Black block in win 3.1 games \ VOGONS

Black block in win 3.1 games

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First post, by Disthron

Posted on 2008-09-29, 23:47

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Hello

I've just gone through the guid to installing windows 3.11 in DOSBox and everything seemed to work fine. Windows, sound, video. That is until I tried running some DOS games through win3.1.

They seem to work fine except in the lower right side of the screen there is a large black block that obscures the screen. In 2D games like Xargon and War Craft 2 it is solid but in 3D games like Realms of the Haunting and Duke Nukem 3D it flickers very rapidly. Everything else seems to work fine though.

I'm running DOSBox 0.72.
I used all the drivers in the Windows 3.1x on Dosbox guide exept the WinG and win32 ones.
Windows 3.1x DOSBox Guide

I'm using the s3 video drivers on 800x600 256 colors LF
I've tryd different versions of the drivers but they all seem to do the same thing.

I'm running an Intel Pentium 3.20GHz
With 3GBs of RAM
A Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT
Windows XP operating system

Any help would be appreciated.

Reply 1 of 14, by DosFreak

Posted on 2008-09-30, 01:50

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Running DOS games in Windows 3.1 in DOSBox is not supported.

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Make your games work offline

Reply 2 of 14, by valnar

Posted on 2008-09-30, 03:23

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In addition to what DOSFreak said, why would you want to? DOSBox is not a full PC emulator. Are you expecting a DOS game to behave better than running it in straight DOS? Is there a particular DOS game that runs better under Windows 3.1 on a real PC?

(These should be rhetorical questions)

Reply 3 of 14, by Disthron

Posted on 2008-09-30, 10:25

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Ummm.... I guess I thought that becouse windows 3.11 was a wrapper for DOS that it should work. I wonted to use win3.11 as a sort of visual front end for running my DOS programs.

Reply 4 of 14, by wd

Posted on 2008-09-30, 12:17

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Bad luck then. Use a real frontend for dosbox.

Reply 5 of 14, by valnar

Posted on 2008-09-30, 12:48

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If you want a menu in DOS, I used a program called QuikMenu back in the day. It was the best DOS menu program around IMO, and I researched quite a few then. I registered it last decade, but I'm not sure if the company is still issuing serial numbers.

Reply 6 of 14, by Disthron

Posted on 2008-10-01, 11:36

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Too bad I couldn't use win3.11. The geek in me thinks that would have been cool. You know, like simulating an actual machine from back in the day.

Oh, well. Thanks for the tip valnar, I'll see if I can find a copy but I won't hold my breath. 😀

Reply 7 of 14, by DosFreak

Posted on 2008-10-01, 11:39

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We are emulating an actual machine from back in the day.....which is why you run DOS games in DOS and not in WINDOWS.

We can't fix Windows. Go ask Microsoft what they think about you running DOS games in Windows 3.1 and see what they have to say.

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Reply 8 of 14, by Disthron

Posted on 2008-10-07, 02:03

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That sounds like a good idea. But isn't win3.11 just a program running within DOS?

Reply 9 of 14, by leileilol

Posted on 2008-10-07, 04:40

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valnar wrote:

but I'm not sure if the company is still issuing serial numbers.

They still sell version 4.

long live PCem

Reply 10 of 14, by wd

Posted on 2008-10-07, 06:19

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But isn't win3.11 just a program running within DOS?

It has a lot of parts that take over functionality. If you need full win3x support
then use some virtual machine stuff.

Reply 11 of 14, by valnar

Posted on 2008-10-07, 16:33

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leileilol wrote:
valnar wrote:

but I'm not sure if the company is still issuing serial numbers.

They still sell version 4.

'Not sure that works in DOS though. 😦

Reply 12 of 14, by Jorpho

Posted on 2008-10-09, 05:27

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A quick search turns up a nice selection of GUIs at the DR-DOS wiki. I kind of doubt that any of them are really all that great for actually running DOS programs directly, though - most such menu programs took up valuable conventional memory.

Reply 13 of 14, by Dominus

Posted on 2008-10-09, 09:51

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at least with dosbox you have not to worry that much about conventional memory 😀
I am using a menu program that I had licensed ages ago and it fares well even with memory picky games like ultima7.

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 14 of 14, by valnar

Posted on 2008-10-09, 12:29

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Dominus wrote:
at least with dosbox you have not to worry that much about conventional memory 😀

Yah, it's one of the major faults of DOSBox. Optimizing conventional memory was half the fun. 😁

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