Release Qemu for Pandora (for rebirth competition)


from what I remember having read on the win95/win98.


windows 98 is by default quite slower, but most of this is caused by feature like "active desktop" and internet explorer used as explorer.


by using software like http://www.litepc.com/98lite.html you can build a win98 system that is much faster
 
If you find a good way to optimize any Windows or other system, please write up your efforts in the wiki, so others can profit from it.


TitanUranus did some win98 optimizing, don't know the current status though.


I know it is not that easy to make working images, but it is not like dosbox ;)


For the graphicsdrivers: Win95+ should provide graphics drivers for the cirrus card out of the box.
 
mcobit said:
For the cdromdriver have a look at mscdex, it is the driver you need. This needs an entry in the config.sys and autoexec.bat. You will need the cdromdriver file first. That is something like oakcdrom.sys or just cdrom.sys.


See here:


http://www.techadvic...ch/m/mscdex.htm
Click to expand...

Alright, so after looking through this, turns out I had the wrong version of mscdex. Huh.


Well, the good news is that I got that to work!


Bad news is, I tried installing Rollercoaster Tycoon and was met with an InstallShield Error -6002. I'm probably missing some files?


EDIT: Might have something to do with my copy being a newer one labeled "Deluxe" which was released in 2003...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
elwing said:
from what I remember having read on the win95/win98.


windows 98 is by default quite slower, but most of this is caused by feature like "active desktop" and internet explorer used as explorer.


by using software like http://www.litepc.com/98lite.html you can build a win98 system that is much faster
Click to expand...

That link looks nice.


That's what we need on Pandora.

mcobit said:
If you find a good way to optimize any Windows or other system, please write up your efforts in the wiki, so others can profit from it.


TitanUranus did some win98 optimizing, don't know the current status though.


I know it is not that easy to make working images, but it is not like dosbox ;)


For the graphicsdrivers: Win95+ should provide graphics drivers for the cirrus card out of the box.
Click to expand...
So I'll grab a Windows 95 first.


Thanks.
 
Mygames19 said:
mcobit said:
For the cdromdriver have a look at mscdex, it is the driver you need. This needs an entry in the config.sys and autoexec.bat. You will need the cdromdriver file first. That is something like oakcdrom.sys or just cdrom.sys.


See here:


http://www.techadvic...ch/m/mscdex.htm
Click to expand...

Alright, so after looking through this, turns out I had the wrong version of mscdex. Huh.


Well, the good news is that I got that to work!


Bad news is, I tried installing Rollercoaster Tycoon and was met with an InstallShield Error -6002. I'm probably missing some files?


EDIT: Might have something to do with my copy being a newer one labeled "Deluxe" which was released in 2003...
Click to expand...

No clue. Sorry, Maybe IngoReis can help this evening.
 
Hello.I used only the Demoversion for Testing and for the Rollercoaster Tycoon Video.


you can try a new Windows Installer Version,maybe it works or


maybe you should install it in a Folder(unter XP or so),use a NoCD Patch and Copy the folder to your


SD/USB Stick.


Now you can use the shared Folder Option from the PanQemu PND.


I think Qemu have Problems with Copy Protected Games then i recommend try this Way for Rollercoaster Tycoon.


Please dont start it from the shared Folder,please copy it first in your W95 Qemu Image.


The shared Folder Option can be a great help for many games. :)


It helped me very often for Game Testing.(Copying work slow,but well)


When you have Problems with shared Folders under Windows,try "boot in safe mode" for Copying the Files in your Image.


This Windows95 driver is the fastest from the many Drivers i testet.


http://www.treiberupdate.de/treiber-download/z-dltreiber/download_treiber_2099999.php?load=152416&dlidday=4rtfd44sdwer5de&extern=0&vendor=Cirrus_Logic&sys=Windows95


I hope this Tips can help you.


HAPPY TESTING :D


Edit: for little little Speedups you can try the additional Parameters


-no-acpi


-no-hpet


-balloon none


-cpu "qemu32"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
mcobit said:
For the graphicsdrivers: Win95+ should provide graphics drivers for the cirrus card out of the box.
Click to expand...

It does, but that one doesn't support more than 16 colors, at least for my old Windows95-Version. I downloaded and installed


the univbe-driver (see my previous post) and it works quite nicely. Also the other drivers (soundblaster, intel chipset) seem to


improve things just a little (windos greeting jingle doesn't stutter anymore for example). Yet, my old dos-favourite "Realms of the


Haunting" is unplayable slow. I tried messing around with the settings but it seems to slow down due to dynamic lighting and other


rendering effects.


I wonder what altering the "use 486 instead of Pentium" really does. Performance-wise I couldn't make out any difference. Is emulating a 486 recommended?


Do you think there any further notable improvements possible to optimize this for our OMAP/System?


One last question: Why do you recommend using 128MB of ram for Win95? I'll bet that 32MB would be enough for anything that worked back then and that is by far a bigger set of stuff that works on the pandora via qemu by now. Ram really shouldn't be a bottleneck. I really liked the idea of having the os on a ramdisk, I think it was also TitanusUranus who spoke about that. Maybe that could fix some of the IO slowdowns in Win98 you mentioned on the wiki page.
 
mcobit said:
No clue. Sorry, Maybe IngoReis can help this evening.
Click to expand...

Alright. Thanks for the help and the work you've put into this project! :)


So, progress on getting RCT to work: I went an got an ISO of the original version. It doesn't use Installshield like my copy of the game does, which is good. But now when I try to install it, I get thrown the error: "Error determining size of file E:\American\Hasbro Interactive.url".


So I tried to cheat by installing it to my PC and then copying the installed files over to the shared folder, and then into the Program files. Seemed like a good idea, but then it throws me a 'needs CD' message. I can tell it which drive the CD is located, but spits out a "Error location: Unknown" once the game loads up.


I have noticed that files with spaces in them are shortened to eight characters if they are in the shared folder or the CD ROM for some reason. I'm thinking that might have something to do with it.


ERRP. Was about to post this, but then suddenly reply. So apparently there's a no-CD crack? Looks like that's what I'll end up trying next then.
 
Well, in DOS filenames can only have 8 characters.


But a nocdcrack might be a solution.
 
I am running the DRDOS image in qemu, and I cannot type ':' to change drives. I saw a tip on the wiki page about changing to the Italian keyboard layout to be able to type ':' under MS-DOS, but that doesn't seem to work under DRDOS. Can anyone help me figure out how to type ':'?
 
sepp256 said:
I am running the DRDOS image in qemu, and I cannot type ':' to change drives. I saw a tip on the wiki page about changing to the Italian keyboard layout to be able to type ':' under MS-DOS, but that doesn't seem to work under DRDOS. Can anyone help me figure out how to type ':'?
Click to expand...
Maybe this could work ?

DrCJBoduma said:
PS- in msdos I found you can get a colon ":" by pressing (and holding) shift and fn and the comma button (left shoulder button+fn+,)
Click to expand...
 
Going to ask a stupid question here now, as configuring this emulator seems quite complex to me so far! I've downloaded a few of the premade images, so I get get into dos using the drdos one. My problem is I have a few games that I was trying put under that I'd like to try using Qemu too. I've tried adding the directory I have the games in as a shared folder, does that mean I should be able to navigate there somehow through dos or do I need to build a seperate hdd image with all the games in it already?


(null)
 
usually the shared folder should be mapped to drive D (except you have a CD-ROM drive mapped there) so just type "d:" to change to the shared folder. Some notes: some games have trouble when they are run directly from the shared directory, so better copy the games you want to try to the main disc ©. Qemu has problems if the size of the shared folder exceeds a certain value (not sure, maybe 600 MB), and last but not least, at least MSDOS can only copy with file / directory names that are eight characters long, could also be the case in DR DOS, but I'm not sure about that.
 
Thanks for the tip, I'm now having the same problem as listed above about typing a colon, the tip listed gets me a semicolon!


(null)
 
You could try the "workaround" I found for MS - DOS by changig the codepage ( <=> Keyboard Layout) maybe this could be of help here
 
I'll try to post some info on setting up 98lite soon. I've had a lot of personal problems that are in immediate need of my attention though so don't hold your breath. Here's what brief info I can offer right now, if you install and have success please post how.


1. If you own a legit copy of 98, I reccomend you upgrade it (cough splutter) by googling "Windows98.UBCD.Feb.2008" - this was an unofficial updated version with lots of enhancements like 98lite etc... (and works best for qemu).


2. It's not as easy as just installing. Use the normal 98 install guide from the wiki page BUT I reccomend before installing you use something like 7zip to extract ALL *.dll, *.drv, *.vxd and *.inf files from the setup CAB's then copying them to C:\windows\system\ as you will get errors otherwise. It makes the image bigger but more stable and compatible.


3. I'd install with 98lite and chubby. Best not to allow it to install all the post install updates automatically as they can bugger things up. Windows does install automatically from the UBCD so AFTER it finishes installing you can then use 98lite to remove superfluous crap.


Obviously this rather hasty post is not a guide for the casual user, but it offers a few tips for people who have experience of installing old versions of windows. Good luck, and thanks to mcobit and ingoreis for porting this great emulator.


PS. I set up my PC so I can VNC (using my netbook, not the pandora yet) into it and thought "I could run old dos games on the PC and use the pandora touchscreen as mouse". If that's correct, and possible, couldn't something similar be used to control an emulated system on the same machine (so it'd be like an extra VNC style layer that "connects" to the emulator and allows touch screen to control mouse operated software)? I haven't thought this through, so if I'm totally wrong please feel free to have a hearty laugh at my expense. Just thought I'd note it down before I forget.
 
Yeah, I'm finding that Win95 OSR2.5 and all flavours of Win98 are pretty unstable and very, very slow - I'm overclocked at 1024MHz and can see the windows being drawn... Gonna try 98Lite, but given that Win95 is no faster than win98 I don't hold out much hope that it's going to be much of an improvement. Most times I startup I get Windows memory protection errors, but a reboot usually fixes that - this is with all versions of win9x.


Has anyone managed to get 800x480 screen res in windows yet? I've tried messing around with drivers but no luck so far - even the official Cirrus display driver fails (the only one that I can find that actually works is the built-in windows driver). Might be worth hacking the qEmu source to get the emulated cirrus to run with an 800x480 display mode and modify the windows driver to suit...


D.
 
thatgui said:
You could try the "workaround" I found for MS - DOS by changig the codepage ( <=> Keyboard Layout) maybe this could be of help here
Click to expand...

I'll have a look at that over the weekend and see if I can make anyy progress with it! I kinda skipped over the DOS era of PC's entirely, was too busy messing with my Amiga A500 (and later A1200!). thanks for the help :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

V
Release wine + qemu
2
Replies
24
Views
20K
zhasha
Z
Liboicl
Release [Rebirth Competition] Caph
Replies
9
Views
2K
Liboicl
Liboicl
ingoreis
Release Radix! a 3D Action Shooter for Qemu on Pandora
Replies
3
Views
2K
Farox
Farox
ingoreis
Qemu X86 on Pandora Videos Megathread(Rebirth Cometition)
Replies
3
Views
4K
ingoreis
ingoreis
Ziz
Release [Rebirth Competition] Schwerkraft
2
Replies
20
Views
5K
Ziz
Ziz
Back
Top