Active Worlds 3.2 includes a software renderer, which provides access to the features and functionality of the version 3.x browsers without requiring a 3D accelerated video card. While performance in software mode is significantly less than the performance available from today's modern 3D accelerated video cards, it is comparable to the software mode of versions 2.2 and earlier of Active Worlds.

Because software mode has no special hardware requirements and is not subject to the complications and compatibility issues that accompany 3D hardware acceleration, it is the default mode for new installations of Active Worlds on most older computers. Users can change between software mode and 3D accelerated mode from the Video Settings dialog.

The software renderer also has the ability to make use of the extra CPUs present in multi-processor systems in order to improve performance.