Quick video on hardware Direct3D acceleration on the Intel GMA950

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEPr--H9Mhc

Already? Awesome work!

There are still lots of bugs and issues, so while the basic stuff is working, it isn't really a usable driver yet, I think it will take another couple of weeks to get it useful!

It's really impressive, thank you

For the record I tested the driver on Microsoft Virtual PC (not sure if anyone else had the same idea before me), and It works (mostly).

I never thought I was able to see the directx spinnin logo on VPC or 3dmark (99/2000) in my life. Amazing!!!

Not surprisingly you lose the ability to resize dynamically the windows from the host (would be nice to have that too, but maybe is too much to ask)

Not so obviously, the mouse isn't trapped in the VM windows, as happens usually on VMs when the "wrong" driver is installed.

for now I tested the spinning logo (works), and 3Dmark. (99 and 2000 work, at the second attempt and with some distorsions/ rendering errors, 2001 fails), tested also glidos 1.3x (fails both on opengl and d3d mode)

Anyway, while we aren't in short of hypervisors, VPC is still a nice to have thing, given how friendly it is with old MS os and OS2. Perhaps it works resonably well even booting with Hyper-V enabled, in W8/8.1 x64. W10x 64 is a no go, W10 x86 (mostly) works, at least on 2016 and alike, not tested in 20Hx/22Hx.

That’s awesome! Mouse capture and dynamic resize I will review in future.

Thanks for trying.

I’ve just released version 0.8, while still very much an alpha build it is the first with GMA 950 Direct3D support. Lots of bugs still.

mwdmeyer wrote on 2026-09-23, 13:15:

That’s awesome! Mouse capture

Maybe I wasn't clear enough mouse capture works, and unlike the usual case, once captured the mouse isn't trapped inside the VM windows until you push a combination of keys (In short was intended as appreciation of an unexpected behavior)

and dynamic resize I will review in future.

Yes, correct. This isn't working as the official VPC drivers do, not a drama at all, but any effort will be appreciated, thanks.

Thanks for trying.

You're welcome 😉

I’ve just released version 0.8

I'll test as ASAP, maybe is better to update the first post on the other thread, which still talks about v 0.3)

P.S. If you need help to install VPC on Win8/81/10 you have just to ask. On win7 it works out of the box, obviously.

Tested the last version with a bit of more calm.

Surely not a record setting result, but the fact that the whole benchmark was completed is remarkable.

Perhaps the host machine is anything but a monster (8 y/o Amd Ryzen 5 2400G, With integrated Vega 11 graphics)

Many many issues have now been resolved for 3dmark 99, I'm actually pretty happy with it now, I'm going to test some other games but version 0.8.1 might actually be useful on the GMA 950 now!

I'll release it this weekend.

Half Life 1 now works! This release is actually ready to use:
https://github.com/michaeldale/velocity9x/rel … ases/tag/v0.8.1

Results with 8.1 in Virtual PC 2007Sp1

That is cool! I haven't done much focus on the software d3d side, so not sure how useful it is!

It is a shame that Virtual PC only supports the S3 Trio but at least the driver accelerates most 2D functions on the Trio/Virge, so it shouldn't be too bad.

I'm working on OpenGL next.

mwdmeyer wrote on Yesterday, 15:30:

That is cool! I haven't done much focus on the software d3d side, so not sure how useful it is!

Well... speaking of "useful" how much things published here (or say on hackaday) can be considered useful?

Speaking of spending some time just for fun I did the same benchmarks on the same host / OS using Vmware 20H2 (the newest release that runs on Win 8.1 w/o bringing problems) + SoftGPU.

Obviusly this is playing in another league given VMware has real 3D support, and it's 13 years newer than VPC 2007.

But still the gap isn't huge as one may expect, btw the rendering in VMware is perfect, while in VPC is not, yet.

Velocity VBE 8.1 on VMware26H1 host W10 (so not exactly the same scenario as above)

Not exactly the best combo, the result doesn't give justice, the first tests run at something like 2 FPS (way slower than on VPC)

That is interesting, the VBE and S3 Direct3D driver path should be the same, the Trio only does 2d acceleration so I'm not sure why there would be much difference.

For virtual machines I do think SoftGPU would be faster/better.

mwdmeyer wrote on Today, 02:26:

That is interesting, the VBE and S3 Direct3D driver path should be the same, the Trio only does 2d acceleration so I'm not sure why there would be much difference.

For virtual machines I do think SoftGPU would be faster/better.

Well, that's obvious. But I still like to experiment.

I'm going to test on VBox, which is really where SoftGPU shines, as the (disappeared) author is more a VBox guy than a VMware one.

Albeit the result wildly vary across the VBox releases (that's why I'm on W10 right now), SoftGPU on VBOX can do even FSAA by default (on VMware it's disabled by default, I guess for compatibility with older versions).

VBox results

As anticipated SoftGPU shines here (and in this case the release gap isn't 13 years, it's 19), but also Velocity get a better result than on vmware, still the first tests are deadly slow compared with VPC

I'll have to setup VPC at some point!

Version 0.9 has now been released, this includes the first release with basic OpenGL 1.1 ICD, Quake 2 works in OpenGL on the GMA950
https://github.com/michaeldale/velocity9x/rel … ases/tag/v0.9.0

Those GL files work only with your driver? ATi Rage2 is missing real ICD OpenGL file for Win9x, but it works with some MiniGL files (OpenGL32.dll).
For me and my regular ati rage driver they switch back to Microsft default OGL (software) or game Software engine, tested quickly with Quake 1/2.

V9xGL.dll renamed to Atoglrp9, these are Opengl32.dlls
Originally for S3 and i740, but they work well @ Rage23
download/file.php?id=245131

I haven't tested yet but I do plan to add Rage support in future, I just need to purchase a card to test.