Due to the interest expressed by a number of people, I have researched the possibility of running 3D Studio R4 under Windows NT 3.51. In short, it is possible although performance and video compatibility issues remain unresolved.

This information DOES NOT represent Autodesk support for running 3DS R4 under Win NT.

Please bear in mind that this procedure has not been optimized for performance or even QA tested by Autodesk. It is presented "as is" for those of you who wish to experiment with it. Here are some of the main issues:

1. 3DS R4 runs under NT in a full screen DOS window.

2. 3DS R4 does not run in the background.

3. Switching applications freezes 3DS R4 but it picks up where it left off when you switch back.

4. Most 3DS R4 Vibrant drivers will not work since NT does not allow direct hardware access.

5. 3DS R4 displays must be configured for VGA or VESA operation.

6. VESA operation is dependent upon your graphics card configuration. Cards with VESA support in hardware will probably work. Cards requiring a separate device driver or TSR probably will not work.

7. With out VESA support you will not be able to run the 3DS R4 Materials Editor.

8. Running under NT requires that you disable the Pharlap realbreak function. It is not known what effect this will have on 3D Studio R4 performance under NT.

I can state that I have run 3DS R4, loaded files, and rendered images under NT 3.51. The performance of 3DS R4 under Win NT, on a p66 with 16 MB RAM, was about half the speed of 3DS R4 under DOS on the same machine. This was using the standard 3DS PIF file with no NT performance optimization.

If you wish to try this keep in mind that Autodesk has not tested this method, nor can solve problems encountered when running 3DS R4 under Windows NT.
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Procedure for running 3DS R4 under Win NT 3.51

1. Download the Sentinel Rainbow NT driver from this forum. The driver is available as 3DS4-NT.ZIP. Unzipping this file produces a copy of this message and a self-extracting ZIP file named RAINPORT.EXE.

2. Insert a blank, formatted, high-density diskette in drive A: and log on to drive A:. Unzip the RAINPORT.EXE file to drive A: with the command  C:RAINPORT -d  and follow the instructions for installation in the README file on drive A:. The Sentinel Rainbow drivers are self-configuring.

3. Change to the drive and directory where you have 3D Studio installed. Turn off the realbreak switch in Pharlap with the following DOS command: CFIG386 3DS.EXE -realbreak 0

4. Start 3DS R4 with the VIBCFG option and configure the displays for VGA or VESA modes. It may take some experimentation to get the right VESA modes set up even if your card supports them.

Note: If you wish to experiment with 3DS R4 under NT without affecting DOS operation, make a copy of 3DS.EXE and name it 3DSNT.EXE. In step 3, change the -realbreak setting of 3DSNT.EXE. In step 4, save the VIBCFG changes in a set file named 3DSNT.SET. Run 3DS R4 under NT by exectuting 3DSNT SET=3DSNT.SET.

5. Run 3D Studio.

Options:

I have not experimented with custom settings in the PIF file nor have I researched any other ways of implementing VESA support at the NT Command Prompt. If any of you try this please post your results here so that others may benefit.

I have also experimented with installing PHARLAP.386 in the WINNT directory and editing the SYSTEM.INI file with the line device=pharlap.386. This does not seem to have any bearing on the running 3DS R4 under Win NT.