Tried this, great success! I'm running Win7 64 with nvidia's 344.48 drivers. Thanks guy!

However, now I'm getting greedy, and I want to get antialiasing working too. I've tried forcing several varieties of MS and SSAA via nvidia inspector, and they work...sort of. The game starts and objects are indeed antialiased, but as soon as I move, the starfield background smears terribily, making the game unplayable.

I don't suppose anybody has a fix to get antialiasing working properly on newer nvidia cards?

I just tried the CD version of XWing95 with your old driver dlls, all I could get was a CTD when attempting to get into mission. I had put the .dll files in the root folder with the executable and everything and got the same result as when I had moved the dlls out of the folder. This is with windows 8.1, ATI card, and I had to install using Markus Egger's installer to get it setup. Not sure whats going on there. Do you know where windows 8 keeps its crash report? I suppose I'll just have to wait for the wrapper.

He either compared the .exe's or ran them through a debugger. Plus Netherlands has has a long history of hacking and bit-level work (demo scene from the 90's). I'll write a program for it if I get a chance. Writing a patcher in C to do this is fairly trivial. No promises though.

Have you also installed the Compatibility Fix?

http://davidcmoisan.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/the-force-is-with-me-tie-fighter-95-on-windows-7-x64/
http://davidcmoisan.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/update-tie-fighter-compatibility/

Install Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7352
and check installed database.

I will try to create a more complete setup process from start to finish with screenshots

This actually re-enables 3d but the game freezes for me the moment I start the flight sequence. Only solution is to restart the computer. Had the same problem with X-wing Alliance, but solved that one by setting the game to my native resolution through xwahacker tool. No such tool for TIE Fighter, sadly.

Oh well, I'll just play it without 3d acceleration.

The crash when starting the flight sequence is caused by the drivers. That is why GOG disabled 3D Acceleration in their exe file.
If you are using an NVIDIA graphic card, you should try a similar approach to the ATI Fix. Basically you need to download an old driver and extract the DLL needed and copy them in the Tie Fighter installation folder. Problem is that at this moment we don't know exactly what are the NVIDIA DLLs.

Yes. NVIDIA graphics card. Had 337.88 version and just updated to 344.80. I've got a bunch of old drivers going back to 301.42. I'll give it a try when I get home tonight.

You could try Downsampling or Nvidia DSR.

Just pointing out the obvious after doing a binary compare.
Don't want to eleborate on this subject any more then necessary. As GoG found it necessary to make this undocumented change and it is their show.

Like I said, I'm trying to centralize all the steps required to enable 3D Hardware. Here we go:

1. Install the GOG version of the game:
- Besides the obvious, it also installs the compatibility fix that I keep mentioning. This is a small, but very important detail. Without it, your game will crash with 3D enabled, among other things. Read more about it and [url=http://davidcmoisan.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/update-tie-fighter-compatibility/]here
- If you want to use your old CD version of the game, manually install the compatibility fix. Use Compatibility Administrator to verify and check the attached screenshot.

2. Most of us are now aware that GOG disabled 3D Hardware in the exe file. I got confirmation via a support ticket, others figured it out somehow, gerwin79 found it by looking in a HEX editor etc. So this step is about removing the restriction:
- For the first method you can thank Cyphox, the author of this topic, <span class="bold">infinityBCRT</span> for the excellent project of restoring Music to the windows version and Pete Jatz for creating the initial modified EXE file for the windows version. So follow the instructions from the 1st post. I will just mention to pay attention to what zip you are downloading. You are going for the "Windows CD version Instructions (NOT FOR GOG.com version!)". You have read correctly "NOT FOR GOG". Why? Because the "GOG.com Edition Instructions" uses the same exe with 3D disabled
- For the second method thank gerwin79 and read his instructions. He found the HEX address that needs to be modified. It didn't work for me as the game was crashing when loading a level, but maybe I made a mistake while HEX editing the exe. Also this is a more clean and elegant fix since you keep the no-cd check enabled (so no need to create your TIE95.iso)

3. We got this far, but because of modern graphic cards and drivers, the game will crash when trying to load a mission if you have enabled 3D (NOTE: this is not the same crash mentioned at step 1, even if it occurs in similar circumstances).
- For this fix thank vashren from XWA forums. He discovered that compatibility was broken with any ATI Catalyst version newer than 13.11. So to avoid the crash you need to force Windows to use the old DLL files that worked before. This means extracting them from AMD Catalyst Software Suite Version 13.1 (NOTE: 1 not 11) and moving in your TIE installation folder. Read one my previous posts for instruction. I tested on Windows 7, but we still need confirmation that Windows 8 does the same.
- Something similar should be done for NVIDIA cards. Maybe someone using old drivers (around 2011) can confirm?

Bonus Step :)
- Go thank <span class="bold">Sol_HSA</span> and <span class="bold">JeremyaFr</span>:
- JeremyaFr provided a superb quick and easy fix for when X-Wing Alliance will be released by GOG. A single DLL file that solves all problems with modern systems.
- Sol_HSA is working on something similar for TIE95 and X-Wing95.

Also take a look at attached screenshots. You will see 2 databases because I manually installed the compatibility fix when I was trying to find a solution.

Thanks, I installed the MS App Compatability Toolkit and the shims mantioned on that page.

At least it no longer crashes when I try to enter a mission in 3d mode. It now just switches to the software renderer once you go into mission. (apperently something is failing) Again this was with XWing95 cd version and your ati .dlls in the folder of the executable, all in windows 8.1. Same thing happened still with those ati .dlls removed from the folder. Interesting. I guess I will have to wait for the wrapper.

Attempting the hex edit doesn't really work that great; it'll just crash upon mission start even with the older Catalyst drivers. I haven't tried the ISO way yet.

Maybe Windows 8.1 works a little different. I did some research regarding dll load order.
See [url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682600(v=vs.85).aspx]Dynamic-Link Library Redirection[/url] from Microsoft.
Can you try to create the TIE95.EXE.local file in your game folder?

Thats just a blank file titled applicationName.exe.local correct? I tried that and still no luck. Thanks though.

The only reason I can think of is DirectX 11.2 which is exclusive to Windows 8.1, but this is me guessing.
Maybe copying an additional dll "d3d11.dll" from Windows 7 can help.