RAranger_danger·Sep 25, 2026
I would be interested to see a performance comparison with qemu and softgpu (https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu).
In Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac MiniJHRobotics
softgpu
C2023–2026
JHRobotics / softgpu
softgpu
SW and HW accelerated GPU driver for Windows 9x Virtual Machines
5Distinct people
6Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.2KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
SW and HW accelerated GPU driver for Windows 9x Virtual Machines
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 12:54:37 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year6 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2023-06-01 23:41:44 UTC to 2026-09-25 09:01:50 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
6 sourcesVery surprised that softgpu wasn't mentioned at all: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu/
In Tips for installing Windows 98 in QEMU/UTMBought a minipc for a project, tried Win11, didn't hate it, but was surprised how little and poor the legacy software compatibility was.
I ended up staying awake until 2am having a blast rolling a 98se VM and discovered softgpu: https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu
In Win98-quickinstall: A framework and installer to quickly install Windows 98So you say having a decoupled arrangement in software (which happens to be a de facto open standard) is a "terrible awful idea" and that instead you should just rely on whatever your proprietary hardware graphics vendor proposes to you? Why?
And that's assuming they propose anything at all.
Even GVT-g breaks every other Linux release, is at risk of being abandoned by Intel (e.g. how they already abandoned the Xen version) or limited to specific CPU market segments, and already has ridiculous limitations such as a limit on the number of concurrent framebuffers AND framebuffer sizes (why? VMware Workstation offers you an infinitely resizable window, does it with 3D acceleration just fine, and I have never been able to tell if they have a limit on the number of simultaneous VMs... ).
In the meanwhile "software-based GPU virtualization" allow
Read the rest
s me to share GPUs in the host that will never have hardware-based partitioning support (e.g. ANY consumer AMD card), and allows guests to have working 3D by implementing only one interface (e.g. https://github.com/JHRobotics/softgpu for retro Windows) instead of having to implement drivers for every GPU in existence.
SoftGPU: SW and HW accelerated driver for Windows 9x Virtual Machines
90 points · Open discussionSoftGPU: SW and HW accelerated driver for Windows 9x Virtual Machines
3 points · Open discussion