3D games

Games of the era drew 3D in three ways, and 2ksbox handles each one differently:

The game uses	What runs it	What you do
Direct3D (DirectX 1 to 9)	The 2ksbox adapter, drawing on your graphics card	Install the guest tools once
OpenGL	Your graphics card’s own OpenGL	Copy one file next to the game
Glide (3dfx)	An emulated 3dfx Voodoo 2	Turn the card on and install 3dfx’s driver

Many games of the time offer two or three of these. Any of them works. Direct3D and OpenGL are usually the fastest.

Direct3D

Direct3D games need nothing per game. Once the guest tools are installed (see Your first machine), the 2ksbox adapter’s driver gives Windows 98 and XP a DirectX 9 card with hardware transform and lighting and shader model 3.0. Every DirectX version from 1 to 9 runs on it.

On Windows 98, install DirectX 9.0c first. The DirectX 6.1 that comes with Windows 98 SE has no Direct3D for the driver.

How your computer draws it

The machine’s Direct3D setting, on the Display page, picks how your computer draws the game’s frames. The note under it says what your computer can do.

On macOS 26 or newer, Direct3D runs at full speed through Vulkan (DXVK). On older macOS it runs through Wine, if Wine is installed, and the note says which Wine to get. Without Wine, games have no Direct3D. They still have DirectDraw, OpenGL and the Voodoo 2.

Automatic picks the best one your computer has. If the note says “in software (slow)”, your computer found only a software Vulkan. Try the game both ways and keep the faster one.

OpenGL

OpenGL games, like Quake II and Half-Life, draw on your graphics card through a small OPENGL32.DLL that goes next to the game’s program file. From the guest tools disc:

D:\SETUP /GAME 3 C:\GAMES\QUAKE2

Use the folder that holds the game’s .EXE. You can also copy the disc’s OPENGL\ folder there by hand. The guest tools install the other half, the device mapper, with /ALL.

Glide and the Voodoo 2

Glide was 3dfx’s own interface, and many 1997 to 2000 games look their best on it. 2ksbox emulates a real 8 MB 3dfx Voodoo 2 card, and the game talks to it the way it talked to the real one.

The Voodoo 2 emulation is the work of 86Box, an emulator of the PCs of that time, which 2ksbox uses unchanged. Thank you to its developers.

In the machine’s settings, on the Display page, turn on 3dfx Voodoo 2.
Start the machine. Windows finds a new card.
Install 3dfx’s own Voodoo 2 driver for Windows 98. The guest tools don’t include it, so download it yourself.
In the game, pick Glide or 3dfx.

The Voodoo 2 draws at 640×480 to 800×600, like the real card. It runs on your computer’s processor, not the graphics card. Quake II runs at well over 100 frames a second on an M1 Mac or a Ryzen.

Voodoo3 undither filter removes the speckled 16-bit dither pattern the Voodoo 2 draws with, so skies and shading come out smooth. Unlike a real Voodoo3’s filter, it doesn’t blur textures or edges.

DOS Glide games work too, in a Windows 98 DOS box or in pure DOS. They bring their own Glide file (GLIDE2X.OVL).

Windows 7 and Aero

Windows 7 is here for its Aero desktop, not for games: play on Windows 98 or XP. The 2ksbox adapter’s driver gives Windows 7 its Aero glass, and the guest tools’ SETUP installs the driver and turns Aero on.

When a 3D game misbehaves

It seems frozen. It’s often a message box hidden behind the game’s screen. Press Enter, or Alt+Tab to look.
Wrong colours or a garbled menu. Try another way of drawing it: a different renderer in the game’s own setup, or a different Direct3D setting.
It runs far too fast. Old games often have no frame limiter. A DOS game may work in Windows 98 when restarted in MS-DOS mode, or it might want a slower processor, which a dedicated DOS machine can have.
A keyboard that does nothing in a DirectInput game on XP. FIFA 2000 is one. Copy the DirectInput fix next to the game: D:\SETUP /GAME 2 <game folder>.