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First post, by OMORES

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Just installed Windows 11 (no UEFI/TPM), with a Voodoo 3 as primary graphics card and a Ryzen 3900x.

Standard MS display driver can initialize a Voodoo 3 up to 1280x1204x32bit so installation, desktop and Windows 11 interface look really sharp 0n my "professional" Dell 19 inch IPS display , 5/4 format.

YouTube works fine.

I started Quake 2 expecting software mode, but it started in OpenGL mode with a nice frame rate of 34fps @ 1024x768x32

I know since DX11 there is a WARP software renderer, but it should not work by default AFAIK. And 34 fps in rather consistent with capabilities of a Voodoo 3 in OpenGL.

Started some older games that I have in my Steam library... Syberia works well, Stalker runs @10-12 fps. Unreal is really fast on software renderer, but also starts in OpenGL mode where runs @ 4-5fps...

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Last edited by OMORES on 2021-11-24, 12:38. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 6, by Error 0x7CF

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Microsoft Basic Display Adapter means OpenGL is running in software. Microsoft Basic Display Adapter supports up to OpenGL 1.1 in software.

It's pretty neat that it does work, but MBDA doesn't accelerate with any video card. Your Voodoo is being used as a framebuffer. Any OpenGL support is purely in software, running on your CPU. If you want proof of that, you could look at your CPU usage in Task Manager, I think the usage would show up there.

Old precedes antique.

Reply 3 of 6, by DosFreak

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There has been a OGL->D3D wrapper in Windows since I want to say XP (Really only have ever seen it work for quake engine games ) but I'd have to load up the ACT to look. Since WARP is being used it's probably then OGL -> D3D -> WARP but you may be better off running in software mode or using Mesa3D.

Re: The Wrapper Collection Project
https://fdossena.com/?p=mesa/index.frag
https://github.com/pal1000/mesa-dist-win/releases

I thought there were Voodoo 3 64bit drivers for Windows 7? It looks like the basic display driver in Windows 11 uses WDDM 1.3 and Vmware uses WDDM 1.1 so they may work assuming they are WDDM and not XPDM.
/EDIT looks like they are XPDM so software it is.

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Reply 4 of 6, by OMORES

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I thought there were Voodoo 3 64bit drivers for Windows 7?

Yes, there are but they give a nice BSOD in Windows 10, no matter what. On the other hand... Voodoo 2 64bit drivers are apparently working in Windows 10.

Reply 6 of 6, by 386SX

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I suppose its all about software rendering considering how modern and powerful these CPU should be to render such old games in a way that might be similar to what would be expected by a time correct 3D accelerator of that time. But I'd be more than surprised to read about the existence of real D3D or OpenGL hardware drivers that could make use of such old video chip acceleration instead of any CPU sw renderer.
Even in Linux nowdays I see both the Mesa sw renderer or the Chromium oriented one that is used once there's no 3D acceleration possible and both use the cpu, maybe in very fast smart ways. For example I tried the OpenGL mesa sw renderer on Thief II game in linux on a dual core Atom 1,9Ghz cpu and @640x480 it ran with all the OpenGL translated from D3D effects but totally on the cpu and far from playable. Oh well.. the SGX iGPU still had its problems even when actually accelerating the game in Win anyway with functional drivers but that's another story.