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I have just a little question about the display driver capabilities of Windows 3.1.
My question is, is there any display drivers for Windows 3.1 (and maybe 3.0 too) that support 32-bit colour? In DOSBox, I can only set the S3 drivers up to 800x600x24bpp.
If there are any, can you give me any download links and tell me what emulators/computers it can run on?
UPDATE 26/12/19: You can get Windows 3.1 to run on 32-bit colour by downloading 86Box and setting it to emulate an S3 Vision964 display adapter.
By the way, I also have created a floppy diskette (it's a .FLP file) that contains the setup program. (you have to copy it to the root of the C:\ drive then run it.)
Download link: [coming soon]
Last edited by SebOno on Thu Dec 26, 2019 3:50 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Weitek P9000 does, XFree86 supports 32bpp mode - thus the hope is that Windows 3.1 should as well. Especially since drivers are called "p9000_32.drv" (while 256 color drivers are called p9000_8.drv and 64K-color drivers are p9000_16.drv). But I don't know if any enulator supports it.
There is no difference between 32-bit color and 24-bit color in the total number of colors as both can only display 2^24 (16 million) colors, so why even care?
The only reason you'd want 32bit color is for those 8 alpha layers. Which 3.1 and associated programs don't do.
In terms of actual color support, AlphaBeta answered that one.
To answer your question,
Qemu (set to VMWare video), VMWare, and VBox with some care can produce a graphics adapter that VBE supports with 32bit color.
Just don't expect the most pain-free experience.
"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off"
You will never tear me from the grasp of the Pentium M!
AlphaBeta wrote:There is no difference between 32-bit color and 24-bit color in the total number of colors as both can only display 2^24 (16 million) colors, so why even care?
Actually there is, some boards support 30bit colour, with 10bits per channel.
I believe that the Permedia family are an example of such, maybe only the Permedia 2 and Permedia 3. However, I don't know if they ever offered windows 3.1 drivers, since they were post 1995 devices.
The S3 and Vision serie of cards have Win 3.1 drivers, the Diamond S3 Vision964 ones can do even 1152x864x32bpp non-interlaced. 86Box emulates a Diamond S3 Vision964 card, both VLB and PCI, so try that.
AlphaBeta wrote:There is no difference between 32-bit color and 24-bit color in the total number of colors as both can only display 2^24 (16 million) colors, so why even care?
Actually there is, some boards support 30bit colour, with 10bits per channel.
I believe that the Permedia family are an example of such, maybe only the Permedia 2 and Permedia 3. However, I don't know if they ever offered windows 3.1 drivers, since they were post 1995 devices.
Sure, but does Windows 3.1 even support more than 8 bits per channel anyway?
