shadowmage wrote on 2026-06-22, 18:30:

Thanks for the link. I tested the vga-ddraw wrapper on Windows NT 3.51, and both the StarCraft demo and the Red Alert 1 demo wor […]
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Thanks for the link. I tested the vga-ddraw wrapper on Windows NT 3.51, and both the StarCraft demo and the Red Alert 1 demo work.

WineD3D does not work with the StarCraft demo for me either, but vga-ddraw does. Interestingly, the opposite is true for the Commandos demo: it works with WineD3D, but not with vga-ddraw.

The following games also work with the vga-ddraw wrapper on NT 3.51:

Baldur’s Gate demo, Age of Empires demo, and Age of Empires II demo, Heroes of Might and Magic III demo.

I have not tested the dsound wrapper from that project yet. I currently use dsound.dll from DirectX 7 or DirectX 8, and both work. I also forgot to mention that the Darkened Skye demo works on Windows NT 3.51 through 3dfx Glide, and dsound.dll from DirectX 8 works with it as well.

So far, compatibility seems to depend heavily on the individual game and the wrapper being used:

vga-ddraw: StarCraft demo, Red Alert demo, Baldur’s Gate demo, Age of Empires demo, Age of Empires II demo, Heroes of Might and Magic III demo.

WineD3D: Commandos demo, Heroes 3 demo and the previously mentioned Direct3D games.

Some games may work with one wrapper but not the other.

IIRC games utilizing Direct3D or OpenGL need something from ddraw.dll, but not the entire thing. Also, wrappers may not always implement everything and in modern Windows, they're deferred to the official DirectX dll in the system.

Back then I managed to get XTOM 3D to run using OpenGL (Mesa 7.5 GDI) and PAL-DDRAW, provided it's set to use the current system resolution. It's too slow to be playable at high resolutions (e.g. 1920x1080x32), but without any noticeable graphical glitch. Perhaps rebooting Windows with a lower resolution like 640x480 or 800x600 I might get a better, playable frame rate.

Note that PAL-DDRAW doesn't work with StarCraft or other DDraw games, as it doesn't cover some functions like DirectDrawCreate, which are deferred to the official DirectX ones.

So for now, vga-ddraw works for things that require full DDraw functionality, despite current limitations. For D3D/OpenGL games other wrappers may also work.