Win 3.1 via DOSBox at native resolution

[urjaman]

I feel like a gravedigger posting to a 6 days old thread

Thanks for making this possible goes to:
* DosBox
* Microsoft
* OpenPandora Ltd
* S3 Graphics
* The Interactive Disassembler
* Ghex2
(and my hacking...)

EDIT: Here's the current as of 1.1.2011 download list for this;
- S3 driver patch: http://urjaman.dy.fi/w31s3patcher.pnd
- Altered MOUSE.DRV: http://urjaman.dy.fi/MOUSE.DRV
- Winbox r2: http://urjaman.dy.fi/winbox_r2.pnd
Read the thread for the whole story and instructions and/or see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnCiV0QBJE0

 

[SomeGuy99]

I would very much like to know how you extended the resolution there B)

 

[WizardStan]

Am I to understand that you are currently running Win3.1 in a DosBox? Nice How's it working? Fairly smooth, or does even minesweeper drag on?
Got any of the more complex Win3.1 games you can try out? Myst? KQ6?

 

[SomeGuy99]

Am I to understand that you are currently running Win3.1 in a DosBox?

Did you not notice it's running at 800x480?!

 

[WizardStan]

Am I to understand that you are currently running Win3.1 in a DosBox?

Did you not notice it's running at 800x480?!

Yes, and?

 

[urjaman]

I would very much like to know how you extended the resolution there B)

I succeeded in modifying the S3 Trio64V+ drivers (dosbox is emulating svga_s3, as by default) to only draw on (and represent to windows) 480pixels of the 600 in 800x600 mode. Then i hacked dosbox to think that 800x600 = 800x480. I'm now going to try to modify the modeline in the drivers but it's more complex, takes a bit of time, so no dosbox mod would be needed.

When in 256 colours mode window operations (i have no games on it, yet*) feel ... not 100% smooth, but you're not left waiting much.
I tried 32K colours too, it was awful.

It's propably illegal to distribute a modified S3 driver, but I might make it available as a binary patch(er) of some sort after it's finished.

* I plan on running Stars! 1.0 sometime soon... doesnt need much, so not much of a benchmark.

 

[Prometheus]

If you happen to try it, can you mention how SkiFree runs? :lol: (It's available from its author's website.)

 

[urjaman]

If you happen to try it, can you mention how SkiFree runs? :lol: (It's available from its author's website.)

Oh woah
SkiFree feels fullspeed when you're not in the air. I feel like it lags a bit when jumping, or when there's a lot of stuff going on.
This was in a original sized window (about 600x480?). When fullscreened to 800x480, its very visibly laggy.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Am I to understand that you are currently running Win3.1 in a DosBox?

Did you not notice it's running at 800x480?!

Yes, and?

I thought it was the most interesting thing about the screenshot.

 

[urjaman]

Am I to understand that you are currently running Win3.1 in a DosBox?

Did you not notice it's running at 800x480?!

Yes, and?

I thought it was the most interesting thing about the screenshot.

So did I. It's really not trivial to do

 

[WizardStan]

I thought it was the most interesting thing about the screenshot.

One step at a time. I was still in the process of confirming that he had actually gotten it running reasonably well before asking about screen resolutions and stuff.

 

[urjaman]

One step at a time. I was still in the process of confirming that he had actually gotten it running reasonably well before asking about screen resolutions and stuff.

I think that was already established before first mp pandoras were shipped - that W3.1 runs office-like-well - there was a thread about it back then IIRC.
BUT it was 640x480 (though with 256+ colours thanks to the S3 drivers).

Now I'm feeling like I've hijacked this thread. My point was just to show "hey folks i can do this" and do the talk later/create a thread when this driver mod is ready...

 

[mali]

Cool stuff, urjaman

 

[SomeGuy99]

I thought it was the most interesting thing about the screenshot.

One step at a time. I was still in the process of confirming that he had actually gotten it running reasonably well before asking about screen resolutions and stuff.

Ah sorry. You see, I already tested Win3.1 in Dosbox... it was in a video some time back, so I assumed everybody knew it ran.

 

[WizardStan]

Ah sorry. You see, I already tested Win3.1 in Dosbox... it was in a video some time back, so I assumed everybody knew it ran.

Ah, sorry. I haven't been able to watch all the videos as they come out. Good work then
Have YOU been able to do any more complex tests then? Something like Myst or KQ6?

 

[jdbye]

800x480, nice. I'm not especially fond of win3.1, but good work

 

[MonkeyChops]

Ah sorry. You see, I already tested Win3.1 in Dosbox... it was in a video some time back, so I assumed everybody knew it ran.

Ah, sorry. I haven't been able to watch all the videos as they come out. Good work then
Have YOU been able to do any more complex tests then? Something like Myst or KQ6?

a bit off topic and you probably already know but kq6 runs great in dosbox without 3.1, I'm playing it now.

funny how everyone seems to hate 3.1, I liked it when it came out. Its 95 and 98 that captures my hatred.

 

[WizardStan]

a bit off topic and you probably already know but kq6 runs great in dosbox without 3.1, I'm playing it now.

The windows version of KQ6 had some enhanced graphics over the DOS version. Even the on the CD version.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Does Sim City work? That would be great at full resolution.

I actually don't have my Pandora at the moment (on recall).

 

[urjaman]

Ok, after a lot of debugging*, I've finished my work on the driver.
The sad thing is that I can't make it work on a current standard unmodified dosbox, because there is no 800x480 mode in dosboxs VESA mode database.
I changed the driver to set VESA mode 0x22E (if somebody is interested) that should be 800x480x8 in atleast one real hardware implementation (EpiaSP).
I'll propably submit this mode for inclusion to dosbox, write a small C program that knows how to patch the S3TRIO.DRV, a diff on the oemsetup.inf
(to make it look genuine ) and a shell script to pull it all together; 1. wget original driver zip 2. unzip 3. modify S3TRIO.DRV, 4. patch oemsetup.inf.
- maybe I should .pnd a modified dosbox + driver modifier + a W3.1 optimized dosbox.conf?


*Where the f*** are these register writes coming from!?!?!??!?!? ....
VESA Mode setting call was used (handled by dosbox in C) => There was nothing useful (single iret) at CS:IP when the IO operation was done