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    RPi3 Win 3.1/95 Emulation In DOSBox?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General Discussion and Gaming
    scummvmresidualvmdoswindows
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    • B
      bigflyer
      last edited by

      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.

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      • B
        bigflyer
        last edited by

        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...

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        • NastyButtler322N
          NastyButtler322
          last edited by

          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.

          Wazzz up

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          • S
            Spiky @edmaul69
            last edited by Spiky

            @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.

            edmaul69E 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • edmaul69E
              edmaul69 @Spiky
              last edited by

              @spiky win 95 image requires berry boot.

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              • S
                Spiky @edmaul69
                last edited by

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

                edmaul69E 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • edmaul69E
                  edmaul69 @Spiky
                  last edited by

                  @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.

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                  • edmaul69E
                    edmaul69 @Spiky
                    last edited by

                    @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)

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                    • V
                      VictimRLSH
                      last edited by

                      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.

                      System Config: Retropie 4.4 with full desktop, RPi 3B, 256gb SD, 5v 2.1A 5,200 mAH USB battery. EasyMSX controller mounted with Pimoroni Hyperpixel 4 (non touch). Also running 4.6 on a 4gb Pi 4 serving as my primary desktop computer now.

                      KN4THXK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • KN4THXK
                        KN4THX @VictimRLSH
                        last edited by

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

                        "If you're gonna play the Game Boy, You gotta learn to play it right" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYLGl92ETNQ

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                        • S
                          Spiky @edmaul69
                          last edited by

                          @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.

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                          • S
                            Spiky
                            last edited by Spiky

                            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

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                            • N
                              niculinux @Spiky
                              last edited by

                              @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:

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                              • V
                                VictimRLSH @niculinux
                                last edited by

                                @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.

                                System Config: Retropie 4.4 with full desktop, RPi 3B, 256gb SD, 5v 2.1A 5,200 mAH USB battery. EasyMSX controller mounted with Pimoroni Hyperpixel 4 (non touch). Also running 4.6 on a 4gb Pi 4 serving as my primary desktop computer now.

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                                • N
                                  niculinux @VictimRLSH
                                  last edited by

                                  @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

                                  mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • mituM
                                    mitu Global Moderator @niculinux
                                    last edited by

                                    @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.

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                                    • V
                                      VictimRLSH
                                      last edited by VictimRLSH

                                      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?

                                      System Config: Retropie 4.4 with full desktop, RPi 3B, 256gb SD, 5v 2.1A 5,200 mAH USB battery. EasyMSX controller mounted with Pimoroni Hyperpixel 4 (non touch). Also running 4.6 on a 4gb Pi 4 serving as my primary desktop computer now.

                                      hooperreH 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • hooperreH
                                        hooperre @VictimRLSH
                                        last edited by

                                        @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.

                                        4B ~ RPi PSU 5.1V / 3.0A ~ 32GB SanDisk microSD ~ 128GB USB

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                                        • V
                                          VictimRLSH @hooperre
                                          last edited by

                                          @hooperre Worth the $30?

                                          System Config: Retropie 4.4 with full desktop, RPi 3B, 256gb SD, 5v 2.1A 5,200 mAH USB battery. EasyMSX controller mounted with Pimoroni Hyperpixel 4 (non touch). Also running 4.6 on a 4gb Pi 4 serving as my primary desktop computer now.

                                          hooperreH 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • hooperreH
                                            hooperre @VictimRLSH
                                            last edited by hooperre

                                            @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.

                                            4B ~ RPi PSU 5.1V / 3.0A ~ 32GB SanDisk microSD ~ 128GB USB

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