Windows 95A on Ryzen 9 - everything checks out

Operating Systems DOS/Windows 3.X/9X/ME - Retro Gaming
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Now that I convinced my AM4 motherboard to boot with VooDoo 3 PCI - I did a quick install of Windows 95A on my machine. (Ryzen 9 3900X/Biostar X470 GTA/32GB RAM/RTX2070 Super+3dfx VooDoo 3 3000 PCI/ Aureal 8820 and some 4 SSD including nvme.)

Short story long…:

0. I already had a bootable FAT16 partition with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 (must be at the beginning of the drive)

1. I installed Windows 95 upgrade. If you go with the upgrade version you can keep Win 3.11/Win95 on the same DOS partition (Win 95 will let Win 3.11 to boot with its own autoexec.bat and config.sys)

2. VooDoo 3 works in Windows 3.11 too (with Velocity drivers) - so Windows 95 setup looks nice and crisp. It takes about a minute.

voodoo3_drivers_windows_311.png



3. Restart. Error. Time to edit system.ini [386Enh] section - and add this line to limit RAM amount: MaxPhysPage=10000 (10000=256MB RAM, 20000=512)

4. Setup done. Welcome to Windows 95!

5. Emulated USB mouse is crazy! Restart to DOS. Copy lmouse.drv from Windows 3.11 to Win95/system. Overwrite file. Restart. Mouse works great now! (lmouse.drv=logitech mouse - you may want to change mouse to Logitech PS/2)

6. Time to add PCI bus manually. Windows 95 just discovered lots and lots of PCI to PCI bridges, PCI cards & co - and did this with ZERO error messages - which is quite something…

add_pci_buss_windows_95A.png



7. Control Panel - System - Devices - time to delete Standard PCI Video and install latest Win 9x VooDoo 3 drivers.

8. I can easily go online with DOS NDIS drivers from Realtek or Intel. (I have 2 gigabit cards on my machine) Before restart I have to update ndis.vxd or things will get ugly.

9. Now I’m on win-raid and everything looks good: video, audio (Aureal) & lan. I tested Quake II also. Windows 95A is rock stable so far…

win95a_ryzen3900x_voodoo3.jpg

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DOS
Win3.11
and Windows95

all on AMD Ryzen!

fantastic!

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@infuscomus

I should mention Windows 1.0 also, which is not exactly and operating system per se, but it also works fine on this machine - with BIOS emulated USB mouse and VGA support. (needs a patch for VGA)

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I have to fix AHCI problem in Windows 3.1 + 3.11. Maybe fiddle again with BIOS to add IDE support. They won t go ehanced in AHCI mode and I really want enhanced mode to use network features. I used a PCI - SATA adapter and Windows 3.11 booted in enhanced mode without any additional tuning. But I don t want to waste a PCI slot just for this.

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I don’t know if the win95/98 AHCI driver will work for windows 3.11

it might work with an inf file mod, but i’m not sure.

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@infuscomus

It looks like R. Loew AHCI will not work with even with Windows 95A, because cannot patch ESDI_506.pdr (different version than patcher is expecting) This A version is the one without FAT32 support, but on the other hand will install just fine @ 3.8 Ghz without any patches. Most likely won t have any effect in Windows 3.11 too.

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Windows for workgroups 3.11 is where it all started for me, i loved that OS on my Fujitsu ICL PCTV

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