JustinStacey.x Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Hello allI have two old computers in my house which are at the moment, sitting as footrests. Neither of them are knackered, and are more than fast enough to run Windows 3.1 (hopefully not too fast though) my only worry is getting the drivers, I would like to have sound and at least 256 colour display. One of the machines is an old AMD 900MHz, I think it's a Duron or a Sempron. It has bagloads of RAM, I could remove some before I put DOS and Windows on there. The other one, a 1500MHz Pentium 4 with 128MB of RAMBUS RAM, again I could remove some. The AMD machine has a SiS chipset and an AC97 audio card, I believe. The Pentium 4 has a similar sound card, an nVidia graphics and the chipset type eludes me.Are there any generic drivers for Windows 3.1 that can give me 256 colours (or higher) and sound?I know this isn't technically the right section to post this in but we don't seem to have any Windows 3.1 forums so excuse me.Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osRe Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 How about running it virtualized? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sp193 Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 There usually won't be any drivers for modern soundcards for Windows 3.x, unless they are very old. Try looking for microsoft's PC-speaker driver(SPEAK.EXE), but is rather limited. (Doesn't work on all programs, does not work on all machines)For 256 color graphics card drivers, try:1. Downloading http://www.japheth.de/downloads/svgaptch.zip2. Get SVGA256.EXE (From Microsoft.;Easily found.)3. Extract the files in SVGA256.EXE by running it (In a new folder, or you will get a mess).4. Apply patch from the link in the 1st point.5. Install modified driver in Windows 3.1Originally quoted from this post here: http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-3...6drv/11648.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
os2fan2 Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 Windows 3.1 runs quite well on pentium class machines. The emulators are a bit scratchy, though i think it's more to do with the dodgy config.sys or something. If you want a win3x life, try WinNT 3.51. You don't really have to do a lot: the default setup works quite fine. I usually set up a multi-boot system with PC-DOS 6.3 or 7 and Windows 3.1 in a 480 MB c: drive. This is heaps more room than it neads. (win31 was sold when 80 MB disks were going out of fashion. The #2 box from 1992 had a 120 MB disk pretending to be an 80 MB disk, but the clever kiddies got into bios, and deleted the hard drive: "Hard Drive - we don't have one of them!" [you must remember that things like the atari 2600 does not have a fixed disk!]Windows was alright in its day. You had to replace a lot of stuff (like the shell), to get anything to work, and in practice one used real operating systems (OS/2 or DOS). None the same, i used a heavily customised version of Windows right upto 1996 when i got Win95 (g:\legacy) . 98 came much later, and i did get a copy of ME with some box, abd 95 OSR2 with another box. You can run Windows 98SE on 20 MB ram. You run 98lite over the sucker, remove lots of useless stuff (like IE), and then you can install IE. Runs much better that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinStacey.x Posted July 21, 2009 Author Share Posted July 21, 2009 Thanks folks.I think I will try this tonight on my project laptop, an old Medion which has seen Windows XP, Linux, Windows 2000 and Windows 98. I am not *that* bothered if I don't have sound but it would have been nice. Couple of questions: It has 256MB of RAM, this will be fine won't it - not too much? Also it has a 160GB hard drive - practically new. I was thinking of partitioning it into a small 500MB partition for DOs/Windows 3.1 and then leave the rest in NTFS for XP and my railway simulator. I might actually put Fred Vorck's Windows 2000 on there instead of XP.Who knows; looks like a project to keep me busy for the next few days at least anyway.I wouldn't mind doing this on my 486, but it has no hard drive and only a floppy, so doing things would be a pain in the proverbial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sp193 Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 (edited) It has 256MB of RAM, this will be fine won't it - not too much?It won't be too much. In fact, DOS/Windows 3.1 won't use most of it. Most machines in it's era only had ~8MB RAM. Windows 3.1 does not require to have Virtual memory, and doesn't have the problem Windows 9x has.Also it has a 160GB hard drive - practically new. I was thinking of partitioning it into a small 500MB partition for DOs/Windows 3.1 and then leave the rest in NTFS for XP and my railway simulator. I might actually put Fred Vorck's Windows 2000 on there instead of XP.I don't think DOS can access beyond the 8GB barrier(I had a partition on the ~60GB area of my HDD and MS-DOS 7.00 didn't like it). What version of DOS are you using? MS-DOS 6.22 only had FAT16 support (Partitions must be<2GB, and are FAT16 formatted). MS-DOS 7.10 doesn't work well with Win3x without patching.Also, DOS would INSIST to install to C:\DOS.... so beware how your disk is partitioned. It would ignore other partitions it can't read though...The PC-Speaker driver would allow you to have sound in Windows and Sound Recorder, but many programs would not have any sound at all.When you install DOS, it would overwrite your HDD MBR, so you need to know how to restore and configure WinNT 5.x (aka 2000, XP etc) bootloader.Yo may also need to select your PC as a "Standard PC with APM" if your loading @ the Windows screen takes a long time, or vice-versa. I had mixed responses to this selection on different machines.I wouldn't mind doing this on my 486, but it has no hard drive and only a floppy, so doing things would be a pain in the proverbial.Wow... Windows 3.1 won't fit there, unless you cut out almost everything..then it's practically almost useless...If you have a old <8GB HDD then try to fit it there. Edited July 21, 2009 by sp193 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinStacey.x Posted July 21, 2009 Author Share Posted July 21, 2009 If I were going to do this on the laptop that I mentioned, I'd just wipe the disk and put a small DOS partition on first and then XP on the NTFS or FAT32 partition. Since the DOS partition would be at the beginning of the disk and wouldn't see the other partition I reckon it would be fine... there is nothing on the computer at the moment anyway except a rail simulator which can be easily backed up.My 486 did have a hard drive, 502MB one I think, but it's knackered now, sitting with two other hard drives in the corner of the room. If the HD worked I would seriously consider keeping this project to the 486 given it has 16MB of RAM as well. The only downer is it has no sound card, so that PC Speaker driver is all I'd have. I doubt it's fast enough to run Quake or Duke Nukem either, and I think even DooM pushes it right to the top end. It's a decent machine but nothing like the old 486 I had years ago as a kid which was probably very expensive and considered an 'ultimate gaming machine' or the like. It had sound, a PC card modem, good video, trackpad, interchangeable CD-ROM drive and it ran Duke Nukem and Quake beautifully. I ended up fiddling with it too much in the end though and totally broke its capabilities and when I got a newer one my minimalist parents wouldn't let me keep the 486... unfortunately. They'd die with their leg up if they saw how many computers I keep under my roof now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenoitRen Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 If you want a win3x life, try WinNT 3.51.It has a Windows 3.x shell, but the API is the same as Windows 95's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 (edited) Check the "enhanced" VBE Video Drivers from Scitech (courtesy of the Wayback Machine):http://web.archive.org/web/20071130040216/...om/sdd_win.htmlhttp://web.archive.org/web/20080120054601/...ft.com/ftp/sdd/Check this also:http://www.betaarchive.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2902jaclaz Edited July 22, 2009 by jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinStacey.x Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 Okay lads and ladies... final question before I consider going with this and installing Windows 3.1...Will the Microsoft Speaker driver allow for sound in DOS games such as Duke Nukem and DooM - and by sounds I mean actual sounds rather than the PC speeker 'blip' which is available on some of those older games. I vaguely recollect Duke Nukem working with audio on an old 486 of mine which had Windows 95 installed but no working audio driver. The main reasons for me wanting audio are so I can play those older games and at a push play audio files.Also... I am aware the version of DOS that comes with Windows 95 and 98 boots Windows 3.1 fine - are there any known ramifications to doing this as opposed to using DOS 6.22? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenoitRen Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 If Duke Nukem ran through DOS, it could very well have had sound even though there is no audio driver installed. DOS applications talk to the hardware directly, so it's mostly a matter of the application supporting your sound card, and having the correct environment variables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinStacey.x Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 I thought about that exact same thing just after I'd posted, BenoitRen, and it did suddenly occur to me why the sound in Duke Nukem had worked despite the sound driver in my OS at that time being borked. The simplicity of days gone by.. I miss it. Of course, the machine I am planning to install this stuff on has no sound hardware that any of these old games is going to recognise, except perhaps I might be able to get away with it if I select 'General Midi' as the sound device. This works for some old games on my XP Machine using the Command Prompt, so I might be in for a chance of getting it working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dude112 Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 That sounds like an interesting project!!GOOD LUCK getting her going Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Visit this place. You'll find many useful things there. Particularly, you'll need 3xstart to be able to run Win 3.x ontop of DOS 7.10. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 And out of the blue, and JFY:http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16754http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=623(several links that may be useful)jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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