Understood.PROBLEMCHYLD wrote: ↑2020-11-16 01:59Hover works fine, it only crashes with AC97 VXD driver so I found a working WDM driver. WDMEX is not needed and the newer AC97 drivers doesn't work beyond A3.62
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PROBLEMCHYLD
- Posts: 1001
- Joined: 2013-03-22 12:55
Wdmex is perfectly fine to use, i haven't had any problems 
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TheMiningTeamYT
- Posts: 8
- Joined: 2020-12-11 03:00
I hope there's not any formatting rules I should be aware of. Oh well... 
So I'm new to this place. I made an account just because I felt it was important I bring this to the world's attention.
It seems pressing Alt+Enter twice fixes the screen corruption
Specifically, cycling into full screen, then back into normal screen fixes the corruption, and alt+enter is the easiest way to do that in absence of a GUI.
Let me explain how I found this out,
I had just installed DOSBox. I launched it and there was some screen corruption. However, I've found, at least for me, that when you go into full screen on DOSBox, it has it's own kinda blue screen corruption, so I thought it was that. The way to fix that is to go to normal mode; to press Alt+Enter; so I did, but upon me doing so I saw that actual blue screen corruption. Upon pressing it again, I saw a normal screen, no corruption, but a normal MS-DOS window.
I was shocked, so I started doing testing on a plain MS-DOS window. Indeed, after reenabling alt+enter (I followed the guide posted at the start of the thread, which involved disabling alt+enter on command prompt), I started with full-screen DOS, and then, after pressing alt+enter, I got, normal screen and a DOS-Prompt window, no corruption.
The most incredible thing, though, is it can fix EXISTING screen corruption! I opened a DOS prompt in normal size, got the expected screen corruption, then used alt+enter to go to fullscreen, then back to normal, and all was well. And, to make things better, I have also confirmed this works for other programs! (at least if you set your focus set to be a dos prompt before the corruption occurs)
I want to confirm this really works or if it's my unique situation. So, if ya'll see this, mind trying it on your '98 machine?
A video of me performing this apparent magic (command.com was set to open in windowed mode by default)
So I'm new to this place. I made an account just because I felt it was important I bring this to the world's attention.
It seems pressing Alt+Enter twice fixes the screen corruption
Specifically, cycling into full screen, then back into normal screen fixes the corruption, and alt+enter is the easiest way to do that in absence of a GUI.
Let me explain how I found this out,
I had just installed DOSBox. I launched it and there was some screen corruption. However, I've found, at least for me, that when you go into full screen on DOSBox, it has it's own kinda blue screen corruption, so I thought it was that. The way to fix that is to go to normal mode; to press Alt+Enter; so I did, but upon me doing so I saw that actual blue screen corruption. Upon pressing it again, I saw a normal screen, no corruption, but a normal MS-DOS window.
I was shocked, so I started doing testing on a plain MS-DOS window. Indeed, after reenabling alt+enter (I followed the guide posted at the start of the thread, which involved disabling alt+enter on command prompt), I started with full-screen DOS, and then, after pressing alt+enter, I got, normal screen and a DOS-Prompt window, no corruption.
The most incredible thing, though, is it can fix EXISTING screen corruption! I opened a DOS prompt in normal size, got the expected screen corruption, then used alt+enter to go to fullscreen, then back to normal, and all was well. And, to make things better, I have also confirmed this works for other programs! (at least if you set your focus set to be a dos prompt before the corruption occurs)
I want to confirm this really works or if it's my unique situation. So, if ya'll see this, mind trying it on your '98 machine?
- P1050162.JPG (4.64 MiB) Viewed 52611 times
LOL, no rules for that..TheMiningTeamYT wrote: ↑2020-12-11 03:38I hope there's not any formatting rules I should be aware of. Oh well...
As to your finding
ProblemChyld, do you still have you're VM up and running? I'll be testing it this weekend. I hope it works. Have you tried playing any DOS games without the aid of DOSBox?
I will note, you say you're firing up command.com normally (windowed). When I do that on my machine, I'm looking at garbage -- almost as though the scan lines begin and end randomly. I don't see a blank screen like you are showing in the video.
I'll test though, but have a funny feeling this *may* be specific to your hardware.
I'll test though, but have a funny feeling this *may* be specific to your hardware.
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PROBLEMCHYLD
- Posts: 1001
- Joined: 2013-03-22 12:55
I don't use dosbox but cmd.exe and command. Everything works fine.Steven W wrote: ↑2020-12-11 07:54LOL, no rules for that..TheMiningTeamYT wrote: ↑2020-12-11 03:38I hope there's not any formatting rules I should be aware of. Oh well...
As to your finding
ProblemChyld, do you still have you're VM up and running? I'll be testing it this weekend. I hope it works. Have you tried playing any DOS games without the aid of DOSBox?
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TheMiningTeamYT
- Posts: 8
- Joined: 2020-12-11 03:00
Well, I'm glad there aren't any formatting rules. 
Also, to answer your question, the graphics card in my machine is the integrated card on the AMD A6-6400K (a Radeon HD 8470D), so I wouldn't be surprised if this is specific to my hardware, or at least early 2010s AMD integrated GPUs.
(I made my Windows 98 machine out of my old computer when I upgraded to Ryzen because I couldn't get '98 VMs to work on Ryzen and I couldn't be bothered to buy a machine of the era.)
However, I will mention I was using DVI for this. You mentioned
For me it seems the corruption manifests as the screen flickering, being cropped to like 640x480 or something, and anything on the screen that doesn't change getting wiped when it flickers, resulting in a black screen. I wonder if that could cause the scanlines to get messed up on a VGA display. (Assuming you are using a VGA display)
If you don't mind, could you send a picture of what the corruption looks like on your machine at some point?
When time allows, I'll try this again using my monitor in VGA mode.
Anyway, I hope this post wasn't too rambly, and I sure hope this isn't specific to my hardware, because it's so significant, but finding that out is part of the reason I came on here.
Also, to answer your question, the graphics card in my machine is the integrated card on the AMD A6-6400K (a Radeon HD 8470D), so I wouldn't be surprised if this is specific to my hardware, or at least early 2010s AMD integrated GPUs. (I made my Windows 98 machine out of my old computer when I upgraded to Ryzen because I couldn't get '98 VMs to work on Ryzen and I couldn't be bothered to buy a machine of the era.)
However, I will mention I was using DVI for this. You mentioned
I wonder if that has something to do with at least the different appearance of it. (LCD monitor with no scanlines, and DVI interface with no scanlines.)
For me it seems the corruption manifests as the screen flickering, being cropped to like 640x480 or something, and anything on the screen that doesn't change getting wiped when it flickers, resulting in a black screen. I wonder if that could cause the scanlines to get messed up on a VGA display. (Assuming you are using a VGA display)
If you don't mind, could you send a picture of what the corruption looks like on your machine at some point?
When time allows, I'll try this again using my monitor in VGA mode.
Anyway, I hope this post wasn't too rambly, and I sure hope this isn't specific to my hardware, because it's so significant, but finding that out is part of the reason I came on here.
Wow, I'm impressed by your thinking on the issue. You're correct, I'm using VGA. Never had a video card *that I've used VBEMP 9x* with that had a digital (DVI/HDMI) output. I am using an LCD, and it just occurred to me that I've had to toss the one I was using when I figured this out (it finally died on me) and am using another -- Hopefully, it will still show the same way.
Anyhow, what you think is going on (or something very close to it) would explain pretty much everything. The end-result would manifest differently through DVI and VGA - given that VGA is *ultimately* analog. The end-result is messier on analog just because it does affect things H-sync, V-sync, timing, etc. I did notice that HUGE mouse pointer coming through somewhat sporadically in your video before you pressed ALT+Enter the first time. That's very astute thinking.
I will try to set this up tomorrow and will try to get video, but it *may* have to be a still shot.
Anyhow, what you think is going on (or something very close to it) would explain pretty much everything. The end-result would manifest differently through DVI and VGA - given that VGA is *ultimately* analog. The end-result is messier on analog just because it does affect things H-sync, V-sync, timing, etc. I did notice that HUGE mouse pointer coming through somewhat sporadically in your video before you pressed ALT+Enter the first time. That's very astute thinking.
I will try to set this up tomorrow and will try to get video, but it *may* have to be a still shot.
You're making me think...
I had done some reading when trying to find a solution for this. I don't profess to completely understand all of it, but Windows (at least 9x) uses a virtual display device to show the command prompt. There must be some facility in a proper video driver that plays nice with that virtual display. Perhaps VBEMP 9x gets confused and thinks that the virtual display device (or maybe just it's resolution) is what it should be using. I'd suspect that resolution is probably more along the lines of 320x240 (whatever DOS used natively).
Now you have me wondering if there could be some way of modding what that VDD uses.
Oh yeah, if you wanna see rambly, look at some of the stuff I write...
I had done some reading when trying to find a solution for this. I don't profess to completely understand all of it, but Windows (at least 9x) uses a virtual display device to show the command prompt. There must be some facility in a proper video driver that plays nice with that virtual display. Perhaps VBEMP 9x gets confused and thinks that the virtual display device (or maybe just it's resolution) is what it should be using. I'd suspect that resolution is probably more along the lines of 320x240 (whatever DOS used natively).
Now you have me wondering if there could be some way of modding what that VDD uses.
Oh yeah, if you wanna see rambly, look at some of the stuff I write...