SoftGPU: SW and HW accelerated driver for Windows 9x Virtual Machines

This is ready-to-use compilation of my 4 projects:

• VMDisp9x: https://github.com/JHRobotics/vmdisp9x
• Mesa3D for 9x: https://github.com/JHRobotics/mesa9x
• WineD3D for 9x: https://github.com/JHRobotics/wine9x
• OpenGlide for 9x: https://github.com/JHRobotics/openglide9x

Requirements

1. Virtual machine with one of these VGA adapter support:
   • A) Bochs VBE (Bochs, VirtualBox, Qemu)
   • B) VMware SVGA-II (VMware, VirtualBox, Qemu)
2. Windows 95/98/Me as VM guest system
   • A) Windows 98/Me - required is last version of DirectX 9 (included in package)
   • B) Windows 95
     • Last version of DirectX 8 (included in package)
     • Visual C runtime (version 6 included in package)
     • OpenGL 95 for versions without opengl32.dll (included in package)

Download

ISO image or ZIP package can be downloaded on release page: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/releases/

Installation:

0. Setup the Virtual Machine
1. Copy installation files on formatted HDD and apply patcher9x [Optional but recommended]
2. Install the Windows 95/98/Me [Windows 98 SE is recommended]
3. Run setup with softgpu.exe
4. [optional] Install audio drivers (if using AC97 soundcard) and USB (if you added USB controller)
5. [only if you have AC97 soundcard] Reinstall DirectX again = AC97 replacing some DX files, but they are not working with newer DX versions
6. Have fun!

VirtualBox VM setup with HW acceleration

1. Create new VM selecting Machine -> New in menu
2. Type: Microsoft Windows, Version: Windows 98
3. Base memory: 512 MB (256 MB is minimum, but more 512 MB isn't recommended without additional patches!), CPU: 1
4. Disk size: recommended is at least 20 GB for 98/Me (you can select less, but HDD becomes full faster). Select 2 GB if you plan install Windows 95. Tip: If you storing virtual machine on classic HDD, check Pre-allocate Full Size, because it leads to lower disk image fragmentation.
5. Finish wizard
6. Open VM setting

• In General change type to Linux and version to Other Linux (32-bit) => This setting haven't any effect to hardware configuration but allow you to set GPU type through GUI.
• Now in Display
  • Set Graphic Controller to VMSVGA
  • set video memory to 128 MB (VBox sometimes turn off GPU HW acceleration if this value is lower)
  • Check enable 3D Acceleration

7. Optional adjustment

• set USB controller to USB 1.1 (OHCI) for 98/Me, or turn USB off for 95
• Audio controller set to SoundBlaster 16 for 95/98 or AC 97 for Me

8. Disable VMSVGA10

• Open command line
• (on Windows) navigate to VirtualBox installation directory (default: C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox)
• Enter this command where My Windows 98 is your Virtual Machine name

VBoxManage setextradata "My Windows 98" "VBoxInternal/Devices/vga/0/Config/VMSVGA10" "0"

9. Install system - Windows 98 SE is highly recommended (for newer CPU, you need my patch: https://github.com/JHRobotics/patcher9x)
10. Insert SoftGPU iso (can be downloaded in Releases) and run softgpu.exe
11. Click on Install!
12. You maybe need some reboots (after MSVCRT and DX installation) and run softgpu.exe again.
13. After complete and final reboot system should start in 640x480 in 256 colours
14. Right click on desktop, Properties -> Settings and set the resolution (which you wish for) and colours:

• to 32 bits for 98/Me, because only in 32 bit real HW screen acceleration works and applications are much faster
• to 16 bits for 95, because 95 can't set colour depth on runtime (reboot is required) and lots of old applications can't start in 32 bits (all Glide for example)

15. Verify settings:

• OpenGL: run glchecker.exe in tools on SoftGPU CD
  • If renderer is SVGA3D, you have HW acceleration, congratulation!
  • If renderer is llvmpipe, you have still SW acceleration, but at least accelerated by SSE (128 bits) or AVX (256 bit)
  • If renderer is softpipe, you have SW acceleration and running on reference (but slow) renderer, SIMD ins't accesable somehow, or you on 95, where is softpipe renderer by default, even if SIMD hack is installed (more in Mesa9x documentation: https://github.com/JHRobotics/mesa9x).
  • If program crash on loading screen, you are on MS software OpenGL renderer (run wgltest.exe and check value GL_RENDERER). If driver is correctly installed this indicates problem with loading mesa3d.dll, usually MSVCR missing, or you install SSE instrumented driver or Windows 95 without SIMD95.
  • If program can't start by missing MSVCRT.DLL install MSVCRT (part of Internet Explorer >= 4 too)
• DirectX:
  • On 98 you can run dxdiag (Start -> Run -> type dxdiag) and check all tests
  • On Me you can still run dxdiag, but you can only check DX8 and DX9, because we cannot easily replace system DDRAW.DLL. But DX6 and DX7 games should usually run without problems
  • On 95 you can still run dxdiag, but if you run test, you only see black screens, but again, games (if supporting 95) games should usually run

Bugs

Currently there are known these limitations:

Vertex Shaders

Vertex shaders not working correctly with HW acceleration. You can see it, for example, with 3D Mark 2001/2003 tests. Using shaders is very rare in DirectX 8 games, but very common in DirectX 9 games (on other hand, these are usually games after Windows 9x era). As temporary solution you can turn off HW acceleration (but rendering will be much slower).

Windows 95 support

Windows 95 support is limited - SoftGPU works, but there lots of extra bugs will appear and if you haven't any special reasons for using Windows 95 use recommended Windows 98 Second edition instead.

Other bugs

There are many bugs in individual components, please post them to individual repositories based on bugged application (DirectX, Glide, OpenGL).

But still, please be patient. SoftGPU compatibility target is about a decade of intensive HW and SW development (from DOS direct VGA/VESA access, SW rendering through GDI, DirectDraw, OpenGL, Glide, DirectX, OpenGL again). After all, there will still applications that cannot be run anyway because there are written for very individual SW/HW combinations.

Compilation from source

1. You need MINGW and GNU make to build softgpu.exe
2. You need all development tool to compile all other component (see README.md in individual repositories)
3. Compile softgpu.exe by type make
4. Compile VMDisp9x and copy files boxvmini.drv, vmwsmini.drv, vmwsmini.vxd, vmdisp9x.inf and place them to driver/win95 and driver/win98me folder
5. Compile Mesa9x for Windows 95 (e.g., without SSE) and copy and rename files to following schema
   • vmwsgl32.dll => driver/win95/vmwsgl32.dll
   • opengl32.w98me.dll => driver/win95/extra/opengl32.dll
   • mesa3d.w98me.dll => driver/win95/mesa3d.dll
   • glchecker.exe => tools/glchecker.exe
   • icdtest.exe => tools/icdtest.exe
   • wgltest.exe => tools/wgltest.exe
   • [folder] glchecker => tools/glchecker
6. Compile Mesa9x for Windows 98 and Me (eq. with SSE, optimized for Core2 or Westmere) and copy these files
   • vmwsgl32.dll => driver/win98me/vmwsgl32.dll
   • opengl32.w98me.dll => driver/win98me/extra/opengl32.dll
   • mesa3d.w98me.dll => driver/win98me/mesa3d.dll
7. Compile Wine9x for Windows 95 and copy
   • ddraw.dll => driver/win95/ddraw.dll
   • ddrawme.dll => driver/win95/ddrawme.dll
   • d3d8.dll => driver/win95/d3d8.dll
   • d3d9.dll => driver/win95/d3d9.dll
   • dwine.dll => driver/win95/dwine.dll
   • wined3d.dll => driver/win95/wined3d.dll
8. Compile Wine9x for Windows 98+Me and copy
   • ddraw.dll => driver/win98me/ddraw.dll
   • ddrawme.dll => driver/win95/ddrawme.dll
   • d3d8.dll => driver/win98me/d3d8.dll
   • d3d9.dll => driver/win98me/d3d9.dll
   • dwine.dll => driver/win98me/dwine.dll
   • wined3d.dll => driver/win98me/wined3d.dll
9. make ddreplacer.exe (by typing make ddreplacer.exe in Wine9x)
10. Extract original ddraw.dll from DX8 redistributable for W95 and type

ddreplacer path/to/extracted/ddraw.dll ddr95.dll

• copy ddr95.dll => driver/win95/dx/ddr95.dll
• copy ddr95.dll => driver/win98me/dx/ddr95.dll

11. Extract original ddraw.dll from newer DX9 redistributable (doesn't matter if it's final one, this file doesn't seem to change often) and type

ddreplacer path/to/extracted/ddraw.dll ddr95.dll

• copy ddr98.dll => driver/win95/dx/ddr98.dll
• copy ddr98.dll => driver/win98me/dx/ddr98.dll

12. Compile OpenGlide9x for Windows 95 and copy

• glide2x.dll => driver/win95/glide2x.dll
• glide3x.dll => driver/win95/glide3x.dll

13. Compile OpenGlide9x for Windows 98 and copy

• glide2x.dll => driver/win98me/glide2x.dll
• glide3x.dll => driver/win98me/glide3x.dll

14. Edit both driver/win95/vmdisp9x.inf and driver/win98me/vmdisp9x.inf and uncomment files and that you added. CopyFiles options have to look like:

CopyFiles=VBox.Copy,Dx.Copy,DX.CopyBackup,Voodoo.Copy

and

CopyFiles=VBox.Copy,Dx.Copy,DX.CopyBackup,Voodoo.Copy

15. place redistributable to redist folder
16. Edit softgpu.ini for final paths review
17. Create ISO file place to it:

• file softgpu.exe
• file softgpu.ini
• folder driver
• folder redist
• folder tools
• readme and licence file

18. Mount ISO to virtual machine and enjoy it!