA IV on Windows 98SE might be a reality 😁

If I find some time in those busy times, I'll test this with my Core i3-12100F on both VirtualBox (was always the worst option for 9x, maybe this will change things) and VMware.
EDIT: And maybe I'll throw in my Core 2 Duo E8600 with GeForce 7900 GTX for some native testing...wished the Core i3 worked natively 🙁

Amazing progress! glchecker.exe says I have hardware acceleration here in VirtualBox 6.0, wonder if using 6.0 could cause additional compatibility issues. Like, many OpenGL and Direct3D apps work, but dxdiag from DirectX 9.0c doesn't show much 3D graphics through its Direct3D tests in Windows 98SE.

I was a bit bored and checked this out. Tried setting up in VirtualBox which took surprisingly little time, probably because of good documentation. The games I tested:

• Army Men RTS (Direct3D) black screen. My install might at fault, I just copied games over without registry values for all the games I tested. Menu background audio was running though.
• Baldur's Gate II (OpenGL) worked perfectly.
• Battle Isle: The Andosia War (Direct3D) rendered perfectly, but it had issues with mouse position. Which I have experienced it does have with some wrappers so I suspect WineD3D might be at fault.
• Every Extend (Direct3D8) didn't work in fullscreen and only gave a black screen, worked in windowed mode but framerate was pretty bad.
• Shogo: Mobile Armor Division (Direct3D) wouldn't render any 3D elements. Software rendering worked so I suspect the problem isn't my installation.
• Populous: The Beginning (Direct3D) didn't render any gameplay. My install might be at fault, but I doubt it since audio was playing that correlated to game events, so the game thought nothing was wrong. Also had cursor issues in the menu, not sure if because of Virtualbox or WineD3D. I know Virtualbox shouldn't introduce mouse issues, but it was acting really weird (not locking the mouse to the window properly).
• Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon (Direct3D?) didn't render any ships.

I was also reminded why I don't like using virtualization software for games. I tried playing Baldur's Gate II because I would actually prefer to play it in a VM if it could provide a decent experience, but high audio and input latency just makes it a pretty bad experience.

Maybe VMWare is better (or maybe AC97 works better than SB), but last I tried that had audio issues too. At least with Magpie you can use custom scaling algorithms and shaders, which used to be one of the disadvantages of gaming with virtualization software.

MrMateczko wrote on 2023-04-13, 01:01:

A free and non-cringe version of qemu-3dfx? Count me interested!

I looked into qemu-3dfx because I wanted to play Lands of Lore 2 (DOS) with Glide pass-through to a Voodoo wrapper that could force a higher rendering resolution.

Would that work? I don't know I've yet to dedicate the time to set it up, but this project doesn't offer compatibility with DOS or other Glide wrappers, so I would say it's not a replacement.

Edit: not to mention qemu-3dfx supports Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

This is definitely an interesting and already very useful project though.

I've tested some games under VirtualBox 7.0 and 98SE (AC97 highly recommended over SB16):
GTA III (D3D8) - game menu glitched at 32-bit colour depth, rest is fine
3DMark2001 SE (D3D8)- characters not rendered in Game 3 test, no butterflies in Game 4 test, rest is fine - quite low score - 3156
GTA SA (D3D9) - characters not rendered (glitchy mess), also anything above 640x480 is glitched, rest is fine
3DMark03 (D3D9) - characters not rendered in Game 2,3,4 tests, water not rendered correctly and some other bugs in Game 4 test, rest is fine - not that low score - 7045

GTA IV (D3D9) - silently exits after launch similar to SwiftShader, still just wishful thinking 😁

Any reason why Wine 1.7.55 was selected rather than newer/older version?

Thanks for responses, there are currently 2 bugs directly in VirtualBox:

1. Wrong mouse pointer locking – if application in guest OS change resolution multiple times, mouse pointer is moving on lesser area then window or conversely it is moving outsize screen surface. Workaround is simple – press the host key (default right CTRL), mouse will be unlocked, and then click to VM screen again and mouse now locking properly.
   If you are using mouse in USB tablet mode, after start fullscreen application or game, disable the mouse integration (Top menu -> Input -> Mouse Integration), because in fullscreen mode most applications cannot handle it properly.
2. Surface format R5G6B5 capability isn’t reported properly – black screen if application using 16-bit surface or RGB565 textures. I already sent report + patch to VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/21643), same time I applied workaround to my driver (basically it ignoring reported value and guess it from other format instead). So, in the latest SoftGPU release (v0.4.2023.11), this bug should not appear.

In my driver are currently bugged vertex shaders when hardware acceleration is used – it is clearly visible in 3D Mark 2001/2003. When is HW acceleration off, rendering is correct, but it is much slower.

I also tried games listed here with the latest SoftGPU release and all (with exception GTA IV) should by playable now:
Army Men RTS - OK
Battle Isle: The Andosia War - (demo) OK
Every Extend - OK
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division - OK
Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon – requires disabling vertex shaders.

1REGEDIT4
2
3[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wine\tp_win32.exe]
4"MaxShaderModelVS"=dword:00000000
5

GTA III - OK
GTA Vice City - OK (nobody asked, but I tested too)
GTA SA – requires disabling vertex shaders.

1REGEDIT4
2
3[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wine\tp_win32.exe]
4"MaxShaderModelVS"=dword:00000000
5

GTA IV – nope, GPU driver in software mode may handle it, but still missing some parts of OS.

If you use SoftGPU installer you don’t need apply manually these registry patches – it’ll do it for you automatically.

MrMateczko wrote on 2023-04-13, 01:01:

A free and non-cringe version of qemu-3dfx? Count me interested! Can this be adopted outside of Virtual Machines? I guess my dr […]
Show full quote

A free and non-cringe version of qemu-3dfx? Count me interested!
Can this be adopted outside of Virtual Machines?
I guess my dream to run GTA IV on Windows 98SE might be a reality 😁

If I find some time in those busy times, I'll test this with my Core i3-12100F on both VirtualBox (was always the worst option for 9x, maybe this will change things) and VMware.
EDIT: And maybe I'll throw in my Core 2 Duo E8600 with GeForce 7900 GTX for some native testing...wished the Core i3 worked natively 🙁

I think that @kjliew do lots of good work. Debugging old operating systems is often quite tedious. We can't be unpleasant at him for wanting some money for it back. The main difference is, he implemented extra HW FIFO for Mesa commands which is faster, than my way, could work from DOS, and you can apply wrapper or shader on it at host side – which is much faster than complete rendering in guest. But you need modify hypervisor code and this is very problematic – I maintain VirtualBox fork for my own purposes and just testing is hell.

SoftGPU is pack of relatively independent components - you can combine VBEMP 9x driver and use my Mesa9x (https://github.com/JHRobotics/mesa9x) for OpenGL rendering and my Wine9x (https://github.com/JHRobotics/wine9x) to DirectX -> OpenGL transport. OpenGL rendering will be software only, but on native HW it will be faster than in VM, VBEMP 9x also not having ICD feature, so you must replace opengl32.dll in system. Unfortunately, it will be still slower than your 7900 GTX.

angrylion wrote on 2023-05-05, 10:23:

Amazing progress! glchecker.exe says I have hardware acceleration here in VirtualBox 6.0, wonder if using 6.0 could cause additional compatibility issues. Like, many OpenGL and Direct3D apps work, but dxdiag from DirectX 9.0c doesn't show much 3D graphics through its Direct3D tests in Windows 98SE.

I got a bit confused about the VirtualBox versions - version 6.0 has choose of VGA adapter, so HW acceleration can work (version 5.1 hasn't it). Please try latest version of SoftGPU, you may have encountered the R5G6B5 bug, newer version may work well.

ZellSF wrote on 2023-05-07, 20:24:

I was also reminded why I don't like using virtualization software for games. I tried playing Baldur's Gate II because I would actually prefer to play it in a VM if it could provide a decent experience, but high audio and input latency just makes it a pretty bad experience.

Maybe VMWare is better (or maybe AC97 works better than SB), but last I tried that had audio issues too. At least with Magpie you can use custom scaling algorithms and shaders, which used to be one of the disadvantages of gaming with virtualization software.

Yes, I completely agree with you – sound output from VM is very unsatisfying, only positive this, that they are emulating real hardware so there are drivers for old systems. I'm thinking of two options to fix it: Write Intel HD audio driver or modify hypervizor to do some kind of direct access to HW/mixer sound buffer.

Playing games in VM has of courses its costs – unavailability of graphical enhancements is one of it. On the other hand, you can play games in original state and separated from rest of your system. I think that compatibility/graphical wrappers and VM/emulators has own benefits, and they cannot be completely replaced by each other.

MrMateczko wrote on 2023-05-08, 20:49:

Any reason why Wine 1.7.55 was selected rather than newer/older version?

Version 1.7.x was last which were WineD3D was compatible with 2000/XP, and it is closer to 9x, than try to port something newer. Newer versions using accelerated GDI access and can use Vulcan rendering, but it is useless on 9x. Next problem is OpenGL version, newer Wine are faster but needs more advanced OpenGL, but my actual driver has only 2.1 when is HW acceleration is on.

JH64 wrote on 2023-05-14, 12:13:

Please try latest version of SoftGPU, you may have encountered the R5G6B5 bug, newer version may work well.

Yes, with the new version dxdiag works fine in VirtualBox 6.0, thanks.

Tested Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (DX8, 2002). Without -nomovie command line argument it soon freezes, with -nomovie it draws 3D graphics and freezes later when I try to proceed to a race. Same results with Mesa9x. This game can be launched in a window by editing the rendercaps.ini file in My Documents\EA Games. The game doesn't freeze with wine9x dll's put into the exe's folder on Windows XP with VirtualBox Guest Additions installed.

I don't know if this is the right place for this but I didn't want to submit a github issue since I don't know if this is a bug or something Virtual Box related.

I have successfully installed SoftGpu on Windows 98 VM in Virtual Box 7 (full 3d acceleration) but some actions are very slow, i.e: maximizing and minimizing windows, opening the start menu and other small things like every time a tool tip appears on the close, minimize or maximize window buttons.

Just wondering if there is something I can do about this. And thank you for your work, SoftGpu sure is looking very promising!

:: EDIT ::

Actually, I think I found the solution...just leaving it here for others: modern processors are too fast for Windows 98 (obviously) and setting the processor cap at around 85 or 90% helps with the slowdowns.

angrylion wrote on 2023-05-14, 16:38:

JH64 wrote on 2023-05-14, 12:13:

Please try latest version of SoftGPU, you may have encountered the R5G6B5 bug, newer version may work well.

Yes, with the new version dxdiag works fine in VirtualBox 6.0, thanks.

Tested Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (DX8, 2002). Without -nomovie command line argument it soon freezes, with -nomovie it draws 3D graphics and freezes later when I try to proceed to a race. Same results with Mesa9x. This game can be launched in a window by editing the rendercaps.ini file in My Documents\EA Games. The game doesn't freeze with wine9x dll's put into the exe's folder on Windows XP with VirtualBox Guest Additions installed.

I tried NFS HP2 in version 2.42 and with SW rendering works perfectly (but slowly) but with HW rendering I have, already mentioned, problems with Vertex shaders so graphic is a bit broken, but game looks stable (Windows 98 SE + last SoftGPU). On XP looks like dddraw.dll <-> opengl32.dll loop (explanation: on XP opengl32.dll calls ddraw.dll, and if it's replaced by Wine, it'll call opengl32.dll again). Wine9x has some protection for it, but I didn’t test it on newer systems very well. You can also try vanilla WineD3D (1.7.52 from here https://fdossena.com/?p=wined3d/index.frag) with combination my Mesa9x. But see it's README with section for DirectX<=7 games (game may still use DX6/7 for playing videos or rendering menu!).

divid3byzer0 wrote on 2023-05-15, 10:54:

I don't know if this is the right place for this but I didn't want to submit a github issue since I don't know if this is a bug […]
Show full quote

I don't know if this is the right place for this but I didn't want to submit a github issue since I don't know if this is a bug or something Virtual Box related.

I have successfully installed SoftGpu on Windows 98 VM in Virtual Box 7 (full 3d acceleration) but some actions are very slow, i.e: maximizing and minimizing windows, opening the start menu and other small things like every time a tool tip appears on the close, minimize or maximize window buttons.

Just wondering if there is something I can do about this. And thank you for your work, SoftGpu sure is looking very promising!

:: EDIT ::

Actually, I think I found the solution...just leaving it here for others: modern processors are too fast for Windows 98 (obviously) and setting the processor cap at around 85 or 90% helps with the slowdowns.

I already seen it, problem can be, as you mention it, with too fast CPU to set system timer correctly. But also, I think that problem can be in frequency boost in modern CPU - CPU is sometime very fast and sometime very slow and system timer become confused.

Also, solution is change TSC (Time Stamp Counter) behaviour with this command (OK, isn't total solution but VM run will be smoother):

1VBoxManage setextradata "My Windows 98" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCTiedToExecution" 1

Where My Windows 98 is your VM name. If it's work for you, it is better solution than setting processor cap - setting processor cap not throttling CPU but only changing execution scheduling - so CPU has same speed as usual, only is scheduled to VM less time. For record, which CPU do you have?

TSC documentation is here: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#changetscmode

Also, solution is change TSC (Time Stamp Counter) behaviour with this command (OK, isn't total solution but VM run will be smoot […]
Show full quote

Also, solution is change TSC (Time Stamp Counter) behaviour with this command (OK, isn't total solution but VM run will be smoother):

Copy code to clipboard

1VBoxManage setextradata "My Windows 98" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCTiedToExecution" 1

Where My Windows 98 is your VM name. If it's work for you, it is better solution than setting processor cap - setting processor cap not throttling CPU but only changing execution scheduling - so CPU has same speed as usual, only is scheduled to VM less time. For record, which CPU do you have?

This has helped a bit, but not much. Now I can have the execution cap at 100% and the VM indeed behaves a bit more smoothly (mostly in sound). The slow downs are also less evident but they still occur in the same occasions I mentioned before (maximizing, minimizing, etc...). But thank you for the tip!

Also, my CPU is a Ryzen 9 5900X.

JH64 wrote on 2023-05-16, 09:01:

I tried NFS HP2 in version 2.42 and with SW rendering works perfectly (but slowly) but with HW rendering I have, already mentioned, problems with Vertex shaders so graphic is a bit broken, but game looks stable (Windows 98 SE + last SoftGPU).

The hardlocks in Hot Pursuit 2 under Windows 98 were fixed by switching from Sound Blaster 16 to AC97, sorry for wasting your time on that. The switch to AC97 also fixed heavy framerate jerkiness in fr-08 intro by Farbrausch.

An additional benefit of using AC'97 ICHx emulation instead of SB16 emulation is that the former supports multi-channel audio, allowing multiple sounds to be played at once. You can notice this in a fresh installation of Windows 98 SE, when the "Welcome to Windows 98" pop-up window is shown on start-up. It plays music (starting with a church bell like sound), before the default start-up sound has finished playing. When emulating a SB16, you will only hear one of those sounds.

digger wrote on 2023-05-17, 20:54:

An additional benefit of using AC'97 ICHx emulation instead of SB16 emulation is that the former supports multi-channel audio, allowing multiple sounds to be played at once. You can notice this in a fresh installation of Windows 98 SE, when the "Welcome to Windows 98" pop-up window is shown on start-up. It plays music (starting with a church bell like sound), before the default start-up sound has finished playing. When emulating a SB16, you will only hear one of those sounds.

And the only way (I know of ) of having MIDI sound emulation.

With the latest version (softgpu-0.4.2023.11 - using SVGA3D):
3DMark03 - Character models still missing, applying the MaxShaderModelVS workaround throws an error message: Could not create vertex shader - Invalid call
GTA SA - Works fine with the workaround!
I should have probably noted that I am using KernelEx and all the tweaks needed in 98SE for GTA IV to be able to at least attempt to launch it - still not working but I don't expect it to ever work, it's most likely impossible, though it has tried for like a half a second more than before!

I see in commits an attempt to use Mesa 21.3.8, what are potential benefits for the update?

Oh, and enjoy the donation from me 😀

Disabling HW Acceleration (unticking 3D Acceleration from VirtualBox settings - using llvmpipe):
- fixes glchecker benchmarks
- GTA SA works without workaround, but of course slower
- 3DMark03 works fine but it is very slow
- GTA IV exists sooner like it did previously

There's also this bug of resolution not resetting to the previous value after game has exited, but that's Win9x bug I think.

MrMateczko wrote on 2023-05-17, 22:57:

With the latest version (softgpu-0.4.2023.11 - using SVGA3D): 3DMark03 - Character models still missing, applying the MaxShaderM […]
Show full quote

With the latest version (softgpu-0.4.2023.11 - using SVGA3D):
3DMark03 - Character models still missing, applying the MaxShaderModelVS workaround throws an error message: Could not create vertex shader - Invalid call
GTA SA - Works fine with the workaround!
I should have probably noted that I am using KernelEx and all the tweaks needed in 98SE for GTA IV to be able to at least attempt to launch it - still not working but I don't expect it to ever work, it's most likely impossible, though it has tried for like a half a second more than before!

I see in commits an attempt to use Mesa 21.3.8, what are potential benefits for the update?

Oh, and enjoy the donation from me 😀

Disabling HW Acceleration (unticking 3D Acceleration from VirtualBox settings - using llvmpipe):
- fixes glchecker benchmarks
- GTA SA works without workaround, but of course slower
- 3DMark03 works fine but it is very slow
- GTA IV exists sooner like it did previously

There's also this bug of resolution not resetting to the previous value after game has exited, but that's Win9x bug I think.

I appreciate your support! Thank you! 😀

Main purpose for newer Mesa is support for “GPU10” API. Normally it’s used for DirectX 12 support in guest system, which is a bit useless on Windows 9x, but brings more advanced format and shader support. For example, reason for broken HW rendering in 3D Mark 2001/2003 is missing ARB_uniform_buffer_object OpenGL extension. Currently Mesa 21.3.8 itself is working but I need do more work on driver, because capabilities are more or less equal to current 17.3.9.

On other hand, in VirtualBox is this API still incomplete and in might not work as expected.

Alternative ways are using older Wine (1.6 of example don’t using this extension, but I’m not sure if advanced shaders work well) or use Nine library (part of Mesa) which can be used for native DirectX 9 support – but in this case we still need some DX8 to DX9 wrapper (for most games).

Let’s see what will work, if I make some progress, I'll show it off here. 😀

I think not limiting yourself to only virtualization software and dropping Win95/Win98FE support would be beneficial. Do you have real hardware you can use to test your Mesa/WineD3D variants?

How far do you plan on bringing this project? Do you plan on working on it until people can play games like deus ex with windows 98 se? If so, I have a lot of hope to give. Even if you do not plan on going very far, I still think this is one of the best places people can start to help develop these kinds of projects further.

Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the preservation of great software

A few more questions:
- Do you plan on going up to windows xp ? Windows xp acceleration support was dropped in virtualbox. If not, that is totally understandable.
- Does this project work better for opengl/glide than directx?
- Is EAX audio an option? Perhaps using openal soft or DSOAL

- How possible would it be to take the voodoo 3 card emulation from 86box, handle it on the gpu, and then use that in a VM? (I am not asking for this feature, but I was thinking about it, and figured I could get an answer here)