Question about certain SVGA types as machine value

BridgeHeadland commented 11 months ago

Question

Is there any reason why there is a lot of focus on S3 and ATI when adding SVGA related machine values?

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rderooy commented 11 months ago

simple. Documentation availability, unlike say Nvidia.

BridgeHeadland commented 11 months ago

@rderooy What do you mean?

BridgeHeadland commented 11 months ago

@rderooy It took me a while to understand what you meant, and then I did some research and now understand why S3 is the standard itself. Now that people are apparently focusing the DOSBox-X times on old Windows - which are fully or partially DOS based, I'm wondering which SVGA type is perfect for 1920x1200 resolution with 32-bit, I mention it because I have an impression of the fact that the highest possible resolution for Windows XP is 1920x1200. I understand that type of machine value has not been added yet, and that several values are still experimental and unfinished. I am certainly ahead of a certain era.

rderooy commented 11 months ago

Widescreen (e.g. 16:9 or 16:10) monitors were not a thing in the 90's. Widescreen monitors did not really appear until the mid 00's, so well past the DOS era that DOSBox-X focuses on.

DOSBox-X does however support widescreen with the default S3 adapter, if you use a VBE video driver and set the "allow high definition vesa modes" option in the config file. This is mentioned on the Guides on installing Windows 9x/ME, and it allows for 1920x1080 in 32bit colour.

BridgeHeadland commented 11 months ago

@rderooy Thanks for the tip! 😊 I understand very well that DOS is DOSBox's main focus, I mentioned 1920x1200 (resolution with the most pixels, width doesn't matter) in Windows XP because since I found out that Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 could be run in MS-DOS, I figured with the era of the mentioned operating systems as part of the DOS era, although one could not usually run the PCs with these operating systems in MS-DOS mode - but still MS-DOS can technically be the host system in such cases, as long as the file system is on FAT32, as I understand it.

Torinde commented 11 months ago

XP and 2003 maybe can be installed from DOS, but they don't run in DOS. Finishing XP/2003 setup means replacing DOS with XP/2003 (OK, optionally maybe you can keep "previously installed DOS" as secondary boot option - from the XP boot menu - if you use FAT32, etc.). I don't see a reason for FAT32 to be required for XP/2003 - most probably you can format the HDD as NTFS during XP setup).

BridgeHeadland commented 11 months ago

@Torinde The last time I tried to format/convert from FAT32 to NTFS via installation/setup, it didn't work, that's basically why I've stuck to FAT32 during the installation of older Windows NTs, I've tried to format to NTFS during the installation from Windows ME to Windows 2000. During the second phase of the installation from the DOSBox shell, it doesn't seem like you can format to NTFS as an alternative, so it's just as well to settle for the FAT32 file system, better than nothing. You mentioned that WXP and WS2K3 will replace DOS. In the case of DOSBox-X, you can boot into a pre-installed Windows XP from the DOSBox-X prompt, and you can choose between Windows XP and Drive C - I haven't tried Drive C, but I expect you'll be in the same hard drive that Windows XP resides in, with the same files, only in DOS mode. You can’t run Windows XP from MS-DOS on real hardware?

Torinde commented 10 months ago

it doesn't seem like you can format to NTFS

Maybe something in the WinME to 2000 upgrade makes it necessary to keep FAT32 (to see if that's a deficiency of DOSbox-X it has to be checked on real hardware or another emulator or hypervisor). But can you create a fresh NTFS image/partition after 2000/XP is installed?

mount two IMG/VHD files before booting - first one with 2000/XP per your current process and second one freshly created/empty.
use 2000/XP Disk manager (or whatever the tool was called back then) to partition and format the second image as NTFS.
if that works - you can try also converting the main/first image from FAT32 to NTFS (but there some difficulties with that)
also, if you mount two images (second one unformatted) from the beginning (or a single image with two partitions) - when running 2000 setup from within WinME - you can try selecting as destination the second image/partition and format it as NTFS.

you can choose between Windows XP and Drive C

I'm not sure what this "Drive C" is - I assume it will boot your "old DOS" (e.g. the WinME from before you upgraded to 2000) or "old NT" (the 2000 if you did ME->2000->XP)

I wouldn't call that DOS "mode". DOS is alternative to XP/NT and XP has multi-boot menu which allows multiple operating systems to be started, depending on the choice of the user (from the same or different partitions/disks). Normally that's used to keep the capability to "go back temporarily" to a previous OS after upgrading.

You can’t run Windows XP from MS-DOS on real hardware?

Correct. Win3x/9x can be described as a DOS program called "Windows" (win.com) that provides a lot of functionality. NT/2K/XP are not DOS programs, but independent operating systems.

Also, I suggest continuing that discussion at #4396

joncampbell123 / dosbox-x