I'd like to inform about another AI universal VESA VBE driver for Win3.x, 9x and NT:
https://github.com/ages2001/WINVBE
initial version 1.0 has several issues but new 1.1 seems to be usable. And it's pretty fast when moving windows or acrolling text, not much slower than nvidia accelerated driver, also solved windows hang after exttring a full screen dos window, give a try...

First run on Nature Test (needs fixes).

That's probably better than the first run on the first gf3 driver 25years ago

Fix the sprite alpha and you're basically there.

Version 0.34 is now out https://github.com/michaeldale/velocity9x/rel … ses/tag/v0.34.0

• AMD Radeon HD 7470 Support
• AMD Radeon HD 5770 Support
• Fixed: OpenGL games ran at 1-2 fps at 1280x1024 and above at 32 bpp on the Evergreen cards (HD 5450, HD 7470, HD 5770).
• Intel HD Graphics 4600: DirectX 8 and 9 programs get DDI 8 with pixel shader 1.1.
• Fixed: DirectX 7 games flickered on the HD 4600
• The SiS 6326's frame buffer is write-combined

Quick video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCf1VSE7ZQ

woohoo, thanks, I knew those 5..7450s were all coming to me for a reason 🤣 (Seriously seems like every time I buy a hardware lot I get a firewire card, HD6450 and a 56k modem thrown in for free)

Just logged a big regression on the r7e
It doesn't seem to recognise the chip anymore

Might be because I updated it, in which case, probably need a rollback feature.

myne wrote on 2026-11-01, 04:44:

Just logged a big regression on the r7e
It doesn't seem to recognise the chip anymore

Seem to be running the VBE driver not the ATi driver, checking the report now.

Might be because I updated it, in which case, probably need a rollback feature.

damn you're fast

myne wrote on 2026-11-01, 04:46:

Might be because I updated it, in which case, probably need a rollback feature.

damn you're fast

Yep an issue with the updater, it picked the VBE driver, if you update manually with the ATi driver it will work. I will improve the updater to try and resolve in future.

Btw, the trees disappearing reminds me of a LOD setting. does the driver do anything with LOD?

I think(?) I've set up an old Windows 98 Pentium II 333mhz machine with a Riva 128 (8mb) agp using the remote V9x-Remote-Agent utility. I attempted to message you using the "Chat with the developer" window. Hopefully it worked. I isolated the machine from my local network with a vlan and forwarded ports to it. Had to install OpenWRT on my router for the vlan. Never installed it before or set up a vlan, so a first for me. Hopefully it's all working.

Match451 wrote on 2026-11-02, 05:51:

I think(?) I've set up an old Windows 98 Pentium II 333mhz machine with a Riva 128 (8mb) agp using the remote V9x-Remote-Agent utility. I attempted to message you using the "Chat with the developer" window. Hopefully it worked. I isolated the machine from my local network with a vlan and forwarded ports to it. Had to install OpenWRT on my router for the vlan. Never installed it before or set up a vlan, so a first for me. Hopefully it's all working.

Thanks yes all working! Looking at it now.

mwdmeyer wrote on 2026-11-01, 00:50:

Version 0.34 is now out https://github.com/michaeldale/velocity9x/rel … ses/tag/v0.34.0
...

Thanks for adding support for the Radeon cards and fixing the OpenGL issues, can confirm that this driver version works on the Radeon HD 5450. Quake III on max settings and 1600x1200 flies on the HD5770. 😁

myne wrote on 2026-11-01, 05:50:

Btw, the trees disappearing reminds me of a LOD setting. does the driver do anything with LOD?

On my systems with TeraScale 2 graphic cards it only happens with the CPU optimization set to "Intel(R) Pentium(R) III", but it's not occuring when set to "D3D Software T&L".

please, please, nvidia too... 😀

Nothing stopping you from starting a testpig.
I think the name of the game at the moment is adding feature support and performance though.

The scores, while infinitely better than nothing, aren't playable in much. Even on hardware that should blow the doors off 9x era cards.
Despite offering my gcn3 testpig, I'd still recommend focusing on the Intel igpu.
It's simply more common.
80% of people have one even if they have a better card installed.

myne wrote on Yesterday, 00:21:

Nothing stopping you from starting a testpig. I think the name of the game at the moment is adding feature support and performan […]
Show full quote

Nothing stopping you from starting a testpig.
I think the name of the game at the moment is adding feature support and performance though.

The scores, while infinitely better than nothing, aren't playable in much. Even on hardware that should blow the doors off 9x era cards.
Despite offering my gcn3 testpig, I'd still recommend focusing on the Intel igpu.
It's simply more common.
80% of people have one even if they have a better card installed.

Yes more plans to fix, although while I get machines to test I'm keen to capture as much info as possible.

0.35 is out https://github.com/michaeldale/velocity9x/rel … ses/tag/v0.35.0

AMD Radeon HD 7660D + NVIDIA RIVA 128ZX (not finished) + Intel GMA
4500MHD

Here is the generated report from my dell inspron 2650 laptop. It has a Geforce 2 Go in it.

The laptop has a stuttering issue that I don't know the cause of. Every 10-15 seconds or so it freezes for a few seconds, it's already using an SSD so dying HDD isn't the cause.
Not sure if I can get it online, if i do i'll let you test on it.

Duffman wrote on Today, 10:34:

Here is the generated report from my dell inspron 2650 laptop. It has a Geforce 2 Go in it.

The laptop has a stuttering issue that I don't know the cause of. Every 10-15 seconds or so it freezes for a few seconds, it's already using an SSD so dying HDD isn't the cause.
Not sure if I can get it online, if i do i'll let you test on it.

Thank you, did quick audit on file, can look at if you can get online. Some options for you:

The stutter: the survey can’t show it. It ran once in DOS and records configuration, not timing, and nothing in it looks wrong. The doc lists untested candidates, each with a test that would rule it out:

Firmware/BIOS activity (Dell battery or thermal handling).
Windows 98 polling the CD drive (“Auto insert notification”), which classically causes a hang of a few seconds at regular intervals.
The IDE-to-SSD adapter timing out and resetting the drive.
The NVIDIA driver.
A PC Card Wi-Fi card scanning, if one is fitted.

The cheapest first test is whether the freezes also happen in plain DOS. If you do, every Windows-side cause is ruled out. Swapping to Standard VGA or our VBE driver would test the NVIDIA driver directly.

It's definitely something windows related as DOS is fine.

I started going through every device in device manager and I did find the culprit, but it's bad news for debugging/testing though.

It's the 3Com NIC built in to the laptop, disabling the NIC in device manager stops the freezing, but that also means that we won't be able to run debugging on it with it disabled.