RPi3 Win 3.1/95 Emulation In DOSBox?

Spiky · 13 Apr 2017, 05:37

@edmaul69 okay, thanks.

what about the way I boot Windows? is it correct?

what I do is following:
imgmount c hdd-1gb.img
boot hdd-1gb.img

but some sources state that I should do following (this makes my DOSBox freeze):
imgmount 2 hdd-1gb.img -size 512,63,64,520 -fs none (of course the values depend on disk size)
boot -l c

sorry I ask so many questions, but there is too much misleading information in guides I followed, which makes me suspicious about every step

Spiky · 13 Apr 2017, 05:39

maybe one more detail. every time I tried to run Win95, on both Pi3 and my notebook, ScanDisk found some parts of the disk being corrupted and obviously it was not able to fix it, as the same thing appeared every time.

edmaul69 · 13 Apr 2017, 05:46

@Spiky the disc corruption isnt in the disk i mentioned. All others have it. The website you probably got this from, all their discs are bad. Here is how you need to mount your file:

1gb version

imgmount 2 hdd-1gb.img -t hdd -size 512,63,64,520 -fs none 
boot -l c

You forgot the -t hdd

edmaul69 · 13 Apr 2017, 06:12

@Spiky instead of putting that info in the dosbox config file you should create a .sh file in your /roms/pc folder, give it 0777 permissions and put this info in it and use this to boot windows 95. notice i put vhd instead of .img as it is better to use a .vhd since you can mount it in windows and what we have it working with on the pi. also make it 2gb. it says 128 to reflect a 2gb partition

/opt/retropie/emulators/dosbox/bin/dosbox   -c "imgmount 2 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/NAMEOFYOUR2GbFILE.vhd  -t hdd -size 512,63,128,520 -fs none" -c "-boot -l c"

bigflyer · 18 Aug 2017, 15:54

Did anyone get further with this? (I know it's an old thread)

I had the same problem as Spiky, with Win95 just showing a black screen, unless it was in safe mode. I've just got a step further, and I can see the screen in normal mode on my Pi3 as well now !!

It's not great, but what I've done is set it to the standard VGA graphics driver (on its own, that wasn't good enough), and disabled the drivers for COM1, COM2, LPT1, Sound Blaster 16, Gameport Joystick and MPU-401 Compatible - and now it boots up and shows the screen. (I disabled the drivers in DosBox on my Windows PC and then transferred the HDD over to the Pi)

I'm now going to fiddle a bit and put it back as I want it, one step at a time, and see how far I can get before it all breaks again.

bigflyer · 18 Aug 2017, 16:26

OK - I've got the S3 Trio 64 drivers running (from here: http://dosbox95.darktraveler.com/important.html ) in 1024x768 x 16 bit colour (it doesn't seem to let me set 24 bit colour above 640x480).

So far, the performance doesn't seem that bad, to say it's emulated. Definitely not fast, but not unusable either.

Enabling the Gameport and MPU-401 drivers hasn't caused a problem either. When re-enabling the SB drivers, I get errors from the driver, but it still seems to reboot OK afterwards.

When re-enabling the COM2 driver (I didn't try COM1), Windows hangs totally (no mouse movement), so I suspect that may be the problem. As I don't actually want the COM/LPT drivers, I think I'll just leave those disabled.

So, it's looking good as far as base Win95 goes. I haven't tried any other programs on it yet. I need to work out how to get them on there, given that I can't load CDs...

NastyButtler322 · 18 Aug 2017, 16:42

I got Windows 95 to work in a Dosbox version that is not on the Pi. It was extremely difficult to set up, and it ran awful. I wouldn't bother trying to get the pi to run it. It can be done. It might even be possible to get everything working right if you give the source code a massive adjustment.

Wine might be more with trying to get running on the Pi, and seeing what your games do. I doubt it would be good.

I don't see a reason why an emulator couldn't be created for win 3.xx and 95. I wouldn't want to be the one to write that program though lol. That would a lot of work.

Spiky · 18 Aug 2018, 17:50

@edmaul69 so I got back to Pi to make Win95 work again, but it looks like every disk I download is "corrupted". would you be so kind to upload the working disk file somewhere and share with me? (I believe this is not a piracy, since it's just a empty image file) I followed what you said, but it looks like any disk file I get is corrupted.

edmaul69 · 19 Aug 2018, 05:13

@spiky win 95 image requires berry boot.

Spiky · 19 Aug 2018, 09:47

@edmaul69 you never mentioned that before. I am lost now :D

edmaul69 · 19 Aug 2018, 16:28

@spiky download the berry boot image. Write that to the sd card. Put the windows 95 pi image on a thumbdrive. Plug the usb thumbdrive into the pi and boot the pi with the berry boot image. When it asks for an image to write to the sd card choose your win 95 pi image. It will wrote the image to the sd card. You no longer need the thumbdrive after that.

edmaul69 · 19 Aug 2018, 16:30

@spiky running windows 95 in dosbox is completely useless so that method if you were trying isnt worth wasting your time. There is a windows 95 berry boot image. (Read my last post)

VictimRLSH · 30 Aug 2018, 00:16

If you want an awesome windows 3.1 game, try Fleet. It's a freeware Starfleet Battles clone that manages to get everything about the tabletop game right.

KN4THX · 30 Aug 2018, 00:18

@victimrlsh Don't forget Castle Of The Winds if it hasn't been mentioned already.

Spiky · 3 Sept 2018, 17:50

@edmaul69 I couldn't stop trying to make Win95 work in RetroPie in DOSBox and finally, it works! What helped was removing COM1, COM2, LPT1 drivers. I also installed S3 before, so I am not sure if that affected anything or not. Also, I set extra config in DOSBox machine=svga_s3,core=normal,cputype=pentium_slow - not sure if that helps either. I will have to test it around a lot, but for now I ran out of time.

BUT

I tried to run simple game (Dangerous Dave from 80s) and it crashed back to RetroPie. On next startup, ScanDisk started - I stopped it and continued to run Win95. It booted just fine. This time I tried to enter command line from Windows and it froze (I had to kill DOSBox using CTRL+F9). Any idea how to solve this?

If I manage to make this work, I will make a guide.

Spiky · 9 Jun 2018, 18:26

I managed to make things work! It looks like I finally have stable version of Windows 95 running under DOSBox on RetroPie. I tried to run few games and so far no problems. I am putting together complete guide... this will take some time.

EDIT: almost forgot to say big thanks to @bigflyer for very helpful comments and @edmaul69 for many advices

niculinux · 6 Sept 2018, 15:31

@spiky said in RPi3 Win 3.1/95 Emulation In DOSBox?:

I managed to make things work! It looks like I finally have stable version of Windows 95 running under DOSBox on RetroPie. I tried to run few games and so far no problems. I am putting together complete guide... this will take some time.

Thanks! In closin' there is also this youtube vudeo from the user channel "Sir Randall", hope may be useful:

VictimRLSH · 6 Sept 2018, 19:35

@niculinux If you get Starcraft Broodwar running, let me know, that is one of my goals. Starcraft 64 doesn't do that well (graphical glitcches). I have heard some people succeeded in getting this to run, but have yet to do it myself.

niculinux · 7 Sept 2018, 07:07

@victimrlsh said in RPi3 Win 3.1/95 Emulation In DOSBox?:

@niculinux If you get Starcraft Broodwar running, let me know, that is one of my goals. Starcraft 64 doesn't do that well (graphical glitcches). I have heard some people succeeded in getting this to run, but have yet to do it myself.

OK, sorry but i'm not a thinker guy, but here is somene manafged to run it using the stratagus engine:

Starcraft running on retropie with Stratagus engine

mitu · 7 Sept 2018, 07:24

@niculinux said in RPi3 Win 3.1/95 Emulation In DOSBox?:

OK, sorry but i'm not a thinker guy, but here is somene manafged to run it using the stratagus engine:

Stargus (the Starcraft version of the Stratagus engine) is not really up to par with the full game - AFAIK doesn't even support playing campaigns.