Windows 95 Dosbox Android

[Johanne]

Thisisn't a lame misleading post about how you can actually kind of sort of play games through something like RDP or Logmein or VNC. This is actually running a few of the older Spiderweb games, on your Android.

First, this was all done on the Kindle Fire, so you're mileage may vary, but as Android hardware goes it's fairly middle of the road, nothing too cutting edge, so most higher end phones and any of the major tablets should work about as well. My recommendation is for a tablet, but if you can manage to enjoy playing on the smaller screens too, well, good on you.

2. Windows 3.11 install disk images. Dig out your closets and raid the garage, we're going old school. You'll be playing Exile on windows 3.11 on dosbox on android. I've read SciFi novels (Rainbow's End) which predicted this type of embedded recursive emulation and thought, "Why wouldn't they just use all their technology to find an easier way?" Well, the future's here, and it's just as kludgy as predicted, but in this case it works, and it works really well. There is no significant lag, stuttering, sound artifacts, or anything.

3. Prepare an empty directory to install win311 into, boot up DosBox, mount the install media in one virtual drive and you directory on the C:\ drive, keep ALL of the default drivers and settings the installer recommends, and let loose on the nostalgia because here comes the only decently stable consumer Windows system until XP hit the shelves.

4. Visit this page for links to a few necessary drivers and other useful goodies. In particular, I recommend the S3 video drivers and the SoundBlaster audio drivers. Everything else is unnecessary, but if you want to do anything else in the win 3.11 environment, I recommend Win32S for some basic 32-bit support and WinG for some basic pre-DirectX support: =9405

5. On Android you need DosBox Turbo. I tried aDosBox, which is free, but it significantly under performs compared to Turbo and was too slow to be usable. anDosBox is another choice, and their speed is probably about the same as Turbo, but it's interface is not as friendly or configurable.

7. Last, make sure your dosbox.conf is properly attuned to your win311 install. I have removed all the comment lines (for space) from my own and pasted it below as an example. It mounts an additional directory to the D:, but that is not really necessary if you don't want that. Otherwise, it allows you to easily access anything on your device. Beware though: Windows 3.11 didn't have much in the way of file protections to prevent accidental mishaps with your file structure, and it was not uncommon for poorly written programs to ruin or even delete entire disk volumes. So, some sandboxing is prudent.

LAST: You'll be tempted, as I was, to reach too far. To want the Exile remakes, Nethergate, maybe a Geneforge. Near as I can tell, it's simply impossible in 3.11 unless you want to rewrite drivers and perhaps additional work as well. They really seem to require a real version of DirectX, WinG is not enough, and that means Win95. Win95 will run, and run decently, at least on the Kindle Fire. But I spent days tracking down fixes for problems, and while the ultimate result was a usable Win95 system w/ basic DirectX 1 support (yes, version 1 only: 2 & 3 made things unstable) the result was still that Nethergate & Geneforge ran too slow to be at all playable, as in 10 second to move space, and Avernum wouldn't start at all.

Hi, so I was curious, having watched the youtube guides to installing Windows 95, I noticed that the basic software/drivers needed were DirectX, Dcom, Indeo, display and sound drivers, if I were to test/install Windows 98 or later OS do I need in theory the same kind of setup of drivers/software or do I need more based on the specific OS?

i tried alot with Dosbox and Win95/98 on my Raspberry Pi, before i switched to Android.

You definitly need some drivers specially for Windows 98+, but most games i tried

were not able to run. It is not worth the work, even because Windows runs painfully slow.

@Hotte76 thanks for the info :), I was aware that most Windows versions after Win95 (and even that) run pretty slow unless you have a beefy device (though I doubt it) and pretty much heard of Exagear and similar apps, my interest was for pure curiousity and just to see if you can actually run it, I was interested since Magic DosBox is really user-friendly compared to other apps, thanks though!

Honestly windows 95 is the way harder of the two working os in the 9x family to get up and running . 98 has a far supierior driver package and its automated unlike 95 . It was a way longer install but a much easier configure its a little slower than 95 i think but the software selection is much nicer . Daemon tools lite alone is so much better than virtual cd that its a must have. I

If you really want to using Windows98 you obviously need another DirectX than Windows95

but rest of files from the guide on Magic DosBox youtube channel is of course good for Win98. [link]

magic dosbox wont emulate audio right beyond 95 it seems . Misses the roland mpu401 on 98 and garbles the sound horribly. Disabling it doesnt help reinstalling the driver doesnt either . Dosbox turbo emulates it just fine so its not impossible but i cant for the life of me figure out wtf to do to fix it on this build

Hi. Im trying to start empire earth 1 from windows 98 lite but any windows image that works is fine. When using ready .img like w95 or w98 lite that boots into windows, then when trying to start installed Empire earth, it gives these errors: MSVCP60.DLL missing or MSVCRT.DLL; if you add them to the game folder then it says msvcrt.dll is linked to missing export NTDLL.DLL. The game folder is added on another virtual drive but that is not the problem. Is there anything that can start this game from windows via dosbox? I'm testing it for dosbox turbo later on android, the results of dosbox and turbo are the same when it comes to working or not (if diablo 2 can run on android memory-wise, EE should be ok too but the missing files..?)

then when trying to start installed Empire earth, it gives these errors: MSVCP60.DLL missing or MSVCRT.DLL; if you add them to the game folder then it says msvcrt.dll is linked to missing export NTDLL.DLL.

Empire Earth requires a DX8-compatible video card which can support 3d accellerated 1024x768x16 at the least. DOSbox doesn't emulate this. PCem doesn't emulate this*. Bochs doesn't emulate this. Qemu doesn't emulate this. Certainly, nothing at all on Android can ever hope to emulate this.

fwiw EE can run in Win7 on modern x86 PC hardware still. You can forget about running it (or any Windows 9X game) on android. Videos showing Win95 or better working on a phone are just show-offs for view revenue. It's nowhere near functional.

^ Are you mad or something? I installed EE and no it doesn't come with these DLL's. How does it work without them on Win10 then? I didn't use some preinstalled files in a folder. You may be right about the part that it's not certain if EE can work ( I have yet to see it from anyone), but I wouldn't be shutting down the opportunity so quickly if other games work. Also you generalize that no windows game can work from dosbox from android when it was proven with diablo 2 and Fallout 2 and others back 3 years ago!! There was video from 2014 with Diablo 1, Diablo 2, the game was a bit laggy but surprisingly worked. With newer phones it could work even better. To say that this is 'just some people to show off' doesnt sound you know much about windows games from dosbox but for EE it's a question.

It seems unlikely that the game's developers would ship the game without including some vital component required to get it running. It's possible that these .img files you picked up from somewhere already included the wrong versions of these DLLs, and that the game's installer subsequently did not overwrite them. That's the sort of thing that can happen when you start using packages someone else prepared.

I tried a fresh win98 SE install and as i read somewhere it gives a lot of errors but starts windows, even tho explorer also crashes, files can be browsed from Run menu. With EE from Gog the setup asks for newer version of windows. With copied folder from the installed EE from gog, it asks for the same DLL files.

I hope someone creates an appl like like Winulator something that can run these games, or through dosbox, so far this failed, EE is a great game that would be nice to see on mobile, i've seen newer 3D games working on phone or tablet even maybe EE works, there must be a way for this too.

When you said "I didn't use some preinstalled files in a folder", I assumed you were using an original Empire Earth CD. If you are using the GOG version, then there may very well be some components missing, as whoever made that package definitely did not intend if for people to use it under Win9x (hence the "newer version of Windows" message). Did you try the link that ZellSF supplied?

The amount of interest in any such program would be staggering. There are all kinds of important commercial and business apps that people would be falling over each other to get running in Android. That no such "Winulator something" exists already should indicate to you that it is unlikely any such thing will ever appear.

I am new to DOSBOX but successfully mounted an old 16-bit Day-Timer program in an effort to rebuild a database within the program -- which cannot be accessed in Win7. When I enter the programs EXE command I get the above error that program must be run under Windows. What might I be doing wrong? Thanks!

I'd really like to smack everyone who spreads the rumor that you can run old 16bit Windows programs in Dosbox WITHOUT adding more to this information...

YES, you can run old 16bit Windows programs in DOSBox BUT ONLY if you install Windows 3.x in DOSBox.

Also, it's ridiculous that we're getting so many of these questions, even though the error message is one of the few that normal human beings actually should be able to understand (; (because it's not very cryptic, like so many others). Maybe we should add a prominently placed entry in the DOSBox readme.

3a8082e126