RPi3 Win 3.1/95 Emulation In DOSBox?

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.

VictimRLSH · 9 Jul 2018, 21:58

I joined a Windows archival site, and am currently downloading a win 95 install, we'll see how this goes. I might also install 3.1 just to play Fleet.

Edit: It looks like this is a pretty complicated undertaking. I'm still going to try, but it seems there might be easier ways. Exagear + Wine in particular. The devs of Exagear claim it can run Starcraft on the pi under Wine, has anyone here got this to work before I drop $30 on Exagear?

hooperre · 13 Sept 2018, 21:30

@victimrlsh I was able to get Neverwinter Nights running on Exagear on the Pi. Haven't done a whole lot with it since. It ran poorly, but it ran. I had trouble installing Age of Empires Gold.

VictimRLSH · 14 Sept 2018, 02:39

@hooperre Worth the $30?

hooperre · 17 Sept 2018, 22:42

@victimrlsh Depends on what you're going for. I would say no. Carmen Sandiego for PC (Win 95) didn't work also I just remembered... Idk just seems too rudimentary at this point.

Edit: But I was like... will it run NWN!? Which it does, so at least I have it to play it even though it was just re-released on Steam. Haha.

VictimRLSH · 25 Sept 2018, 14:17

@hooperre I got Starcraft running with Exagear and WIne, and it ran poorly until I edited the Wine registry and increased graphics memory to 128mb, after which it actually ran fairly well. You can also load the experimental OpenGL drivers and put that in the registry, but after that Emulation Station won't load until you go back into retropie-config from the command line and turn the drivers off. The change in graphics memory created a dramatic improvement, the driver choice was negligible, best to leave it off.

BiZzAr721 · 26 Sept 2018, 14:28

@VictimRLSH I tried the exagear demo on a "sandbox build" image of my regular gaming build. It did work fairly well, but it seemed like the install was too deep rooted into the system (just try fully uninstalling vs you'll see what I mean). I ultimately decided to not purchase it mainly because of their business model. Doing some research, It's closed source, which is okay if they were really vested into maintaining exagear, but the number one thing is the liscence is tied to the specific Raspberry pi you register it on - so when your board dies or you upgrade from 3b to 3b+ you must purchase a new liscence.

If the license was, let's say, $5 it may justify that bussiness model. It's a shame, they have something that would otherwise be huge.

I've been using a custom compiled wine through raspian to play Diablo 1, Diablo 2 with Lod expansion, & Starcraft Brood Wars. (Bonus - net play co-op) Unfortunatly, it required someone to compile the game..exe for arm but maybe with enough support they can get wine fully implemented to work just like exagear.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/18985/diablo-ii-and-other-games-on-retropie/14

Edit
Reply on that thread if you go ahead and I will help you set it up