AutoCAD R14 on Win3.X ? \ VOGONS

AutoCAD R14 on Win3.X ?

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First post, by Gahhhrrrlic

Posted on 2018-01-30, 19:15

Gahhhrrrlic Offline

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I read the wiki and supposedly R13 was the last 3.X compatible release. However R14 was a milestone in file format compatibility. Many future versions of AutoCAD allowed saving files in the R14 format, which means you could view present day work on an old rig. I would like to do so using my 386 with DOS/Windows but is it theoretically possible to install on this system? Anyone ever tried? If it's impossible I'll just have to live with R13 I suppose. Thanks.

EDIT: After reading more on the version history, looks like R13 was a 32bit app that had to switch back and forth with the 16bit architecture of the Win3.X environment, which made for horrendous performance. I guess I'm stuck with R12 damnit.

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

Reply 1 of 5, by derSammler

Posted on 2018-01-30, 19:51

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You can try using Win32s, but R14 on a 386 won't be much fun anyway.

Reply 2 of 5, by Jo22

Posted on 2018-01-30, 20:07

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Also make sure you're having a good math co-processor installed (one that's Win 3.x "compatible").
From what I learned by using AutoSketch, using it quite makes a difference. :)

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 3 of 5, by Gahhhrrrlic

Posted on 2018-01-30, 20:20

Gahhhrrrlic Offline

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I have an AMD40DX and a ULSI at 40 but both are clocked at 33MHz because of an unanticipated hurdle with the crystal being 66MHz. I think I have the requirements to "run" R13 but it just may be unusable with anything more than a rectangle. I'm going to see if I can find upgraded ram to help out a bit. Got 8MB now but I'm reading 32 is the min to run R13. 16 might be enough to operate the program at some crude level. This is only based on experience violating minimum requirements. I ran Unreal Tournament at 133 MHz with no lag because I had a Voodoo2 card doing a lot of the work so maybe I can scrape by on 16MB ram if I have a big enough hard drive 🤣 for page swapping 🤣.

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

Reply 4 of 5, by Jo22

Posted on 2018-02-02, 11:51

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Hi. You can try to use a 486DLC-40 to get a little speed boost.
It usually has got a little 1KiB cache built-in. 😀

As for the memory requirements, don't be worried. They are for Win95.
Win3.1 has a smaller footprint than Win95, so anything with 4MiB or higher is fine for the OS itself.

Win32s is another beast, though. It requires a little bit of extra memory.
Anyway, I did read that Windows 3.1/Win32s had a 16MiB limit per application,
so that's about the maximum AutoCAD can use for the program code anyway.

If you need an enhanced version of Win32s (new shell32.dll),
have a look at "The Win32s compatibility list" on Stephan's homepage.
http://stephan.win31.de/w32slist.htm

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//