VOGONS


First post, by Burinis

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I have a VirtualBox 6.0.24 virtual machine with Windows XP SP3 and a VBoxVGA video adapter. My host is on Windows 10, but in the future I plan to switch to Windows 11, since this OS came out in 2021, and the version of VirtualBox that I currently use came out a year earlier than Windows 11. Moreover, this is the latest version of VirtualBox 6.0.24, supporting 3D acceleration in Windows XP.
There is a driver from SoftGPU, but it is for Windows 9.x. I also found another third-party driver from Virtio, but it is intended for Windows 10 (maybe for 8.1).
Is there any driver for Windows XP with 3D support for any of the three adapters (VBoxVGA, VMSVGA, VBoxSVGA)?
Just please don’t write that most games for Windows XP run fine on Windows 10, since I don’t really like experimenting with running them on Windows 10. In addition, some games have StarForce protection, which is known for being able to "kill" the normal operation of computers.

Reply 1 of 8, by feda

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No, there isn't.
And of course most XP games run fine on Windows 10 with or without community fixes.
Why are you making things so hard for yourself? 😀

Reply 2 of 8, by DosFreak

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Vmware Workstation is your best bet (Supposedly it's free now, Broadcom probably trying to gain some goodwill and/or they don't care about it). Hard to move away from vmware when it's our only choice.
Use the "VMware-tools-windows-10.0.12-4448496" additions.

Only other choice (not counting ESXi) is KVM and passthrough to a GPU supported by XP.

The support of old operating systems isn't getting any better and will likely be worse once X86S becomes a thing if not sooner. I'm sure there are devs salivating over how many lines of code they can remove from these products by not supporting these old operating systems. I have a feeling these old operating systems will be dropped likely sooner than that and it'll likely be a shrug by the community since who uses those old operating systems and everything works on Proton (Everything works just fine there and better than Windows!!!!!) and Windows 11 anyway. That's the thought process which is wrong but it is was it is.

Ideally there would be wrappers or virtio drivers for older operating systems for these virtualization programs but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any interest except for one-offs with code that will never be upstreamed.

I think what I would prefer to see is a GUI for Windows\macOS\Linux for qemu that is equal to virtualbox/vmware in all aspects for ease of use. Right now virtualbox is all we have and it's not ideal....and it's an Oracle product which we shouldn't be supporting. That doesn't solve the 3D issue but at least you'd have the same GUI so you can easily setup passthrough on Linux and hopefully won't have to jump through 100 more hoops until/if official support for 3d for older operating systems is supported.

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Reply 3 of 8, by Burinis

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DosFreak wrote on 2024-05-28, 12:08:

The support of old operating systems isn't getting any better and will likely be worse once X86S becomes a thing if not sooner.

By the way, yes, I read that the ability to run old OSes will be retained, but only with the use of virtualization. Running 32-bit programs on 64-bit systems will also be preserved:

X86-S should provide plenty of compatibility for 32-bit Win32 applications, so retro gaming and software zealots like yours truly would be safe for now. As for legacy support of earlier 64-bit operating systems, Intel says that virtualization technology is mature enough to provide software and hardware solutions to keep users happy. Everything else (16-bit, DOS, 32-bit OSes), Intel suggests, will only run in emulators and virtual machines.

Reply 4 of 8, by wierd_w

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virtualbox guest additions cd supporys xp.

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#a … ditions-windows

Get the guest additions iso for your version.

Install in safemode, per the instructions!

Note

For the basic Direct3D acceleration to work in a Windows guest, you have to install the WDDM video driver available for Windows Vista or later.

For Windows 8 and later, only the WDDM Direct3D video driver is available. For basic Direct3D acceleration to work in Windows XP guests, you have to install the Guest Additions in Safe Mode. See Chapter 14, Known Limitations for details.

Reply 5 of 8, by Burinis

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feda wrote on 2024-05-28, 11:32:

Why are you making things so hard for yourself? 😀

It’s just that some games don’t work very well on Windows 10. In particular, 2-3 months ago, for the sake of nostalgia, I played Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone and broken vases are glitching (their fragments just hang in the air). I even asked on the Russian-language Old-Games.ru (I’m Russian. Use Google Translate if something is unclear) to find a fix for the vases, but no one has helped yet.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-05-28, 17:25:
virtualbox guest additions cd supporys xp. […]
Show full quote

virtualbox guest additions cd supporys xp.

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#a … ditions-windows

Get the guest additions iso for your version.

Install in safemode, per the instructions!

Note

For the basic Direct3D acceleration to work in a Windows guest, you have to install the WDDM video driver available for Windows Vista or later.

For Windows 8 and later, only the WDDM Direct3D video driver is available. For basic Direct3D acceleration to work in Windows XP guests, you have to install the Guest Additions in Safe Mode. See Chapter 14, Known Limitations for details.

This is clear to me. But I'm interested in a third-party driver.

Reply 6 of 8, by feda

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Burinis wrote on 2024-05-29, 10:48:
feda wrote on 2024-05-28, 11:32:

Why are you making things so hard for yourself? 😀

It’s just that some games don’t work very well on Windows 10. In particular, 2-3 months ago, for the sake of nostalgia, I played Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone and broken vases are glitching (their fragments just hang in the air). I even asked on the Russian-language [.......] (I’m Russian. Use Google Translate if something is unclear) to find a fix for the vases, but no one has helped yet.

UE1 games have speed-sensitive physics, cap your framerate. There's more fixes and renderer replacements here:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Harry_Potte … opher%27s_Stone

Reply 7 of 8, by Burinis

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Today I visited the same pcgamingwiki hoping to see instructions for running "Mickey saves the day", but unfortunately it is not there. It is possible to run it with some lags only on VirtualBox 6.0.24 (on the already free VMWare Workstation Pro 17.5.2 it is possible to run, but the characters are simply not displayed). Maybe there is some driver with 3D support in VirtualBox? Or how can I make it work on a real computer?

Reply 8 of 8, by DosFreak

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If you are asking on how to get a specific game working then perhaps you should start a thread for that purpose.... This thread is titled "Is there any third party driver that supports 3D acceleration for Windows XP?"

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