IT... Computing....

[EdgyRabbid]

How is that background image so high quality?

[Reese Riverson]

How is that background image so high quality?

24-bit 16.7M Colors - Reese Win3x

True Color Mode

[Steo]

Yeah, and apparently with the system configuration, my physical disc copy of King's Quest VII is the original version, which normally had ran fine. Though this system reveals it's bugs quite readily, and early on. Version 2.00b that I had to get seems to be fine thus far:
Monitor_1_20251008-102535-380.png


This version also doesn't complain about the fact I'm not running in 256 color mode either.

I'm glad you got it working. I could see it was causing you a bit of a headache yesterday when it kept locking up in the same place.

It's nice to not be forced to 256 colours. It's very unpleasant to look at.

[EdgyRabbid]

How is that background image so high quality?

Monitor_1_20251008-105306-667.png
True Color Mode

Alright, makes sense!

Also good news! I’m getting a mini computer and setting up my own 3.1 machine! Can someone send me an installation guide?

[The Jonster]

Yeah I agree here. I have no idea what they were all thinking when they went to this flat style. They had it at Vista and 7. I even liked how XP looked because it seemed vibrant, but they really went backwards after 7.

Coincidentally, XP, Vista, and 7 are the OSes I have the most sentiment for. Loved Vista/7's layout. I mean i have 11 now but I have several VMS that use XP. Was trying to get a 7 Virtual Machine running last year and while it did work, the games I wanted to run on it....didn't run quite so well. Maybe I'll try again, another time.

Hey yall, do you guys have any recommendations for old XP programs I can try on Wendy (my XP machine, who I’m married to)?

I see, so you're married to everything except Hellen and Barbara, I hear ya.

[Steo]

Coincidentally, XP, Vista, and 7 are the OSes I have the most sentiment for. Loved Vista/7's layout. I mean i have 11 now but I have several VMS that use XP. Was trying to get a 7 Virtual Machine running last year and while it did work, the games I wanted to run on it....didn't run quite so well. Maybe I'll try again, another time.

Oh yeah, you were probably stuck with only software rendering there. Usually these days it's not as complicated to enable hardware acceleration on a VM at least. I should also just have an XP one for the sake of it, but I'd probably use something other than x86box for that one if so.

[EdgyRabbid]

Hey yall, do you guys have any recommendations for old XP programs I can try on Wendy (my XP machine, who I’m married to)?

I see, so you're married to everything except Hellen and Barbara, I hear ya.

Actually I’m not married to any princesses, Teensie or fairies!

But yeah, my favourite is IS XP. It’s so pretty, and it can play the sims! Best deal ever! Though I also am nostalgic for windows 8. Is it bad and ugly? Yes. But I still unironically love it for that.

[Steo]

I forgot to share mine, but my 3.1 looks like this. Obviously I had some help setting things up (given it's not as straight forward as everything just works out of the box):

The Globox image I believe is only 1280x1024, while I'm using 1600x1200. That's why it has a border around it, but it's mostly just to have something with Globox on it for now.

[EdgyRabbid]

Wait, it’s not configured out the box? Is there some settings I need to adjust once I get my machine up and running?

[Fifo]

I’ve also been messing with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in 86Box. Mine’s less exciting than Reese’s or Steo’s setups, but hey, mine is full of software.

Monitor_1_20251008-194304-845.png (10.39 KiB) Viewed 90 times

[EdgyRabbid]

Wait.. Yall running VMS? Im buying a 20$ mini PC off of craigslist to set up mine cuz I prefer it that way...

[Fifo]

Yeah, just like Steo and Reese I use 86Box

[EdgyRabbid]

Well, I think I can set up the mini pc to run windows 3.1, 95 and 98! I think there’s a way to set up multiple os’s…

Also, this is the mini pc in question. but I am getting it second hand, for only 20$!

[Reese Riverson]

I’ve also been messing with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in 86Box. Mine’s less exciting than Reese’s or Steo’s setups, but hey, mine is full of software.

Monitor_1_20251008-194304-845.png

Hey, it's still progress, and I'm sure you'll find something to do style wise later!

I ended up making a new post about my high resolution adventure for Windows 3.x:
https://reeseriverson.com/windows-3-1-h ... ion-plans/

Since I do intend to carry this over to actual hardware at some point - Wanting to do it with the latest hardware I can get official Win 3.x drivers for for that accelerated goodness.

[EdgyRabbid]

Woah! this is so cool!

I hope l'll be as good at old computers as all of you! All I can do as of now is connect old computers to the internet and give them new fire walls !

[Steo]

I’ve also been messing with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in 86Box. Mine’s less exciting than Reese’s or Steo’s setups, but hey, mine is full of software.

Monitor_1_20251008-194304-845.png

At least you were prioritising something important.

Since I do intend to carry this over to actual hardware at some point - Wanting to do it with the latest hardware I can get official Win 3.x drivers for for that accelerated goodness.

I unfortunately don't have a dinosaur to be able to run it on, but maybe some day if I'm lucky, I'll get some ancient 90s hardware that's almost as old as I am.

[Reese Riverson]

At least you were prioritising something important.

Now when Fifo gets The Acer Computer Explorer installed onto his, and modifies it to be The Fifo Computer Explorer with custom graphics, then we'll have something epic to celebrate with.

[Steo]

The Fifo Computer Explorer.

I wonder if I made the Steo Computer Explorer, would there just be so much green that it would be overwhelming and break one's brain.

[Fifo]

I may have been an influence on Steo and Fifo lately, causing them to work on their Windows 3.1 systems as well.

Haha, you sure were!

The Fifo Computer Explorer.

[Reese Riverson]

Here ya go:

So, back to this a bit... I decided to download your driver, but primarily for vidmodes.com to see what the output is. Since I cannot resize the MS-DOS prompt windows like you can, I decided to do the next best thing and let it spit out the information into a text file.

Matrox vidmodes.com - Reese Win3.x

The Matrox MGA Millennium II card in question does support 1920x1080 output, even at 24-bit color mode. However I'm not sure if the available legacy drivers from Matrox actually give that, under Windows 3.1 compared to their Windows 9x counterparts.

The card I know I can more readily acquire for a physical Windows 3.x machine that's on that driver list, is the Millennium G400 / Millennium G400 MAX, which can offer up 32MB of VRAM, even, but not exactly required for this resolution anyway since the smaller aforementioned card can as it stands. Whether the driver package for it supports anything higher than 1600x1200 is not something I can test for myself right now, as I do not have access to the GPU just yet, nor is it an option within 86Box.

Here's the way it's done in system.ini, and I did try manually changing the values here, all it does is default to a lower resolution in that mode:

Matrox Driver In system.ini - Reese Win3.x

Though, since you've got the experience with your driver, what do you think my next step is? Since this could be applicable to both the virtual and real-world machine with these cards?