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Compatibility layers may also make use of '''wrappers''', which translate a specific graphics API to another. How the user sets up the wrapper varies between each project but most involve a drop-in replacement of the original libraries.
To understand why this is needed for older games, it's important to understand that during the 90s the graphics card market for [[86/286/386/486/Pentium/Pentium_IIIntel CPUs|IBM PCs and compatibles]] was in its infancy, and Direct3D wasn't an automatic choice for developers. Some games were often designed for 3Dfx's Glide API so that it would run with their Voodoo card. With 3dfx going bankrupt however, support for Glide didn't stay around and the API was made open-source, but NVIDIA and AMD never incorporated it into their drivers. A wrapper is now needed to play these games with hardware acceleration, or if we're lucky the game gets [[Game engine recreations/Source Ports|a port]] to other APIs instead.
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