Video driver for Windows 3.11?

I'm using a test driver version of Parallels Desktop for OS X on my MacBook Pro. For various reasons one of the OSs I want to be able to use is Windows 3.11.

I've managed to install the OS, and get the networking working through Parallels' bridged ethernet. I'm not bothered about sound, so my main remaining problem is video. At the minute all I can get to work is the Windows 3.11 default 640x480, 16 colour graphics driver. The Microsoft-supplied "SVGA" driver isn't VESA compatible and the various unofficial patches that are meant to bring VESA 1.2 compatibility to the card such as the one here don't seem to function. Higher resolutions produce an unintelligible array of red and black squares. Trying 640x480, 256 colours produces a weird fat but short display that makes me curious as to whether bank switches are working properly.

So, Parallels advertises its graphics card as VBE 3.0 compatible. Does that mean it isn't 1.2 compatible? That would explain the bank switching problems. Does it also mean that the card isn't an emulation of any real card? E.g. VMWare emulates an S3, QEMU does a Cirrus — is there any real card that the Parallels SVGA is based on? I'm thinking I might be able to get a driver for that...

 

Hello!

Virtual PC emulates

Code:

S3 86c764/765 [Trio32/64/64V+] 

and for VMware you have to use their own driver

Code:

VMware [VMware SVGA II] PCI Display Adapter

Since there is no VMware SVGA driver for Windows 3.1/3.11,
there exists a special patch by Ken Kato (based on
[http://www.japheth.de/] SVGAPatch),
which can be downloaded from here:
http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/misc.html#win31svga

I don't know, maybe Parallels's implementation of VGA card is
similar to the VMware's so the specific patch might work.

If it does not work, the you will need help from Parallels or Ken Kato ...
or wait for VMware for Mac beta (Fusion)
http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/archives/2006/10/vmwares_desktop.html

Cheers, Roman

 

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work.

 

Any update for this, It is nice to look at some of the old days of Win 3.11 and also play a few games from back in the day.

 

I am curious about this too. Any ideas for making SVGA work in Parallels?