Windows 98 guest and 16:10 or 16:9 resolutions

[joyner]

Hello everyone.

I tried to use the search for some time but since the criteria such as 16:9 and 16:10 are too common and I couldn't really think of any better search words than resolution which returned way too many pages to go through, I eventually decided to make a topic out of this.

I'm using VirtualBox 5.0.20 r106931 and don't have Guest Additions installed (since not possible for Win 98).

I have a 64-bit Windows 7 acting as the host and a 32-bit Windows 98SE as the guest.
Host has 8192 MB of RAM available and guest has 1024 MB of RAM available.

I've been trying with both BearWindows' VBEMP drivers (version 2014.02.14) and SCItech Display doctor drivers to get the Windows 98 guest operating system to have either 16:10 or 16:9 resolutions available but in both cases I'm not getting anything else than 4:3 resolutions with the maximum available being 1600*1200. And those 4:3 resolutions don't scale well at all and the guest OS window ends up with annoying scrollbars if I select a higher resolution than that of my display's (eg. set guest OS resolution to 1600*1200 when the display only supports up to 1680*1050).

Is there any way to overcome this behaviour? And if there is, how?

[towo2099]

Is there any way to overcome this behaviour?

Yes there easy is, use i vital living guest os instead a dead horse.

[michaln]

At some point you'll just have to admit to yourself that Windows 98 is almost 20 years old and trying to make it do things it wasn't meant for is just a waste of time.

Yes, with a suitable driver Windows 9x should be able to handle 16:10 and 16:9 resolutions. I don't think such a driver for VirtualBox exists though.

[mpack]

The BearWindows driver is a universal VESA driver so it should be fine as the driver choice. You just need to get VirtualBox to offer a 16:9 VESA mode.

Have you tried just dragging the window border to the appropriate ratio? Did you set a video mode hint? Did you set (in the manager) File|Preferences|Display|MaxGuestScreenSize to None?

[towo2099]

Afaik VESA does not provide 16:9 or 16:10 resolutions.

[mpack]

I don't see why it would care. It isn't as if it has physical timing constraints. It's just another display size.

[michaln]

Afaik VESA does not provide 16:9 or 16:10 resolutions.

The VBE standard does not define any 16:9 or 16:10 modes. That is largely because VESA stopped defining new modes before 16:10 showed up. There is nothing that would prevent VBE implementations from offering 16:10 or 16:9 resolutions, but it's not a requirement either.

[joyner]

Hello and thank you for the discussion and answers you all have provided.

The reason behind having to use Windows 98 is that so long a program in everyday use begins to support at least Windows XP I'm stuck with Win98. And most likely there will never be compatibility with Windows versions newer than 98.. so atleast I got that thing going for me

The BearWindows driver is a universal VESA driver so it should be fine as the driver choice. You just need to get VirtualBox to offer a 16:9 VESA mode.

Well that's the thing, the BW driver is stated to support multiple resolutions "if these resolutions are supported by your video card's BIOS" whatever that is ultimately supposed to mean. Ok, I went through the "instructions" but for the life of me couldn't make much sense out of them. Apparently it should be possible to create custom video modes with the provided software and I got so far that I got my hands on the video BIOS ROM-file..and what was I supposed to do after that? -> suddenly I felt the urge to leave the whole thing behind.

Have you tried just dragging the window border to the appropriate ratio? Did you set a video mode hint? Did you set (in the manager) File|Preferences|Display|MaxGuestScreenSize to None?

Tests I'm doing just now indicate that it is possible to go around the resolution limitation by using Scaled Mode in VirtualBox and then dragging the window borders or maximizing the window. That gives a decent outcome even if stuff (icons, text etc.) seem a bit stretched on 1920*1080 and 1680*1050 resolution displays (with Win98 guest OS desktop resolution set to 1600*1200).

So that's the workaround but I still wouldn't want to close the thread as solved just because there is a workaround and would rather seek for the truth how to actually get the 16:10 and 16:9 resolutions available for Win98 guest OS.

One thing would be great to understand that what is the thing that controls what resolutions will be available in the Win98 guest OS when you have installed the BW driver. If there are so many resolutions available with the BW driver why then all those aren't readily available to choose from in the Win98 guest OS? Why those resolutions get governed by some video BIOS (or what actually governs what resolutions will be available)?

[mpack]

Don't use scale mode. That will only confuse matters. Likewise don't concern yourself with the video BIOS.

the BW driver is stated to support multiple resolutions "if these resolutions are supported by your video card's BIOS" whatever that is ultimately supposed to mean.

It means that the driver will allow you to set these modes but it's up to you to ensure that your hardware is capable of it. In your case the "hardware" is virtual and doesn't care what size the display is, within reason - e.g. as long as it fits on the host display and you've assigned enough graphics RAM in the VM settings then you can have whatever display size you like.

I went through the "instructions" but for the life of me couldn't make much sense out of them. Apparently it should be possible to create custom video modes with the provided software

Which "provided software" are you referring to? If you are looking for some kind of hint from the BearWindows driver then don't - it doesn't care about your video mode, it only cares about what range of display sizes the "hardware" supports, which is something that the hardware tells the driver, not something that you tell the driver. To get VirtualBox to tell the driver about a specific desired size, see VBoxManage controlvm <vm> setvideomodehint.

To prevent VirtualBox or the guest filtering out sizes with the wrong aspect ratio, set the max display size parameter to None, as I already mentioned.

[michaln]

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#idm7651

[joyner]

Hey mpack and michaln, and thank you for the quick replies.

It means that the driver will allow you to set these modes but it's up to you to ensure that your hardware is capable of it. In your case the "hardware" is virtual and doesn't care what size the display is, within reason - e.g. as long as it fits on the host display and you've assigned enough graphics RAM in the VM settings then you can have whatever display size you like.

I see and now I also understand that the hardware is actually virtual (so that I won't go looking for suitable Win98 drivers for the actual hardware on my host machine).

Which "provided software" are you referring to? If you are looking for some kind of hint from the BearWindows driver then don't - it doesn't care about your video mode, it only cares about what range of display sizes the "hardware" supports, which is something that the hardware tells the driver, not something that you tell the driver.

I'm mainly referring to the files with which one is supposed to be able to create custom (video?) modes. Couldn't think of any better word to describe those files than "software".

To get VirtualBox to tell the driver about a specific desired size, see VBoxManage controlvm <vm> setvideomodehint.

All good but wasn't it so that Guest Additions don't work with Win98? (I actually tried to install GA from the virtual optical driving using the GA ISO-file but the installer does never start).

link to VBox manual - Chapter 9. Advanced topics - 9.8.1. Custom VESA resolutions

I tried to use VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "CustomVideoMode1" "aaaaxbbbbxcc" (and also VBoxManage controlvm <vm> setvideomodehint even though GA is not installed) and got greeted by two slightly different error messages:

for setvideomodehint

• C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage controlvm "Win98" setvideomodehint 1680 1050 32
  VBoxManage.exe: error: Code E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error (extended info not available)
  VBoxManage.exe: error: Context: "LockMachine(a->session, LockType_Shared)" at line 101 of file VBoxManageControlVM.cpp

for setextradata

• C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage setextradata "Win98" "CustomVideoMode1" "1680x1050x32"
  VBoxManage.exe: error: Code E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error (extended info not available)
  VBoxManage.exe: error: Context: "LockMachine(a->session, LockType_Shared)" at line 801 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp

To prevent VirtualBox or the guest filtering out sizes with the wrong aspect ration, set the max display size parameter to None, as I already mentioned.

This I already had set at the time (actually since yesterday) when I was writing the earlier reply. I didn't see any actual difference when it was initially set to "automatic".