That's a new one. I am inclined to suspect that if things were really that easy, people would have been advocating DirectX 8.0a everywhere.

awgamer wrote:

Browsing the directx wiki

Perhaps you should clarify what wiki you are referring to?

Sure, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX, scroll down the list to 8.0a: "February 5, 2001 Last supported version for Windows 95 and last version to have software rendering support"

Only earlier DX games will allow use of the software renderer (Ramp/RGB/MMX emulation) and they're usually of the DX3/5-era primitive graphics/retained mode sort.

Oh, the Wikipedia article on DirectX. (I thought you were referring to some more specific wiki entirely devoted to DirectX.)

The article references http://ueu.co/3d-graphics-accelerators/ , which still seems to be accessible via the Google Cache, but doesn't seem to make any references to 8.0a having "software rendering support". Unless there's another reference, I would think that Wikipedia is inaccurate here.

ETA: The text of the link in question appears to be copied verbatim from "Upgrading and Repairing PCs".
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ml1UGe9IuLk … ges.%22&f=false

I installed unreal tournament 113-240 fps at 800x600 using its built in software renderer on a stock 3570k in virtualbox xp.

That's unrelated though. That's Tim Sweeney's own little software renderer and has nothing to do with the renderers built into Direct3D.

Yeah, it's just a frame of reference for how fast software rendering is with virtualbox.

dxdiag.exe should offer buttons to disable DDraw and D3D Hardware acceleration?

windows ce apparently has software directx and there are ce emulators, vhd images for download, works with virtualbox, grabbed one but not enough room to put any programs on to try so still looking.

... but AFAIK Win9x apps are not compatible with WinCE and vice-versa? It's a different Windows API or something.

Anyone aware of this gpu emulator? http://wiredhut.blogspot.com/2011/08/3d-analy … d-emulator.html

Supposedly fits the bill but I haven't been able to get it to run 2001se yet even though it's supposed to work.

I've heard of it but never used it.

Not sure that I'd call it a "GPU emulator" tho. 😉

awgamer wrote:

Anyone aware of this gpu emulator? http://wiredhut.blogspot.com/2011/08/3d-analy … d-emulator.html

Supposedly fits the bill but I haven't been able to get it to run 2001se yet even though it's supposed to work.

The only use I have had for that is on older Intel GMA chips, that don't support hardware T&L. Some games fail to launch on those without that program.

That's not really a "video card emulator" and more of a caps/id fooling wrapper.