Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

A Register reader has mailed us with an intriguing corollary to the moves 3dfx made last week to threaten Web sites posting Glide Wrappers, software utilities that map calls to the company's proprietary Glide 3D graphics API to third-party hardware drivers. It appears that, unbeknownst to the company's aggressive legal team, its tech support people have been suggesting that Voodoo3 users who can't get the controversial UltraHLE Nintendo 64 emulator to run should download and use... a Wrapper. UltraHLE requires the use of a 3D accelerator card based on 3dfx's Voodoo or Voodoo2 chip-sets. However, with development on the emulator suspended, thanks to threatened legal action from Nintendo, the software hasn't yet been extended to fully support the Voodoo3 drivers. So it will not run with a Voodoo3-based card alone. Fortunately, Wrappers seem to solve the problem. One, XGL2000, written by Scott Cutler, apparently works very well, say 3dfx tech support guys. It's a shame, then, that 3dfx forced Cutler's ISP to pull his files, allegedly without his consent. If any other readers have experience of 3dfx tech support's pro-Wrapper advice, we'd like to hear from you. ®

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery