3DNA is an alternative graphical shell released by Microstar International (most people probably know them as MSI, but I am old-school) in 2002, probably intended mostly as advertising material but also as a way to turn your desktop into a 3D virtual "game" environment.

It's not too unlike something like Microsoft BOB, although there are no silly animated dogs anywhere to be found. 3DNA would run on anything from Windows 98 all the way up to XP, but unfortunately it requires you to infect your computer with Internet Explorer 6 to really work.

Some basic research suggests it was sold alongside some video cards. The software itself requires OpenGL and an absurd amount of performance. Getting it to run in a VM was no easy feat. I forget how I got it working, just that it was in 86box with some ludicrous settings.

These screenshots are of the 1.0 "Gold" release, which I guess is the full commercial version. There was also a shareware version, and a later 1.1 version. Clearly it didn't last very long, and it's not hard to understand why!

Here is the 3DNA installer, which isn't much to look at although it does ask a whole bunch of unnecessary and very personal questions as part of its "registration" process. Fortunately they don't send the DOJ after you if some or all of the information supplied is, *ahem*, abject lies. :-P

Here is the 3DNA loading screen. It takes absolutely forever to load, if it even loads at all. Like I said, the video requirements are fairly high for something from 2002. It also interfered with 86box's own screenshot mechanism and I had to install a screenshooting program. I haven't had to do that in a LONG time!

When 3DNA first starts it puts you here in this "courtyard" like area while an obnoxious music track loops quite annoyingly in the background. I guess I will be muting the speakers for the rest of this experience.

I was surprised to see that this shell didn't completely take over the desktop. I was also interested to discover that moving around was done using the arrow keys and not the mouse.

There are a few different areas provided by default, along with a whole bunch of posters on the walls advertising various MSI this-and-thats.

The icon in the lower right corner is a menu that gives access to 3DNA's general controls.

By default all you get is this fairly small "world", but supposedly you could purchase others from MSI if you really wanted them.