Friday, September 8, 2023

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

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

SoftGPU animated logo

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

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)

Feature support

Hypervisor Version Adapter VGA driver 32 bpp 16 bpp 8 bpp HW 3D Sound drivers
Oracle VirtualBox 6.1, 7.0 VboxVGA ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ❌ SB16, AC97
Oracle VirtualBox 6.1, 7.0 VboxSVGA ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ SB16, AC97
Oracle VirtualBox 6.1, 7.0 VMSVGA ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ SB16, AC97
VMware Workstation 16, 17 - ✔ ✔ ✔ ⚠ ✔ SBPCI128
QEMU 7.x, 8.0 std ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ❌ adlib, SB16, AC97
QEMU 7.x, 8.0 vmware ✔ ✔ ❌ ❌ ❌ adlib, SB16, AC97

SoftGPU can use 3 render drivers:

  • softpipe: software Mesa3D reference renderer
  • llvmlipe: software LLVM accelerated 3D renderer
  • SVGA3D: HW renderer for virtual GPU adapter VMWare SVGA-II (sometimes called VMSVGA, VboxSVGA or SVGA-III)

Not all renderers supporting all application/games, performance expectation is in 1024x768 32bit:

Renderer Requirements OpenGL version DX9 DX9 shaders DX8 DX8 shaders DX6-7 OpenGL Glide Glide DOS Expected FPS
softpipe - 3.3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ❌ 1-3
llvmlipe (128 bits) SSE 3.3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ❌ 10-15
llvmlipe (256 bits) SSE, AVX 3.3 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ❌ 12-20
SVGA3D SVGA-II (gen9) 2.1 ✔ ❌ ✔ ❌ ✔ ✔ ✔ ❌ 30-60
SVGA3D SVGA-II (gen10) 4.1 ✔ ✔ ⚠ ✔ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ 35-80

Hypervisor translation to real HW GPU:

Renderer Host technology Hypervisor support
softpipe framebuffer all
llvmlipe framebuffer all
SVGA3D (gen 9) DX9/OpenGL 2.1 VirtualBox 6+7, VMware Workstation
SVGA3D (gen 10) DX11/Vulkan VirtualBox 7

Download

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

Installation:

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

SoftGPU in action

For comparison, video from real end-of-era PC is here. So, some work still needs to be done :-)

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). More on this issue and more about VRAM usability.
    • Check enable 3D Acceleration
  1. 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 and 98 or AC 97 for 98 and Me (working drivers for Windows 98 are below.
  1. Disable VMSVGA10 (VirtualBox >= 7.0 only!)
  • 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"
  1. Install system - Windows 98 SE is highly recommended (for newer CPU, you need my patch: https://github.com/JHRobotics/patcher9x)
  2. Insert SoftGPU iso (can be downloaded in Releases) and run softgpu.exe
  3. Click on Install!
  4. You maybe need some reboots (after MSVCRT and DX installation) and run softgpu.exe again.
  5. After complete and final reboot system should start in 640x480 in 256 colours
  6. 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)
  1. Verify settings:
  • OpenGL: run glchecker.exe in tools on SoftGPU CD
    • If renderer is SVGA3D, you have HW acceleration, congratulation! If you OpenGL version is 2.1, you done all right. If OpenGL version is 4.1 you have GPU gen 10 active, it isn't wrong, but you may see graphical glitches in lots of games = navigate back to 8. to turn it off.
    • If renderer is llvmpipe, you have still SW acceleration, but at least accelerated by SSE (128 bits) or AVX (256 bit). GPU acceleration is disabled or you real GPU isn't sporting HW acceleration.
    • 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 renderer is Generic, then ICD OpenGL DLL is not loaded. Something is wrong with system or you installed SSE instrumented binaries on no SSE enabled/supported guest.
    • 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

AMD Zen, 11th Generation Intel Core and newer

Newer CPU have excellent performance but needs some extra tune:

  1. apply patcher9x - this is required!
  2. Change TSC (Time Stamp Counter) behaviour (Warning: this options is not available when VirtualBox is using Hyper-V as execution, engine!)
VBoxManage setextradata "My Windows 98" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCTiedToExecution" 1
  1. (AMD ZEN 2+ only) Change too complex CPUID to something simpler (Windows itself is OK, but some programs may be confused - 3DMark for example)
VBoxManage modifyvm "My Windows 98" --cpu-profile "AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Eight-Core"

WMware Workstation setup with HW acceleration

SoftGPU with HW acceleration was tested only with lasted version of VMware Workstation (17.0.0 build-20800274), if you'll be successful with older version or free VMware player, please let me know.

General information

  • Use Windows 98 SE, newer Mesa is not currently working in 95 and Windows 98 FE (first edition) hasn't supporting WDM sound cards so you might have a problem with sound.
  • Fresh install, Windows 9x doesn't like hardware changes and if you import import VM from somewhere, strange problems may occur.
  • no VMware additions, because they only contain basic display driver, contain mouse integration driver and tray program which is replacing display driver to VMware default display driver and some integration utilities. If you want mouse integration driver (but is useless for gaming with mouse) alone driver is listed below.
  • set as hardware compatibility Workstation 9.x and VM type Windows 2000 Server. VMware in other cases is comparing installed addition tools version and features with hypervisor version and if they don't match refuses to expose SVGA 3D commands to guest.

Step by step guide

  1. Create new VM - from menu File->New Virtual Machine
  2. In wizard choose Custom (advanced) click on next:
  • As Hardware compatibility select Workstation 9.x (important)

  • Select I will install the operating system later.
  • As Guest operating system choice Microsoft Windows and as Version select Windows 2000 Server (important)

  • Type VM name and number of processors keep on 1
  • Set the memory to 512 MB (but without additional patches not more!)
  • Network choice is your own (default NAT should work all cases) and SCSI Controller keep on BusLogic
  • set Virtual disk type to IDE (important)
  • create new virtual disk and set space at last at 20 GB (but lower than 127 GB without extra patches!)
  • type or keep HDD file name and at last page before finish click on Customize Hardware
  1. Now VM needs to be a bit reconfigure:
  • click on Add... and Floppy drive

  • click on USB Controller and set USB compatibility to USB 1.1 or remove USB controller completely
  • click on Display and check Accelerate 3D graphics

  • (optional) click on Printer and click Remove (if you don't plan to use this feature, you'll save yourself from a pointless warning message)
  • click on New CD/DVD (IDE) and point Use ISO image file to your Windows 98 installation CD ISO.
  • (optional) click on Floppy and point Use floppy image file to your boot floppy (only if you plan boot floppy)
  1. Click on Close, Finish and Power on machine
  • TIP: if you wish customize boot order, right click on the new VM, choose Power and Power on to Firmware - VM will boot to environment very close to common PC BIOS.

  1. Install the Windows 98 - this step is really pain, VMware VM in BIOS VGA mode is hyper slow and mouse isn't usable - you have navigate through installation by keyboard (TAB, Shift+TAB, cursor keys, Enter).
    • TIP: apply patcher9x. If you have Intel 11th gen. CPU or newer or AMD Ryzen (any model) or other AMD ZEN architecture CPU and newer, this is necessary.
  2. After installation isn't system very usable until you'll install GPU driver! So, insert SoftGPU iso (can be downloaded in Releases) and run softgpu.exe.
  3. Click on Install!
  4. You maybe need some reboots (after MSVCRT and DX installation) and run softgpu.exe again.
  5. After complete and final reboot system should start in 640x480 in 32 bits per pixel colors.
  6. If you have still mouse trouble, open Device Manager (by cursor keys select My Computer and press Alt+Enter to open properties), then disable all HID-compliant mouse. Reboot VM after done!

VMware HID devices disabled

  1. Use glchecker.exe to verify settings

QEMU

Hardware 3D support isn't available yet with QEMU. 2D driver now works with QEMU -vga std or -vga vmware. But main problem with QEMU is bad detection of a PCI bus. If the PCI bus is detected badly, system won't enumerate most of device - VGA adapter, sound and network card and even IDE bus.

PCI bus detection fix

  1. Open Device Manager and locate Plug and Play BIOS (Exclamation mark should be on it)

QEMU PCI: Plug and Play BIOS

  1. With this device selected click on Properties, select Driver tab and click on Update driver

QEMU PCI: Plug and Play BIOS properties

  1. In Wizard select second option (Display a list of all drivers in specific location, ...)

QEMU PCI: list drivers

  1. Select Show all hadrware and from models list choose PCI bus, click on next, confirm warning message and reboot computer.

QEMU PCI: select PCI bus QEMU PCI: warning message

  1. After reboot, system will ask you for drive on every new discovered device. All you need to do, is select Search for the best driver... and clicking on next. Please don't select new or updated drivers here - you can do it later. You may need reboot computer several times.

QEMU PCI: new PCI device QEMU PCI: select best driver

  1. You will be asked for VGA driver and unknown device drivers. Still select default generic driver here!

QEMU PCI: standard PCI VGA QEMU PCI: unknown device

  1. After last reboot open Device manager again - as you see, you have 2 VGA cards now, so select Standard Display Adapter (VGA) (the working one) and click on Remove.

QEMU PCI: 2 VGA adapters

  1. After reboot (again), you have working system now and you can install SoftGPU and other drivers.

Virtual GPU gen. 10

VirtualBox 7.0 is supporting newer technology for rendering. It is supporting pixel/vertex/computing shaders but it is still incomplete. You can turn in by this command.

VBoxManage setextradata "My Windows 98" "VBoxInternal/Devices/vga/0/Config/VMSVGA10" "1"

On most configurations this is turn on by default (allows for example Windows 7-11 desktop composition aka "aero") but for legacy technologies isn't ready yet - you can probably see some serious graphical glitches if you use it with pre DirectX 9 application/games. But if you want run 3DMark03 or 2001 you'll have to turn this on. If you application or game work with this configuration, it usually runs smoother than with GPU gen. 9.

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). Some games also has failback technology if GPU hasn't shader support (for example GTA SA). You can globally disable Vertex Shaders inserting this to registry:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wine\global]
"MaxShaderModelVS"=dword:00000000

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.

General tips

There are some tips without direct relation to SoftGPU but they can improve the user experience with MS Windows 9x OS.

Fresh install

Prefer new installation over copy older installations done on different (even virtual) HW.

Copy Installation to HDD before run setup

If you installed Windows 9x from CD, on near every system change your will be asked to insert Install CD. You can avoid it if you prepare HDD manually, copy installation from CD and run setup.exe from C: drive.

All utilities you need are on patcher9x boot floppy. The short procedure follows:

  • insert patcher9x floppy to floppy driver and Windows Installation CD to CD driver. Boot from floppy drive
  • run fdisk and create primary dos partition (it wizard type program, just keep pressing 1, Y and finally ESC).
  • reboot after fdisk finish
  • format HDD, copy files, install necessary patches and run the setup using following commands:
format C:
xcopy /v D:\win98\ C:\install\win98\
patch9x C:\install\win98 -auto
C:
cd install\win98
setup /ie /nm

Explanation: The /v switch with xcopy means verify. The /ie switch with setup means skip recovery floppy creation and /nm means no machine check - this is necessary because in Patcher9x boot floppy is using FreeDOS and MS setup program cannot determine RAM size without MS memory manager.

Now setup automatically runs scandisk and after complete it you can continue with installer GUI. You can also remove floppy and CD from drive at this point.

Turn on DMA

Windows by default using interrupts to access HDD and CD drive. This is especially slow in the HW accelerated virtual machines because every interrupt will stop executing visualisation engine and hand over access to hypervisor to solve it and after that it'll be need to restart visualisation engine again. Time consumed by interrupts depends on visualization technology for example in QEMU + kvm is HDD access very slow equally VirtualBox + Hyper-V and combination QEMU + Hyper-V is downright painful. Fortunately there is DMA transfer of whole memory block instead of individual bytes. Unfortunately you have to enable it manually.

You can turn it on in Device Manager on HDD properties enable DMA checkbox. Do it the same for CD driver and reboot VM for applying changes.

setting DMA access to HDD

Change logon to Windows Logon

After install network card you are asked every time to enter the credentials - but this is not credentials to the computer but to the network (you can also skip this by press ESC). If you don't plan to install NT server as other VM and runs ancient network sharing, this is only annoying thing. You can turn it off in Control panel -> Network and change Primary network logon to Windows Logon.

Windows logon switch

Extra drivers

These are links to some extra drivers for VM:

If you wish download these drivers from Windows 9x directly, you can use these links (simply replace https -> http):

http://files.emulace.cz/ac97_362.zip
http://files.emulace.cz/sbpci_98se.exe
http://files.emulace.cz/vmmouse.zip

If you need tool for decompressing ZIP and other archives, there is 7-Zip in version with Windows 98 compatible:

http://files.emulace.cz/7z920.exe

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, qemumini.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
  1. 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
  1. Compile OpenGlide9x for Windows 95 and copy
  • glide2x.dll => driver/win95/glide2x.dll
  • glide3x.dll => driver/win95/glide3x.dll
  1. Compile OpenGlide9x for Windows 98 and copy
  • glide2x.dll => driver/win98me/glide2x.dll
  • glide3x.dll => driver/win98me/glide3x.dll
  1. 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=VMSvga.Copy,Dx.Copy,DX.CopyBackup,Voodoo.Copy

and

CopyFiles=Qemu.Copy,Dx.Copy,DX.CopyBackup,Voodoo.Copy
  1. place redistributable to redist folder
  2. Edit softgpu.ini for final paths review
  3. Create ISO file place to it:
  • file softgpu.exe
  • file softgpu.ini
  • folder driver
  • folder redist
  • folder tools
  • readme and licence file
  1. Mount ISO to virtual machine and enjoy it!


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