3D Studio DOS & Win95

Tip by Alex Kiriako

As Rob Oudendijk notes in his article on pages 20-21 in 3DA#21, you can run 3D Studio DOS and your Windows programs simultaneously under Windows 95. You need a minimum of 16Mb RAM. See your 3DSr3 or r4 Installation Guide for a chapter on running 3D Studio under Windows 3.1. Most of what you need is there, except for some minor variations for Win95 as follows.
___ First copy the pharlap.386 file from your 3DS directory to your Windows 95 directory. Next, open your system.ini file in the same directory, go to the [386Enh] section, and enter a new line:

   device=pharlap.386

In Windows 95 Explorer, go to your 3DS directory and select 3dshell.com, then bring up File/Properties. Select the Memory options and make sure everything is set to Auto with one exception: set XMS memory to a specific high value (at least 8,192 bytes). Also make sure that Protected Mode and Uses HMA are both checked. Go to Screen options and check Full-Screen.
___ Close the Properties dialog, double-click on 3dshell.com, and 3DS should launch normally. 3DSr4 runs fine under Win95. With enough memory you should be able to switch back and forth easily between 3DS and your favorite Windows programs, but you won't get multitasking.

Editor's note: We presume that these instructions work for all versions of Windows 95 and 98, however, we have not heard from anyone successfully running 3DS for DOS under Windows NT4 or 2000.

Revised: 21 Aug 00
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