DgVoodoo 2

dgVoodoo 2

Developers
	Dege
Release dates
Windows	2013

System abstraction

General

• Emulation
• Virtualization
• Display wrapper

Utilities

• dgVoodoo 2
• Wine
• Windows Compatibility Mode

dgVoodoo 2 is a graphics wrapper that converts old graphics APIs to Direct3D 11 or Direct3D 12 (as of version 2.7) for use on Windows 7 or newer. The wrapper fixes many compatibility and rendering issues when running old games on modern systems as well as enables the use of various overrides and enhancements, and third-party tools such as ReShade to enhance or improve the gaming experience.

As of version 2.7 the wrapper supports Glide 2.11, 2.54, 3.10, and 3.10 Napalm APIs, as well as all DirectDraw, and Direct3D APIs up to and including D3D9.

Note that Direct3D (shortened to D3D) is the 3D rendering API of the corresponding DirectX suite of the same number.
While dgVoodoo and this page use the "DirectX" terminology in various places, it is specifically referring to the corresponding DirectDraw or Direct3D rendering APIs.

General information

Official forum

Official repository

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Official website
Developer website		GitHub

Installation

DirectX 1-7

Installation instructions
Some games might refuse to load dgVoodoo's DDraw.dll from their folder. Apply this workaround. Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive. Copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf, D3DImm.dll and DDraw.dll into the game installation folder where the game executable is located. Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program and configure the settings.

DirectX 8

For some Direct3D 8 games, D3DImm.dll and/or DDraw.dll might also be required, if the game uses those APIs for other tasks, e.g. playing videos, etc. Try the game without these files first.

Installation instructions
Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive. Copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf and D3D8.dll into the game installation folder where the game executable is located. Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program and configure the settings.

DirectX 9

Installation instructions
Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive. Copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf and D3D9.dll (for 32-bit games from the MS\x86 folder, and for 64-bit games from the MS\x64 folder) into the game installation folder where the game executable is located. Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program and configure the settings.

Glide

Installation instructions
Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive. Copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf, and from the 3Dfx\x86 folder Glide.dll, Glide2x.dll and Glide3x.dll, into the game installation folder where the game executable is located. Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program and configure the settings.

Glide 3.10 Napalm

Napalm should only be used for Glide 3 games where the regular Glide 3 library is too slow.

Installation instructions
Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive. Copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf, and from the 3Dfx\x86\Napalm folder Glide3x.dll, into the game installation folder where the game executable is located. Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program and configure the settings.

Glide QEmu (x64)

The QEmu versions of the Glide libraries are intended for usage only with the 64-bit QEmu multiplatform virtualization tool.

Installation instructions
Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive. Copy dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf, and from the 3Dfx\x64 folder Glide.dll, Glide2x.dll and Glide3x.dll, into the game installation folder where the game executable is located. Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program and configure the settings.

Linux (Wine) configuration

Linux requires declaring DLL overrides for every dgVoodoo 2 DLL you copy to the game directory - unlike nGlide, which works out of the box, dgVoodoo 2 needs configuring the DLL overrides in order to work.

Installation instructions

Download the latest version of dgVoodoo 2 and extract the archive. Open the dgVoodoo 2 folder where you extracted the files, and then copy the dgVoodooCpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf and necessary DLL files to the game directory (inside the Wine virtual drive, where the game executables are located). Add the DLL overrides: For using Wine directly through terminal and for non-Lutris frontends, open the Wine configurator for the virtual drive where the game is installed, navigate to the "Libraries" tab, type the DLL file names you copied (without the .dll extension, you only need to type the names of DLLs you copied - ignore the ones you didn't copy), click "Add", find the added DLL names in the box below the one where you added the names, scroll down until you find the names, select the DLL, click "Edit", then change the "Load order" to "Native"; do this for every DLL you added. Save the changes once you're done. For Lutris, right-click the game, click "Configure", navigate to the "Runner options" tab, scroll down until you see the "DLL overrides" section, then press the "Add" button, after which a new row will be created and already selected for you (indicated by the orange color of the newly-created row). Since the row is already selected when you add it, you only need click either the "Key" or the "Value" empty box once. Click the left, smaller box, that corresponds to the "Key" column, type the DLL name (without the .dll extension), then click the bigger empty box on the right, the box that corresponds to the "Value" column, and the DLL name you entered will be saved. Next, while the "Value" box is selected, type a single letter there - the letter "n" (don't type the quotation marks, just the letter n) - and then press Enter; if you don't press Enter it will not save the "n". Repeat the process for every DLL you copied. Click the green "Save" button once you're done. Note: you can also use Wine configurator with Lutris if you prefer that method. Optional: To add the 3Dfx splash screen, don't use the DLLs from the dgVoodoo 2 download page; I couldn't get them to work. Instead, download the nGlide installer executable and open it as an archive. Extract the three splash DLLs and place them in the splash folder where you extracted dgVoodoo 2 for easy access. Copy the splash DLLs along with Glide DLLs to the game directory and that's it. The nGlide DLLs don't need overrides, so just copy them and you're done. Optional: Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program (in Lutris, click the up arrow near the logo of a picture and click "Run EXE inside Wine prefix", navigate to the folder with the dgVoodoo 2 configurator and select it) and configure the settings.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\dgVoodoo\ <path-to-game>\dgVoodoo.conf

Since version 2.6, dgVoodoo.conf is a plain text file and can be edited directly using a text editor.

A few advanced features are not available through the configuration tool but can be set manually in these config files.

Game specific configuration files

If there is no dgVoodoo configuration file in the same folder as the game executable, dgVoodoo will use global settings.

Instructions
Follow the installation instructions and copy the necessary files into the game install folder along with the dgVoodooCpl.exe configuration tool. Launch the configuration tool. Under Config folder/Running instance press Add, then select the game install folder where the main game executable is located. Press Apply to create the configuration file in that folder to store settings for that game.

Video

General settings.

The resolution and anti-aliasing options are relevant to both Glide and DirectX.

Display resolution

See Widescreen resolution for relevant information.

See Scaling for information on scaling resolutions.

Forcing a specific resolution can break UI menus, graphical effects and much more.

Resolution	Description
Unforced	The application will control the resolution. This is the safest and the default option.
2x, 3x, 4x	Dynamically scales the current resolution set in-game, which is calculated by the wrapper.
Max	The maximum available resolution will be used.
Max ISF	The maximum available integer multiple of the app's resolution will be used.
Max FHD	Full HD (1920x1080); 1080p will be the maximum available resolution to the application.
Max FHD ISF	The max available integer multiple of the app's resolution will be used; FHD (1920x1080); 1080p.
Max QHD	QHD (2560x1440); 1440p will be the maximum available resolution to the application.
Max QHD ISF	The max available integer multiple of the app's resolution will be used; QHD (2560x1440); 1440p.
Resolution	Resolutions from 640x480 up to the current display's native resolution can be forced.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

dgVoodoo 2 can force both MSAA as well as SSAA though this might cause graphical artifacts in some games.

Force SSAA:

Install dgVoodoo 2 for the game along with the dgVoodooCpl.exe configuration tool. Launch the configuration tool. On the General tab set the Scaling mode to Stretched, keep aspect ratio as this will ensure that dgVoodoo will downsample any higher resolution. Open the relevant graphics API tab and set the desired resolution. Click on Apply to save the changes and OK to close the configuration tool.

Force MSAA:

Install dgVoodoo 2 for the game along with the dgVoodooCpl.exe configuration tool. Launch the configuration tool. Open the relevant graphics API tab and change the Antialiasing (MSAA) option: Off disables any built-in MSAA the game might use. For DirectX applications, this only affects DirectX 8 and above. App driven allows the application to control the MSAA amount. This is the default and most compatible option. 2x, 4x, 8x forces the selected anti-aliasing (MSAA) amount. Click on Apply to save the changes and OK to close the configuration tool.

Vertical sync (Vsync)

Force vertical sync for a game:
Install dgVoodoo 2 for the game along with the dgVoodooCpl.exe configuration tool. Launch the configuration tool. Select the relevant rendering API tab, Glide or DirectX. Enable the Force vSync option. Click on Apply to save the changes and OK to close the configuration tool.

High dynamic range (HDR)

dgVoodoo 2 can enable the use of Windows 11's Auto HDR feature for older games that otherwise does not support HDR.

Enable Windows 11's Auto HDR feature, then install dgVoodoo 2 for the game.

HUD and interface scaling on high resolutions

Comparison of in-game interface size at 2560x1440 set directly in game options menu (up) and 2560x1440 forced through dgVoodoo 2 with resolution in game options menu set to 1280x720 (down).

Many games don't scale their interface and HUD which end up being very small or even unusable on high resolutions. By instead forcing high resolution using dgVoodoo, this problem can be fixed in many games.

Some games will have mouse and/or rendering issues when resolution is being forced.

Instructions

Follow the instructions to setup dgVoodoo 2. Run the included dgVoodooCpl.exe program and set the desired resolution under Glide or DirectX settings. In the game video options menu select a resolution that is smaller than the one set in dgVoodoo 2, but has the same aspect ratio. The smaller the resolution selected in game, the bigger will interface/HUD be rendered on screen. For example, set the resolution in the game's options to 1280x720 and set dgVoodoo 2's resolution to 3840x2160. Notes Ultra-widescreen: If the game does not display any small ultra-widescreen resolution in the video options menu, create a small custom resolution in the GPU control panel so it can be selected in game for the proper aspect ratio, or set the resolution manually in the game's config file.

Configuring Glide

Glide settings.

3Dfx card

This option allows for the selection of 3D accelerated cards that use the Glide rendering API.
Some applications and games may need an older card model or older Glide versions, due to the advancements of Voodoo 3Dfx technology made over time.
The different video cards also presents bias to games which may lock particular rendering capabilities and properties to certain 3Dfx cards and versions of Glide.

Parameter	Description
VRAM (Video Random Access Memory)	The amount of emulated video memory of the selected video card can be changed with this option. No texture memory is stored on the onboard RAM, but instead it is processed and managed by the Texture Management Unit(s) (TMU). Some applications determine what resolutions are supported by looking at how much on-board memory there is.
Texture Management	Texture Management Units (TMU) allow for multi-texturing management. The amount of TMU texture memory is adjustable. 3Dfx card VRAM Min VRAM Limit TMU TMU Memory Size Voodoo Graphics 2 MB 4 MB 1 1024 kB, 2048 kB, 4096 kB Voodoo Rush 2 MB 4 MB 1 2048 kB, 4096 kB Voodoo 2 8 MB 12 MB 2 2048 kB, 4096 kB Voodoo Banshee 8 MB 16 MB 1 2048 kB, 4096 kB Other greater 2 MB 128 MB 1-3 1024 kB up to 65536 kB
Force bi-linear filter	Forcing bi-linear texture filtering can cause artifacts.
Disable mipmapping	Disables mipmapping. Self-explanatory.

Miscellaneous

Parameter	Description
Enable Glide Gamma Ramp	A gamma correction curve can be set through the Glide interface when enabled. Since Glide uses a linear curve by default, the gamma level might not match the default or one's taste and can look visually detracting.
Force emulating true PCI access	When enabled, the virtual 3Dfx card will have PCI bus speeds emulated as closely as possible. Emulation of true PCI access should theoretically never be disabled but there can be possible degradation of performance when left enabled. Only some games require accurate emulation of the PCI bus, so in most cases PCI bus emulation should be left disabled.
3Dfx Watermark	Shows the 3Dfx watermark in-game when enabled.
Pointcast Palette driver build	This option only affects Voodoo 2 cards, this should always be left disabled.
Force V-Sync	If V-Sync is enabled, games that run too fast stabilize at the maximum frame-rate of the monitor used, however some games may need certain synchronizations of frame-rates to work properly.
16 bit depth buffer	Use only when Z-fighting occurs. Z-fighting can be better avoided with a 16-bit depth buffer, however artifacting can occur.
3Dfx Splash screen	The 3Dfx splash screen is seen when an application starts, disabling this option prevents this animation from playing.
Enable inactive app state	When an application loses focus, it may be desired to make the application go into an inactive state.

Configuring DirectX

DirectX settings.

Disable and passthru to real DirectX

If dgVoodoo is not needed anymore or just temporarily, without removing dgVoodoo's DLLs this option will disable dgVoodoo's DirectX wrapper.

Videocard

This option allows for the selection of internal virtual 2D (SVGA) and 3D accelerated cards.
The other four non-dgVoodoo card types give specific emulated ATI/nVidia/Matrox driver versions and capabilities.
The different video cards also presents bias to games which lock particular rendering capabilities and properties to owners of a real ATI, nVidia or Matrox card.

The virtual SVGA card exposes only software capable rendering (2D rendering) to the application. All other virtual video cards have full hardware acceleration and capabilities, including 'Transform & Light'.
However, the only full D3D9 compatible card is the Internal 3D Accelerated card.

VRAM (Video Random Access Memory)

The amount of emulated video memory of the selected video card can be changed with this option.
Be careful though, DirectX 7 and older applications can fail to launch if the emulated VRAM is set higher than 256 MB.
Some games may require more VRAM to render textures at higher resolutions. There are also other advantages to increasing the VRAM.

Video card	VRAM Min	VRAM Limit
dgVoodoo Virtual SVGA Card	16 MB	128 MB
dgVoodoo Virtual 3D Accelerated Card	16 MB	4096 MB
GeForce 4 Ti 4800	64 MB	256 MB
ATI Radeon 8500	64 MB	256 MB
Matrox Parhelia-512	128 MB	256 MB
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra	64 MB	256 MB
GeForce 9800 GT	512 MB	1024 MB

Texturing

Filtering

See Anisotropic filtering (AF) for relevant information.

Forcing texture filtering on an application can create glitches or break rendering effects.

Anisotropic filtering forced trough display drivers will override the dgVoodoo2 setting.

Parameter	Description
App driven	The application will control the texture filtering quality. This is safest and the default option.
Point sampled	Point sampled texture filtering will be forced.
Bilinear	Bilinear filtering will be forced. The four nearest texels to the pixel center are sampled.
Linear mipmap	Nearest-neighbor sampling from individual mipmaps whilst linearly interpolating the two nearest mipmaps.
Trilinear	Trilinear filtering will be forced. Bilinear filtering on the two closest mipmap levels are applied and are interpolated.
Anisotropic	Ansiotropic filtering of up to 16x can be forced.

Mipmapping

Parameter	Description
Disabled	Disables mipmapping altogether.
App driven	The application will control the mipmapping setting. This is safest and the default option.
Auto-gen with point filter	Auto-generates mipmapped textures with point sampling.
Auto-gen with bilinear filter	Auto-generates mipmapped textures with bilinear sampling.
Force filter only if not point sampled	If enabled, then forced filtering affects only non-point sampled textures.

Window Behaviour

Parameter	Description
Application controller fullscreen/windowed state	Unticking this option will force the specified screen mode in the General tab.
Disable Alt-Enter to toggle screen state	Disabling this option is recommended if the application already handles its window state via Alt+Enter If this is not disabled and Alt+Enter is used for an application that utilizies it, then dgVoodoo will conflict with the application.

Miscellaneous

Parameter	Description
Bi-linear blit stretch	When enabled, linear filtering is applied for stretched copying between 2D surfaces (DirectDraw only). Linear filtering is much nicer generally but can cause artifacts, especially with color-keyed blitting. Early hardware did not support or apply point sampled blitting, which can end up with very pixelated results.
Force V-Sync	Vertical syncing is forced in all cases whenever the application window draws. However there is a performance penality when enabling V-Sync.
Fast video memory access	Fast video memory access is applied for locked surfaces. Only recommended to use if an application is performing slowly, despite system specifications. Fast video memory access can speed up games like Toy Story 2, but can also completely break others.
Apply Phong shading when possible	Phong shading is applied in place of Gouraud when it is possible. This option only has effect when the application uses the fixed function vertex/pixel pipeline and pushes all the work of the vertex transform & lighting (T & L) to Direct3D when rendering primitives. Do note though, using Phong shading requires much more GPU power than default shading.
dgVoodoo Watermark	Shows the dgVoodoo watermark in-game when enabled.

Hidden options and settings

GeneralExt, GlideExt, DirectXExt and Debug are all hidden. Right-click on the dgVoodoo banner and tick "Show all sections of the configuration".

Not recommended for usage by inexperienced users. A lot of the options are experimental or unstable for normal usage.

General Extended

GeneralExt settings.

Desktop properties

Parameter	Description
Desktop resolution	The native resolution can be forced for dgVoodoo's internal calculations. This is useful for rare cases where applications may pre-set the desktop to something other than the native resolution before dgVoodoo initializes fully. Applies to all display outputs.
Desktop bit depth	The screen bit-depth that should be reported through dgVoodoo can be defined to a 8, 16, or 32 bit-depth level.

Image output

Parameter	Description
Integer scale factor	The integer factor for scaling the out image coming from a wrapped API can be dictated from 1-5, or the maximum available. Integer scaling is always done with nearest point filtering, independent of the scale. Custom integer scaling factors can be defined manually for horizontal and vertical scaling. For e.g. x:3, y:2
Deframer size	When the resolution is forced to something other than the application default, then a black frame will be drawn around the output image coming from the wrapped API. This is to remove scaling artifacts (maximum 16 pixels).
Display ROI	Display Region Of Interest - If the scaling is handled by dgVoodoo, then a sub-rectangle of the output image to be displayed can be defined, which is coming from a wrapped API. The defined sub-rectangle is mapped to the display output according to the current scaling mode. It can be useful for applications rendering a widescreen sub-image into a 4:3 resolution; in this case you can scale up that sub-image to (nearly) fill the whole screen on a widescreen monitor. Manually entering values: - Can be a proportion in form of %d_%d or a pixel size (%d - Position sub-property is not mandatory and can be 'centered' or a pixel position (%d Examples: 16_9, pos:centered or (320, pos:(10
Force nearest point filter	If the scaling is handled by dgVoodoo, then a resampling method can be selected. The more complex the filter is, the more computationally expensive it becomes. Resampling methods listed in order of complexity: Point sampled (unblurred pixels) Bilinear (smoothed) Lanczos-2 (smoothed but sharper) Bicubic (smoothed but sharper) Lanczos-3 (smoothed, sharpest)

Windowed mode attributes

Parameter	Description
Borderless	Forces the application to be borderless when it is set to windowed mode in the application's options. This option is not to be confused with the "fake" option in the fullscreen mode attributes which forces borderless mode when the application is set to fullscreen mode in the application's options.
Always on top	Forces the application window to remain always visible, despite other windows being in focus.
Fullscreen size	Any content in the application window will be the same in fullscreen mode, preserving potential black bars. This is useful for achieving fake fullscreen mode (in conjunction with other relevant settings).

Fullscreen mode attributes

Parameter	Description
Fake	Forces the application to be borderless when it is set to fullscreen mode in the application's options. This option is not to be confused with the borderless option in the windowed mode attributes which forces borderless mode when the application is set to windowed mode in the application's options.

Miscellaneous

Parameter	Description
Environment	The software environment that dgVoodoo runs in can be changed from unspecified, DosBox and QEmu.
FPS limit	You can enter an arbitrary integer or rational (fractional) value here.
Free mouse	When enabled, the physical mouse is free to move around inside the game's window when using emulated scaling and/or application and forced resolutions differs. Can be useful for when a game relies on the physical window size.
Enable GDI hooking	If enabled, dgVoodoo hooks GDI to be able to render graphical contents (like movie playback through the ancient Windows Multimedia AVI player library) rendered through GDI. Experimental feature, for the time being it's implemented only for DirectX emulation.

Glide Extended

GlideExt settings.

Dithering

Parameter	Description
Dithering	Defines when Glide dithering should take place. If dithering is app driven, then the dithering effect is also controlled by the application.
Effect	The type of dithering effect that should be used when dithering is forced. Pure 32-bit is a fake effect that provides the best quality.
Ordered matrix size scale	The integer scale value for the dither matrix size: 1 = normal size, 2 = double size, etc. 0 = automatic (the aim is to have some retro feel and look).

DirectX Extended

DirectXExt settings.

Adapter properties

Parameter	Description
ID Type	The driver version and Vendor ID type that the wrapper should report to the application can be changed. Some games rely on this information. Can be defined only for SVGA and Internal 3D card types, the others have their own predefined vendor information. You can refine various ID's (vendor device, subsys, revision) in the appropriate fields. Note that defining unmatching vendor ID's makes no sense. Games can restrict hardware capability based on device and vendor information. Forcing certain ID's can
Vendor ID	The Vendor ID can be defined only for SVGA and Internal 3D card types. You can overwrite these properties even if a non-default adapter ID type is defined: say, you defined an NVIDIA ID type but would like to refine the device ID.
Subsystem ID
Device ID
Revision ID

Enumerated resolutions

Parameter	Description
Defaults	Resolutions that should be reported to the application by default can be defined. All: all resolutions the current display output is capable of + classic resolutions (e.g. 640x480). Classic: classic resolutions only (e.g. 640x480, etc.). None: no resolutions reported by default (make sure to define a custom resolution in the Extras field).
Extras	Custom resolutions are defined in this field.
Enumerated bit depths	The 8, 16, and 32-bit bit-depths options define what resolutions should be enumerated (allowed) with.

Dithering

Parameter	Description
Dithering	When the dithering effect should be applied: Disabled: Disables dithering App drive: The application controls dithering, recommended and default setting. Force on 16-bit surfaces: Dithering is always forced to render 16-bit dithering. Force always: Dithering is always forced.
Effect	Select the dithering effect Pure 32-bit: Provides a fake effect, providing the best quality. Ordered 2x2: Ordered 4x4:
Dither matrix scale	Integer scale value for dither matrix size: 0 Automatic: 1: Normal scale 2: Double scale 3: Triple scale 4: Quadruple scale

Miscellaneous

Parameter	Description
Depth buffers	Internal bit depth of depth/stencil buffers for 3D rendering. Forcing 32-bit is not recommended. App driven Force 24-bit as minimum Force 32-bit
Max VS const registers	Maximum number of vertex shader constant registers (DirectX 8/9 only). The higher this value is, the lower the performance will be. Can only be defined for dgVoodoo SVGA and Internal 3D card types. 256 registers 512 registers 1024 registers
MS D3D device names	When enabled, the original Microsoft D3D device names are exposed for the GPU. Some applications check for original device names, which can fail when dgVoodoo device names are exposed.
Smoothed depth sampling	Extra smoothing is added to depth textures when they are sampled.
Batched update for primary surface	If enabled, direct changes of the primary surface are batched together for presenting the surfaces. If disabled, then each change is instantly presented (debug-like mode). (DirectDraw only)
Force scale & MSAA on RT textures	Forced resolution scaling and MSAA are also applied to render target textures. Disable this option if a game requires pixel-precise rendering. Be careful as this setting can easily break certain things, not recommended.
Deferred screen mode switch	Fullscreen switching is deferred after the application initialized the DirectX device. This can be useful for games that don't expect rendering window changes during initialization, causing the game to crash.

Debug

Debug settings.

Debugging

These options only affect debug and spec-release builds of dgVoodoo

There exists a "Log to file" option, but it is currently unimplemented.

Parameter	Description
Message Severity	The severity of INFO, WARNING, and ERROR type messages can be: Disabled: Won't appear in the debug output. Enabled: Will appear on the debug output. Enabled with debugger break: When a message is emitted, a debugger-break also takes place.
Maximum trace level	Maximum trace level can be: Disabled: No trace message entries are emitted. API function and method calls are logged. API calls are logged along with some additional internal info.