Jo22 wrote on Yesterday, 00:47:

OEM. Shipped on CD-ROM, because of "Multimedia PC" (MPC) specification.. A few pictures (no files) are here: https://winhistor […]
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sunkindly wrote on 2025-10-26, 03:14:

Was there an official physical release of Windows 3.0 MME? Or did it just come pre-installed on OEM machines?

OEM. Shipped on CD-ROM, because of "Multimedia PC" (MPC) specification..
A few pictures (no files) are here:
https://winhistory.de/more/win3.htm#win3me
https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2016/12/ … tion-early.html

I could not find a picture of an MME CD-ROM, though. Sorry. 🙁
The Tandy version was probably most common,
but there also was at least one PC-98 port for Japanese PCs.

PS: There are quite some freeware/shareware games that support Windows 3.0 MME! 😃
https://win16.page/_winmme1.htm

Ahh, that's alright! I guess this is one of those few cases where I can't get the physical media.

Thanks for the link!

I'm a little bummed though that there's no support for the Sound Blaster 1.0 with a DSP version less than 2.0...

sunkindly wrote on Yesterday, 05:58:

Thanks for the link!

I'm a little bummed though that there's no support for the Sound Blaster 1.0 with a DSP version less than 2.0...

You're welcome! :)

I assume that's because the MPC standard demanded for CD quality audio..
The Tandy PC even had that exotic Sound Blaster Pro 16, which pre-dated the SB16 a little bit.

It basically was something between an SB Pro and a real SB16,
the minimum DSP revision of an assumed Tandy OEM setup was always higher than that of an original SB, thus.
Maybe that's why Windows 3 MME didn't ship with a matching sound driver for DSP 1.x, like Windows 3.1x did the year after.

However, you can still use regular Windows 3.0 (and MME or 3.1x) with the early Creative Sound Blaster drivers any time. They support SB 1 to SB Pro.
This will work with the early Windows 3.0 games that call sndblst.dll.
Games such as RoboSport..

The fun thing is, that the old sound API can work in Windows 3 Real-Mode on an Turbo XT. 😃
We discussed this a while ago over here: Adventures with Windows 3.0

Edit: It would be interesting to know if a Sound Blaster 1.x driver from Windows 3.1 (beta maybe?) can be made work on Windows 3.0 MME.
Windows 3.0 MME is still Windows 3.0, API wise, except for the multimedia system which is new.
And Windows 3.1 uses same WaveOut API, that's why Windows 3.0 MME compatible games have sound on Windows 3.1x too.

Peter Swinkels wrote on 2025-10-18, 15:54:

For what it is worth, I remember using Windows 3.0 on my parents's 80386 SX with 2mb ram, DOS 5, 80mb hdd and VGA card around 1991 and it left a bad impression on me. Unless you must use an XT and Windows, go for Windows 3.1x and a 386 or 486.

Windows 3.1 is perfectly fine on a 286 with 4MB of RAM - that said, I haven't tested performance when using XMS via an ISA memory expansion card.

From reading this thead I am surprised there is anything it all that would work on an XT with Windows 3.0. Probably slow as hell I am guessing.

There's a large number of games that will run on a XT - see the following links:
http://win16.page/_80881.htm
http://win16.page/_v20.htm

Some of them were surprisingly performant enough to not be a slideshow on a turbo XT, though it definitely helps to use a Cirrus Logic GD5402 or ATi mach8/mach32 as those are the only V20-compatible drivers that have a noticeable performance difference compared to other VGA chipsets - I'm pretty sure Worm War was designed with a IBM 5170 or a 9.55Mhz V20 in mind as it's extremely CPU speed sensitive.

Additionally if you're using a 286 with 1MB of RAM, the following games also work in Real Mode with Win 3.0:
http://win16.page/_286rm.htm

While I haven't really dived too far into utilities, all versions of Paint Shop (and v1.0 and v1.01 of Paint Shop Pro) will run on a XT, in addition to versions of Notebook (by Mark Berlinger) up until v1.D and versions of WinEdit up until v1.2J, though Notebook requires UMB+DOSMAX to get enough conventional memory, and I believe most versions of WinEdit also need that requirement. I'll need to get back to working on win16.page after I'm done finalising a community Doom WAD to properly archive Notebook and WinEdit and a bunch of other text editors that I've checked out, but you can get Paint Shop (Pro) from the following link:
http://win16.page/_utils.htm

Jo22 wrote on Yesterday, 06:11:

Edit: It would be interesting to know if a Sound Blaster 1.x driver from Windows 3.1 (beta maybe?) can be made work on Windows 3.0 MME.
Windows 3.0 MME is still Windows 3.0, API wise, except for the multimedia system which is new.
And Windows 3.1 uses same WaveOut API, that's why Windows 3.0 MME compatible games have sound on Windows 3.1x too.

Given that most Windows 3.1 display drivers for ISA cards work fine on Windows 3.0 from my testing (and that a lot of "framebuffer" chipset 256-colour drivers are based on Video 7 which is 8088-compatible, while the 16-colour drivers are based on Microsoft's VGA driver that requires a V20), I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Windows 3.1 sound drivers will work in MME. I did have some notes regarding display driver minimum CPU requirements that worked on XTs, but for some reason I've lost or misplaced those notes. I'll have to revisit this when I get time.

I'll have to test it on my actual 386 tomorrow but in 86box I was able to use sndblst.drv from the default Windows 3.1 Sound Blaster 1.0 driver and replaced the values placed for the Sound Blaster 1.5 driver with the Windows 3.0 MME system.ini...

and can now hear sounds in 3.0 MME with a Sound Blaster 1.0 selected!

Fingers crossed for actual hardware...

sunkindly wrote on Today, 04:58:

I'll have to test it on my actual 386 tomorrow but in 86box I was able to use sndblst.drv from the default Windows 3.1 Sound Bla […]
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I'll have to test it on my actual 386 tomorrow but in 86box I was able to use sndblst.drv from the default Windows 3.1 Sound Blaster 1.0 driver and replaced the values placed for the Sound Blaster 1.5 driver with the Windows 3.0 MME system.ini...

and can now hear sounds in 3.0 MME with a Sound Blaster 1.0 selected!

Fingers crossed for actual hardware...

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I haven't figured out MIDI yet though.