WinGlide compatibility
Last updated April 6, 1998
Why does WinGlide work with GLQuake and Quake 2 but not many other programs that use glide?
Right now, WinGlide will only run programs in a window if they are designed to be run in a
window. If a program wants to run fullscreen, WinGlide will just pass everything through to
the glide2x.dll in the windows or system directory and the program should run just like it would
if WinGlide were not installed. Since the 3Dfx Voodoo cards are fullscreen only cards there are
not many programs that are designed to use cards with Voodoo chipsets and have the option of
running in a window.
I may try to make future versions of WinGlide support running fullscreen only programs that use
glide in a window. Although this may work with some fullscreen only programs, many fullscreen
only programs are likely to have problems with being run in a window and some may not run at all.
Windowed OpenGL with WinGlide?
There is a way to get some programs that use OpenGL running on a Voodoo and in a window with the
Mesa Voodoo driver and a version
of WinGlide by Gerhard Pfeiffer that emulates a Voodoo Rush. It's not fully compliant OpenGL
support and it has certain limitations but it does work with some programs that use OpenGL.
Some of the limitations include supporting only one rendering context and color index mode is not
supported.
The Mesa Voodoo driver can be used without WinGlide to run some fullscreen OpenGL programs on
Voodoo cards with much better performance than when using WinGlide.
Right now, the Mesa Voodoo driver is an alpha release and I haven't been able to get it to work
with many programs that use OpenGL. I have gotten it to work with some OpenGL demos and some
programs I have written that use OpenGL. Of course, programs that were written
specifically for Mesa rather than OpenGL work just fine. There are also lots of programs that
partially work with it but do not display the proper output (for example, textures don't work).
For more information about the Mesa Voodoo driver
If you would like to learn more about the Mesa Voodoo driver, visit the
Mesa Voodoo driver page.
If you would like to learn more about Mesa, visit the
The Mesa 3-D graphics library page.
Installation instructions
Get Gerhard's version of WinGlide and the Mesa Voodoo driver dlls. Put both Gerhard's
version of WinGlide and the Mesa dlls in the same directory as the program that you want to
try out windowed OpenGL on the Voodoo with. See if it works.
DO NOT copy the WinGlide glide2x.dll into your Windows or Windows\System directory.
DO NOT copy the Mesa Voodoo driver dlls into your Windows or Windows\System directory.
Gerhard Pfeiffer's WinGlide that supports Voodoo Rush emulation:
wglidepg.zip
Mesa Voodoo Driver dlls: Can be downloaded from
Phil Frisbie's Programming Page
Copyright 1998 Chris Dohnal