Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-10-04, 11:31:

I don't really see the point of running 3.51 if you're going to use an NT4 shell. The Windows 3.x interface is probably the only reason to bother with 3.51.
Is it possible to do the opposite? Run the 3.51 shell on NT4?

It's certainly a novelty, but I also prefer the original interface in NT 3.51. If I want to use the New Shell, I just swap out the hard drive with one that has NT 4 on it.

red-ray wrote on 2021-10-04, 08:57:

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BrAlZy wrote on 2021-10-04, 07:28:

1. How would one go about creating a custom .INF file for the RC-212?
2. Also what if I was to use a Core 2 Quad motherboard with an AGP slot to be able to use the G400 MAX.

1. The Windows NT 3.51 DDK should tell you how to do this
2. Have you considered getting an AGP to PCI adapter, that said it a PCI G450 would be cheaper.
3. Which shell do you plan to use? The last time I had a 3.51 system I installed the NT4 shell as it's much easier to use.

2. Unfortunately, Matrox never released NT 3.51 drivers for cards after the G400. I tried a PCIe G550 (a variant of the G450) with the NT 3.51, but the driver didn't recognize the card. I doubt a G450 would work. My guess is that Matrox hard-coded the PCI IDs for supported cards into the driver binary.

NT 3.51 still has GDI in user space, for example.
NT 4 to XP ran GDI in kernel space, which allows buggy graphics drivers to wrack the whole system.

(On the other hand, with Vista, Windows did move it back to
user space but did also start to constantly check the driver.
If it wasn't responding the way it should, it would kill the driver. Or something like that.
That "feature" was not meant to enhance stability, no. It was meant to support the entertainment industry (DRM).
That's why "stereo mix" was gone beginning with Vista, too, I assume.)

You do need multiple CPU's if its the ultimate build.
Now if that's real life physical CPU's or cheating by windows just detecting multiple cores on a single CPU I'm flexible 😉

chinny22 wrote on 2021-10-06, 10:08:

You do need multiple CPU's if its the ultimate build.
Now if that's real life physical CPU's or cheating by windows just detecting multiple cores on a single CPU I'm flexible 😉

NT 3.51 really doesn't know the difference. It will automatically install the multiprocessor HAL for a multi-core CPU (assuming it detects the MPS version properly).

fosterwj03 wrote on 2021-10-06, 22:19:

chinny22 wrote on 2021-10-06, 10:08:

You do need multiple CPU's if its the ultimate build.
Now if that's real life physical CPU's or cheating by windows just detecting multiple cores on a single CPU I'm flexible 😉

NT 3.51 really doesn't know the difference. It will automatically install the multiprocessor HAL for a multi-core CPU (assuming it detects the MPS version properly).

That's why I'm ok with the cheat, I'm using the same method to get 4 CPU's in a Wn2k build, although that does have 2 physical CPU's so I don't feel tooo guilty

I guess that my NT 3.51 build on a Ryzen3900x with a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI, sound and LAN must be somewhere on the top of the list.