don't forget that software rendering needs more cpu resources
the Quake2 software rendering is still one of the most optimised ones ever made
so I highly doubt I can make anything that comes close
it's probably easier to get some mesa software rendered opengl and use it with some linux win comptability layer or whatever
the thing is it's really really hard to get a machine nowadays that doesn't have a gpu or opengl support
what sort of embedded devices you are thinking of anyway? I mean afaik even a raspberry pi has a gpu