— You’ve ever wondered how to get good ol‘ 3dfx games working in dosbox on your Linux machine? Find the english tutorial after this paragraph! —

Ha! Und es ist doch möglich! Nach ein paar Tagen forschen funktionieren nun alte 3dfx-Games auf meiner eee 900 Kiste mit eeebuntu Standard 2.0. Wie genau ist das möglich? Ich werd‘ versuchen, es möglichst genau zu erklären. Im Folgenden findet ihr eine Anleitung, um 3dfx-Games in dosbox unter Linux zocken zu können!

English

To play those old gems like Tomb Raider or Descent 2 in 3dfx you need a modified version of dosbox. Modifying dosbox is not too hard and I try to be as clear as possible.

First of all, I take no responsibility for the health of your system. Use this tutorial at your own risk! You have been warned.

You have to be sudo/root for parts of this tutorial. And also, of course, you need an acclerated graphics card. To make sure that you’re system is ready to roll check with the command glxinfo | grep rendering. If it says direct rendering: Yes then you’re off to go! If it says No, please first find out how to install acceleration on your system.

If you ever run into trouble because a command cannot be found, just check if you can get it by apt-get. E.g. sudo apt-get install patch

Oh, and it looks longer than it actually takes!

1. Get build tools

   sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-sound1.2-dev libsdl-net1.2-dev libpcap-dev build-essential cvs
   

2. Get current OpenGLide version

   cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@openglide.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/openglide login
   #(When asked for a password, just press Enter)
   
   cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@openglide.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/openglide co -P openglide
   
   sudo apt-get install autoconf libtool
   
   cd openglide
   
   ./bootstrap
   
   ./configure
   make
   sudo make install
   

   If you have a problem with make (an error in gbanner.cpp) open the file, search for include <glide.h> and replace it with include <sdk2_glide.h>. Now enter make clean and then make.

3. Get dosbox version
   Since the patch is available for the 0.73 version, you just have to download the dosbox source file for that version. Here is the link:

   http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?group_id=52551&filename=dosbox-0.73.tar.gz&a=58875563

4. Get patch out of forum
   Go to the Vogon forums and download both files. Put the patch one folder higher than the dosbox folder. Make sure your dosbox folder is called dosbox.

5. Apply patch

   cat dosbox_glide.diff | patch -p0 
   

   This should run through without any problems. If not, make sure you have the right cvs version (from the exactly date) and you are one folder level higher than the dosbox folder.

6. Compile dosbox
   Change into the dosbox folder.

   ./autogen.sh
   
   ./configure CPPFLAGS="-I /usr/local/include/openglide/"
   
   make
   
   sudo make install
   

   Now you have a glide enabled dosbox version on your Linux machine, installed and ready to use! But before we really start off, there are a few settings which have to be checked first.

7. Start dosbox
   It is important that you use the OpenGLide library libglide2x.so and not the one provided from the system. To do that, you have to execute the following line first before starting dosbox.

   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib 
   
   dosbox
   

   It is also possible to put both commands into one line if you would like to make a start menu entry.

   LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib dosbox
   

   You have to use this every time, otherwise the OpenGLide libraries cannot be found.

8. Write configure file
   In dosbox, use the command

   CONFIG -WRITECONFIG dosbox.conf 
   

   to write the config file. There is now a dosbox.conf in your current folder. Only if you start dosbox out of this folder you get the configuration. If you want to have this configuration enabled always, copy the file to ~/.dosboxrc

9. Check Glide is enabled
   Exit dosbox and check in dosbox.conf if in the section [glide] it says glide=true

10. Install glide2x.ovl
    Now you have to extract the glide2x.ovl file into the game folder and into the folder where you will start dosbox. Make sure (!) that you rename the file to lowercase with rn Glide2x.ovl glide2x.ovl, otherwise the wrapper cannot find the file!

11. Start dosbox again
    Start dosbox again (don’t forget the LD_LIBRARY_PATH command if you are in a new shell)

12. Start the game!
    Change into your favorite game folder, make sure you are starting the 3dfx version and enjoy!

FAQ

1 Q It says „Can’t find or access Banshee/V3 board“
1 A Your system supports Voodoo cards natively. This means that you have a libglide2x.so in your /usr/lib folder. Make sure you do export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib before running dosbox so dosbox knows where to look.

2 Q The patching of dosbox doesn’t work – some hooks or so
2 A Make sure you check out the version with the date provided – copy the command is the easiest choice.

And that’s all for now! I hope you enjoy playing those classics and using dosbox as an alternative to Glidos. Anyway, dosbox patched seemed to be the only way to run 3dfx DOS games on Linux. And it may be the only way, but at least there is a way! Oh, for more support to dosbox do not hesitate to go to the Vogons forums.

Updated:

20.06.2009 – Changed to dosbox 0.73