Links 2003 receives improved GPU compatibility

[Tweed & Whisky]

Developer Narzoul has modified his DDrawCompat ddraw.dll to support anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering for LS2003, and it’s showing great promise as the go-to wrapper.

Tested successfully on Win11 with NVIDIA GPU using 4x AA and AF, different resolutions, fullscreen and windowed. In addition it appears to support AMD and Intel GPU's.

Other wrappers like dgV etc. may cause conflict so disable/remove if present.

Download the zip relevant to your GPU and drop the .dll and .ini files into Links main folder.

Set the .exe to run with administrator rights.

Set your GPU control panel to defaults and launch Links (may CTD first boot).

If minor artifacts appear around animations its likely due to anisotropic filtering. Open DDrawCompat.ini and change TextureFilter = af4x to TextureFilter = app

For DDrawCompat's full feature list refer to this wiki https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/ ... iguration

Happy times!

[dwg]

I last tried version 0.6.0 (Mar 2025) of this wrapper, the note I made when testing it was:

"Will load, main menu looks and works fine, course has missing golfer and corrupted pop up menus. This appears to be a common occurrence with wrappers."

I did make a note that there were infrequent releases.

Seems I need to test it again, and especially against the short list of problem course I have identified.

I have not needed to use a wrapper on Windows systems with Nvidia GPUs. So my testing of wrappers has moved to just testing on Windows systems with Intel iGPUs.

Thank you for posting that there has been an update.

It is correct that you cannot have two wrappers installed, for the main DLL the names will clash and I would not leave any other wrapper specific DLLs in the Links folder.

[dwg]

This is initial, very preliminary testing!

I installed the provided wrapper on a Windows 11 system with an i5 Gen 11 processor and embedded Intel Iris XE Graphics.

By the date of the library I conclude that this is a post 0.7.1 build

Links starts correctly, this is expected as previous versions did also. Problems were in game.

I used the Vintage at the Hunter Valley for Initial testing. *Chuckle* whadda ya expect, I'm Australian of course I am going to use an Australian course. This course is known to not have any problems on this hardware configuration with dgVoodoo.

The Golfer displayed correctly (did not before), the pop up menus display correctly (did not before). Also Translucent shadows work as they should (do not under dgVoodoo!!).

Round completed without any issue.

So very positive. I will dig out my list of problem courses on the machine that occur under dgVoodoo and will test those.

Des

[Mailman]

I had a session online with Andy today but ultimately failed ALTHOUGH we were able to connect online via Direct Connection via Links (rather than through Gameranger) after I had spent 15 mins or so getting Links to load (same story as per previous posts since installing Windows 11). Had to abort the game connection because it was unplayable at my end.

So I've now had a look at this wrapper and have been able to run Links somewhat faster although I'm yet to get it running first time. However it is running on way fewer attempts AND the actual load process (when it does) is like lightning. AA and AF is being applied for sure without any input on the Nvidia driver settings - the Nvidia Links 2003 profile I had set up has been binned for now.

So early signs are encouraging in Windows 11

Yet to get it working in Win 10 tho

[Tweed & Whisky]

Are you running Links fullscreen? If so have you tested enabling/disabling 'Disable fullscreen optimizations' in its .exe. properties menu?

[dwg]

I have performed more extensive testing of this wrapper.

Test Environment

- ASUS Windows 11 notebook

- Gen 11 i5 processor

- Integrated Intel Irix Xe Graphics

- Resolution 1920 x 1080 (Links mode 14)

This machine has no other GPU, so a wrapper is necessary.

The machine was using dgVoodoo V 2.7 (the “wrapper”) as provided on Links Corner. In addition other versions of the wrapper have been tested from 2.5 to the most recent series.

Issues around dgVoodoo

- Versions later than 2.81.3 suffer a regression and reflective water is not rendered correctly, it makes the wrapper unusable.

- A number of 2003T courses hang with no apparent solution.

- Translucent golfer shadows do not work.

- Not all Auxiliary cameras work correctly, there is screen corruption. The main view and the top camera do work.

What has been tested

- The provided version of DDrawCompat. This is a post 0.7.1 build (by a few days)

- Initially the provided configuration file.

- It has primarily been tested against a list of course CRZs that are known to hang on system in question with the previous environment, they do not hang in other environments e.g Windows 11 + Nvidia HBA with no wrapper.

In some cases multiple CRZs relating to the same course fail e.g. Beta then final version, latest and prior release. In all cases if the latest release worked the older release has not been tested. Some control courses were also tested.

In all 11 problem CRZs were tested.

dgVoodoo was removed and the replacement wrapper and ini file placed in the Links 2003 folder.

Links was then played as normal.

Results

I will just do the results in point format.

- On the first start up Links crashed, this is normal anytime you change the Video under Links, it starts correctly thereafter.

- Main menu displays correctly and options work, this was also the case with prior versions as well.

- In game menus are now displayed correctly.

- Translucent shadows work correctly.

- 6 Auxiliary cameras were tried, at times all 6 were open and operational, no dgVoodoo type corruption was seen.

- All 11 problem courses were tested, all worked without any problem.

- Links reports the actual video that the machine has.

- under normal play (i.e. not having 6 Aux cameras all open) this wrapper performed well on the test system.

- basic installation is simple, however any tailoring of the installation will require editing of an ini file. A sample ini file is provided in Links build.

- As stated the Links build is slightly later than the latest posted public build.

One problem was noted, the Top View camera image was “scratchy” like you would often see with old pictures, there were strange black marks more prominent the greater the zoom out.

Further testing was completed with changes to DDrawCompat’s provided Configuration file.

The configuration file as provided sets parameters for AA and AF, in general these work fine with the Intel GPU, I have used comparable settings in dgVoodoo. It means you can use these features with graphics drivers that do not provide them.

There is one setting however that is a problem here and that is:

SpriteDetection = zconst

Change this back to the default by commenting it out and the problem with the scratchy Top View Camera image is gone. It appears to cause parts of Top view image rendering to be left out, hence black marks. I have not done any testing of the other options.

Summary

In my view this is a worthy replacement for dgVoodoo.

This wrapper removes some dgVoodoo inspired limitations. The real benefit is that it allows courses that fail under dgVoodoo to work, so it is more reliable.

As later versions of dgVoodoo have regressed, it meant upgrading that has not been viable.

I also note this wrapper offers some mouse settings, these may be useful for those that have mouse sensitivity issues. Other ini file settings may also be worthy of investigation. These are documented on the web site. The home for this wrapper is:

https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat

Given the benefits, I intend staying with this wrapper at the current time with the indicated modification of the ini file.

[Tweed & Whisky]

Thanks for the extensive testing.

' SpriteDetection = zconst ' was enabled for NVIDIA and AMD hardware as it corrected the issue of closing ingame menus which left white, vertical lines on screen.

This was not an issue for Intels, so good to know it was causing an issue elsewhere and disabling it corrected that.

I've uploaded a version with this change for Intel users.

[Mailman]

Are you running Links fullscreen? If so have you tested enabling/disabling 'Disable fullscreen optimizations' in its .exe. properties menu?

Will do more extensive testing over the weekend BUT this evening I just fired up Links (via Links Launcher) in Win 11 and Bingo - first time loading

But yes running Links fullscreen normally (using ALT-Tab to get into windowed mode) and will look at the various settings I can change and report back

[dwg]

FI,

I added my thanks to the developer on his Github site. While I know the focus was on AA support. This adds significant to those using Intel GPUs.

[dwg]

@mailman

My testing of this wrapper shows it to be superior to dgVoodoo, I am seeing none of the problems I had when using that wrapper.