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Patches for Popcap 3D Acceleration
What is 3D Acceleration?
It allows graphics cards that are powerful enough to output a more stable framerate and add 3D effects. PC games have used this ever since the 90s with the earliest example being Quake in 1996. Starting in 2003 Popcap made a update to their game engine that allowed each game developed by them, companies working close with them, or bought by the company to output their games with 3D Acceleration (originally known as Hardware Acceleration) using graphics cards. Most Popcap games after 2003 use 3D effects and would make their games run smoothly with the option switched on. Games after 2008 would add a lot of 3D effects especially on the title screens you can easily see it in this example from Zuma's Revenge where the tiki torches are lit and the volcano is exploding.
What also makes 3D Acceleration important is that it allows the Steam Overlay to appear on every game that uses it in windowed mode whether your buying the game on Steam or adding it as a Non Steam Game to your library. If your game wasn’t patched you would only be able to access it in full screen. Here's a example of Peggle Nights accessing the Steam Overlay in windowed mode.
All of Popcaps older games were made specifically for older versions of Windows (specifically ME, 2000, XP, Vista, and 7) and while updates were given throughout the years to update it for modern hardware and to update the Popcap logo not every game was updated properly especially after 2011 when Popcap was bought out by EA. Popcap would stop developing PC games (minus Bejeweled Live, PVZ Garden Warfare Series, PVZ Battle For Neighborville, and a few lost Facebook games) and would become a console and mobile developer. As of now they only make Bejeweled and PVZ games. Because of this abandonment fans would be the only thing to keep it alive and since Windows 10 would release 4 years after EA absorbed Popcap. 3D Acceleration issues were now happening with these games weather people had access to graphics cards or not.
Early attempts to patch the games were by Cheez3D who would successfully patch all the games in the Bejeweled series that used 3D Acceleration and release them on their Github page. Originally a separate way of fixing the games were done by the Bejeweled 3 Steam Community by patching 3D Acceleration using 5 dll files. While it accesses 3D Acceleration, it doesn't fix most of the problems like it checking your graphics card or memory and not accessing the Steam Overlay. Using the code of the first attempt, a second attempt to patching the games was made by The1812 however their Github page would close down. I then decided to take the reins and make this site to detail most of my patch results and had about 18 of Popcap's library patched at that point. That was until I met BoggY of the Bejeweled Fans Discord, he was able to provide patches for the remaining Popcap games that refused to be patched and will make his own patcher in the future which I'll link here when it's finished, as of now every Popcap game should be patched and everyone can now access 3D Acceleration on modern hardware. As of now this site will host patches for every Popcap game that has 3D Acceleration and I hope you enjoy all the work I managed to do to get these games fixed.
Note: I will not be including games Popcap owns or published that doesn’t use the Popcap engine as either those games 3D Acceleration works fine on modern hardware or the games don’t support it, so Sprout Games, Spintop Games, Retro64 Inc, and Square Enix games won’t appear on this site as I will only be including the games that use the Popcap engine. This list will also not include any games that use the Popcap engine that had no relationship to Popcap. I will also not be including any special versions of the games like the Chinese version of Bejeweled 3 (minus GOTY and non GOTY versions of PVZ and Chuzzle Christmas Edition) I will also not be giving any downloads to the games as you can find them easily on Archive.org and Steam. Don’t want to make any of my friends upset that I’m promoting piracy so this page will not include any downloads for any of the games that are patched here.
Full List of Popcap Games 3D Acceleration Patches
To add the patched exe files to your games, find where your game files are located and put the patched exe file into there then boot the patched exe file. If your patching the Steam versions delete or rename the original exe file Steam boots then replace it with the patched exe file by naming it what the original exe file was called then boot the game from Steam. If your version wasn't patched then get a hold of BoggY of the Bejeweled Fans Discord or wait for his patcher to be finished.
List of Popcap games that don’t have 3D Acceleration
The Steam Overlay doesn’t work on any of these games due to them being outdated
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Bejeweled Deluxe/Diamond Mine Deluxe (2001)
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Alchemy Deluxe (2001)
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Seven Seas Deluxe (2001)
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Dynomite! Deluxe (2002)
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Atomica Deluxe (2002)
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Big Money! Deluxe (2002)
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Mummy Maze Deluxe (2002)
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Ningpo Mahjong Deluxe (2002)
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Noah’s Ark Deluxe (2002)
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TipTop Deluxe (2002)
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Sweet Tooth To Go (2004)
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Bonnie’s Bookstore Deluxe (2005)
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Word Harmony Deluxe (2006)
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Talismania Deluxe (2006)
References
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