Windows 9x Notes

The OHRRPGCE went through various stages of support for MS-DOS-based versions of Windows: Windows 95, 98 and ME, known as Windows 9x. But there are a few differences.

Tough Girl Gina (from 2020) on Windows 98

Compatibility history

Plain DOS support got terminated with the last Quickbasic release, hasta-la-qb+ in 2006. Windows 9x supported all OHRRPGCE versions up to Beelzebufo (2013) by default. Its successor Callipygous (2016) works only with KernelEx installed and enabled. The next two versions Dwimmercrafty (2017) and Etheldreme (2018) make use of the "localtime64" function, which Windows 9x computers didn't have, so no support there. However a couple of discussions led to the conclusion, that Windows 95 support could be reinitiated by a handful of adjustments, which actually got incorporated in the Fufluns release from 2020. Then the backend switch to SDL2 happened in 2021 with Hróðvitnir, which cut off the support for 9x again. In 2024, the Ichorescent release surprisingly contained an alternative, that still uses SDL1, thus restoring compatibility with Windows 95 systems again. It contains the suffix -win95 in its release name (e.g. ohrrpgce-win-2024-10-28-ichorescent-win95.zip, can be found in the archive list).

Games from incompatible eras of the OHR could be brought back to life through simply opening them with one of the 9x-compatible versions of Game.exe, that is newer than the game.

Test Game

The Test Game (live previewing) option in Custom is not supported.

Trouble-shooting

HSpeak

HSpeak runs on Windows 98 but will only run on later releases of Windows 95 (OSR2 with USB Supplement? Requires Kernel32.dll version 4.3.0.1212, dated 23 October 1996, to have the "ConvertThreadToFiber" function). Also, on Windows 98 you might have various problems if you manually run it from a Command Prompt, but it should work fine when run automatically by Custom.

Also, HSpeak is extremely slow on Windows 98 and especially on Windows 95 for unknown reasons, 20 to 30 times slower than Windows XP on the same machine, e.g. 275 seconds vs 10 seconds on a Celeron from 1999.

Stuck keys when spawning programs

On Windows 9x you will see more temporary Command Prompt windows popping up momentarily than on other Windows versions when using certain editors like the Distribute Game menu. Sometimes a key (especially Enter) will get stuck when this happens. Press the key again to unstick it.

MS-DOS mode troubles

A misconfigured COMMAND.PIF can make HSpeak ask for activating it in MS-DOS mode only. This doesn't make any sense, your scripts won't compile at all and it can alter AUTOEXEC.BAT in a fatal way, resulting in an infinite restarting loop (which can be undone by booting in Safe Mode and changing it back to default). To avoid that, right click on C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.PIF, select "Properties", section "Program", button "Extended..." and deselect "MS-DOS mode".

Dealing with crashes

The CrashRpt crash reporter (new in Fufluns) doesn't work on Windows 9x, so you will have to report them manually.

Internet Access

The OHRRPGCE community websites can be looked at with old computers, too. As of 2019, Castleparadox and this OHR wiki are simple HTTP websites, but Slimesalad, the current OHRRPGCE forum, needs a newer browser with modern HTTPS (TLS v1.2) support.
New developments have brought Retrozilla to life, an updated Firefox 2.0 with TLS 1.2 support, working on Windows 95 and Windows 98 out of the box. In terms of performance, it is superior to the old Opera 12.02 option on Windows 98 (which required KernelEx) and the Dillo for DOS option on Windows 95.