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i was able to run Oblivion on Windows 98 + SP2.1 + KUP. to run this game is necessary to use Kernel Update Project (KUP) the game is very buggy, so it is hard to find what is causing errors i encountered. all i know is that you need to raise "Files" and "buffers" in your Config sys to maximum - then some bugs (mostly with sound) were supressed greatly, althought they didnt vanish completely. Maybe there is cause limit of windows 98 and limitless (or less limited) values for wXP config sys: files=255 buffers=99,8 Also i was able to run another wXP game - Prey. there were no serious bugs.

thanks a lot for good news, but there are some bad news. as long i know i was unable to get older kerio version. the new one is not compatible with windows 9x.

Ati Driver is little bit sensible. if the CPU-AGP driver is missing, of if bios is not correctly set you may get error in DXdiag "AGP texture acceleration not supported" This issue may cause that game shall not run Reasons Bios settings - set AGP aperture size at size of your video ram. not less, not more. Enable all AGP functions, including fast writes. Driver - as long i know Omega drivers are not so good in Windows 9x as they are at win2k or in higher systems. I have heard about issues with fast writes. Some friend of mine adviced to disable them in bios and get best AGP speed. I have motherboard based on Via Apollo Pro chipset (AGP 4x). I installed manually from TEMP directory VIA AGP port driver version 2.0/3.0 - both 9x version and 2k version were working without any measurable differences or issues. (default driver was giving less performance, especially if working with video renderers.) Driver is from ATI - not the latest one - i use version wme-7-99-98-1-040712a-016504e (year 2004) with ATI Radeon 9800 pro. Fast writes enabled, AGP 4x. If the issue with AGP texture acceleration in DXdiag try to set SmartGart to pci speed (1x), restart system. Then set it on 2X and restart again, and do this all time until you reach the maximum speed. Check AGP texture acceleration at each reboot in DX diag. it should work at 2x and higher. If not try to diagnose an issue in system BIOS or try different driver. to Benoit-Ren: my source for this is Wikipedia... As long i know there was interest to create one driver standard usable for Server and for Client computer systems with MS OS (NT and w95 drivers were not compatible as i know). Windows 98 and 2000 are able to use same drivers based on WDM standards (i have tested it with various drivers developed directly for windows 2000), but windows 98 keeps its reverse compatibility with VXD.

I heard many rumors how are windows 98 not safe, just because of FAT32, but as long i know many of them are just gossip. If somebody enters the system and he wants to get acess to files (lets say we have numbers of credit cards here) he may be able to broke throught firewalls, and other security, how much time shall take if he want to read files from NTFS or from FAT32? how to protect them more? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98 read the article "Advantages and disadvantages" where is written about FAT32 and NTFS safety. I started that article few weeks ago, but now i suspect that there is a lot of bulls*** (sorry for that word) if we are speaking about security under NTFS and FAT32. Personally i use nonstandard system folder. lets say "C:\sys". how to use system without paths in config sys, or with hidden system folder (i experienced some errors).

What if i need public IP adress and opened port? (gaming, data transfers, or for other purposes). How can i avoid a hacker to track it and enter the system which could contain valuable data?

This is from Wikipedia Discussion: * In 2006, Check Point and Microsoft conspired to eliminate support for the Windows 98 operating system, leaving 40% of the world's computer users vulnerable to a massive internet attack allowing Windows 98 users' computers to be comprised, resulting in large scale identity theft and denial of service attacks on all internet conected computers. It was felt at the time that Microsoft was attempting to force Windows 98 users to upgrade to the soon to be released Vista operating system. * In 2007, Senator Joe Lieberman, head of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee was contacted and told of the severe threat to the internet and internet users computers that the Microsoft - Check Point failure to protect Windows 98 systems meant. Due to Check Point being an Israeli company, Senator Lieberman refused to take-up the matter. *End of Citation* As is well known support including security patches for Windows 9x systems has over few months ago. Many companies use the system because they cannot afford to change it but it brings to them some security threaths. There are antiviruses, there are firewalls and spyware detectors, but question is for how long the software developers will be able to keep their software widely compatible with all MS systems old and new... I want to ask some people here if there is possibility to make windows 98 so safe (or more safer) as new systems by creating system module/application able to download and use some kind of updates, as WXP do...

VIA CPU to AGP Driver bug In Via hyperion pack is also listed driver which handle communication between processor and graphics slot. Installer in windows 9x is copying default version of this driver which is originally developed for AGP 1.0 slot. Look closer at Cpu to AGP controller in your device manager and try to reinstall driver - choose driver manually and take a look at (not only compatible but) all drivers this type which are installed in system. You shall find driver listed as "Cpu to AGP 2.0/3.0" If your system has AGP 4x or higher bus install this driver, even when windows shall display error message that that driver is not compatible with your hardware. Some issues that have been fixed and some system improvements by this: - system was unable to play FLV video and display TV tuner output throught same renderer at the same time - VMR9 performance improved - 3d performance improved (not measurable by 3d mark but visible in game Prey)

Cole2k's Codec Pack for Windows 98 SE + ME: http://www.cole2k.net/?display=Codec-Pack-Standard I helped Cole to keep his pack fully compatible with Windows 98 SE + ME, and all bugs from previous versions have been identified and removed. This pack can decode most video formats without conflicts in registry entries. The only problem is with WMV which cannot be smoothly played, to solve this problem Windows Media Player 9 (WMP9) has to be installed: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...player/9series/ Full list of included codecs is listed in Cole's web page: http://www.cole2k.net/?display=Codec-Pack-Standard This Codec Pack can cooperate with all video players. I have tested Mplayer2, WMP9, MPC by Gabest and MDVDP. Known issues: - It is necessary to install WMP9 to play WMV files correctly. - Sometimes problems with AC3 sound. To fix install standalone AC3 Filter: http://www.ac3filter.net/ - After installation or uninstallation do a manual reboot, or some minor errors may occur. - When using VobSub for subtitles always keep in Output settings in FFD "Overlay" checked or video shall not play. Enjoy Technical information: Codec pack has been tested on Windows 98SE + SP2 + KUP. If you are using Windows 9x based system of different specification report all issues here.

So i finished examinations of memory problems with windows 98. My settings are recomended for systems which are using large ram, applications for Windows XP, older Ultima online clients or TV tuners, and also trying to use Dos apps in Real Dos Mode. If you are not trying to use newest applications you should better use settings recomended by MDGX. These settings have been also inspired by his web page so mostly thank to him Autoexec.bat: @echo off @CTTY NUL ;Ramdisk tweak - i have 1,5 gb of ram c:\dos\xmsdsk\xmsdsk.exe 524288 j: /c1 /t /y C:\dos\COMMAND\label j: scorpion ;cd, mouse c:\dos\shsucdx.com /d:AADVARK /Q /l:f c:\dos\cmouse\ctmouse.exe ;sound SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4 lh C:\dos\CFG801 lh C:\dos\DOS801 ;localized keyboard (slovak) mode con codepage prepare=((852) C:\dos\COMMAND\ega.cpi) mode con codepage select=852 keyb sl,,C:\os\COMMAND\keybrd2.sys ;Dos network and internet support lh c:\dos\lsl lh c:\dos\pciodi lh c:\dos\ipxodi lh c:\dos\tcpip lh C:\ARACHNE\SYSTEM\PKTDRVRS\PCIPKT 0x60 ;umbfill c:\dos\umbpci\umbfill.com CTTY CON Config.sys SWITCHES=/F /E DOS=HIGH,UMB,NOAUTO ;following section looks weird but it has improved 3d performance FILEShigh=196 FILES=196 BUFFERShigh=22,0 BUFFERS=22,0 LASTDRIVEhigh=z LASTDRIVE=z FCBShigh=1,0 FCBS=1,0 STACKShigh=0,0 STACKS=0,0 ;end of weird section DEVICE=c:\dos\himem.sys /numhandles=128 /hmain=64 device=c:\dos\umbpci\umbpci.sys SET PATH=C:\os;C:\os\COMMAND;c:\vc;C:\os\SYSTEM;C:\DOS; DEVICEhigh=c:\dos\qcdrom.sys /D:AADVARK SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /E:1280 /L:160 /U:160 /P /F ACCDATE=C- D- E- F- DEVICEhigh=C:\dos\setver.exe DEVICEhigh=C:\dos\ifshlp.sys DEVICEhigh=C:\dos\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1) Country=421,852,C:\dos\COMMAND\country.sys (large amount of buffers and files may help improve performance and lower possibility of error messages.) Sections in system.ini: [386Enh] MaxPhysPage=50000 PagingDrive=J: (ramdisk tweak, do not enter minimum or maximum. When swapfile is placed in ramdisk it is fast enough while resizing, max phys page is recommended - its presence can fix one bug regarding to amount of ram for windows) [vcache] MaxFileCache=131072 MinFileCache=4096 chunksize=2048 namecache=4096 directorycache=96 (vcache is mostly responsible for error messages regarding to ram) Symptoms without settings: - after each run of game Prey i was unable to open command line (type command in "run") - command was unable to run when TV tuner was running - no possibility to display large bitmaps (over 25mbs) After using higher filehigh was most errors in XP apps were supressed, after applying vcache setting all errors with command com and drawing of large BMPs vanished.

just few security threats are real. Biggest one is "between keyboard and chair". antivirus, firewalls, "vista protecting premium" shall be useless if there is no compenent person using the computer. There is no 100% safety. Computers have to be programmed against incompetent usage. XP was one attempt of this type, and we know how safe they are.

so lets begin with hardware: Cpu: choose anything you want, if pentium avoid celeron... Motherboard: AGP8x (at least), Award Bios, avaliability to disable ACPI and onboard devices. USB, SATA, PATA133 Onboard, 5x pci slot, 1x agp slot. Ram: Try to fill all free memory slots with same type and serie of memory sticks. this can little bit upgrade system performance. I dont know how and why but it helped much when i changed two mixed sticks for three brand new. If Hi-End construction use at least 1,5 Gb, more than 2gb is not necessary, but could be useful. Disks: Buy at least two disks. First shall be "System Disk" on Primary Master. best performance was with 20gb ata 100 disks with fat32, larger disks like 80gb can cause loss of performance due to limitations of FAT32. Second one shall be "data disk". Put it on Primary Slave, or on any other type of connection including SCSI, SATA, PATA 133. If you are using more "data disks" you can use RAID. PCI slots: Fill them all. There are several possibilities. High quality lan card, sound card, TV tuner, Radio Tuner, disk controllers, Physical Ramdrives (quite rare), CD /dvd roms: If you need to change CDs (if watching multiple movies) install two devices... One of them can be cd/dvd writer. Graphics, Net, Multimedia: Feel free to use any upgrade. Graphics are limited by drivers, but there is still large spectrum of drivers and devices. I like Ati Radeon 9800 If Cpu is computers brain Graphic card is its heart. Most of its performance is affected by it. SCSI: if you want to use multiple disks or scanners this is good choice. TV Tuner, Radio Tuner: I like multifunctionality... Many devices of these type are already available, and also can be used in win98 without any limitations. System Settings: Why two harddisks and ram over 1GB? There are three basic types of operations which are giving multiple tasks to disk. 1. Swapfile or virtual ram. 2. Data which are readed for application (such as game). 3. System - Loading drivers, and some "invisible" system operations at background. If we want to use simple 3d game we are giving multiple tasks to single harddisks. Because Harddisk is the slowest perifery in PC (except external media periferies like cd roms and diskettes) there is necessary to split these tasks. If system is installed on "system disk" and game is running from "data disk" we are on good way - two disks are solving two types of tasks separately and this is giving some performance. Also if we put swapfile on Ramdisk (for instance 512mb ramdrive created by XMSDSK) we have created most fastest type of drive for quick access - 10 times faster than acessing swapfile located on harddisk. 1gb of classical ram is limit which can be crossed by using of ramdisk tools such as XMSDSK. You have to keep 512-1024Mb of as classical ram and rest can be used as ramdisk. Why possibility to disable ACPI? it can mess up system. i shall take a look at this. i have to examine one possible tweak in bios which dont have this possibility. Rest is depending on drivers which you shall use, and system tweaks you shall use.

well i tried some settings, it is not just Vcache based, there are various situations when this error occur. 1. When TV tuner is running, Command.com cannot be executed in windows - not enough memory. 2. When Command com is already executed TV tuner can start, but generated image is frozen. this error was resulted by poorly written application. Command.com also couldnt be executed while ultima online was running. Then i applied some new settings in config sys and now i can execute it without any limits. this is still being examined so i am not sure what is responsible for this.

I suspect that some applications created under winXP are addressing "Video Mixing Renderer 7" instead of adressing default "Video Renderer", althought it seems that they are completely identical. It seems that in windowsXP are two separate threads of registries with different name leading to one VMR7 interface. application which is compatible in winXP it can cause trouble in win98 because of poor programming. I try to extract them, rewrite and add to Windows 98 registry entries. Edit: Yes my suspicios was true. Video Mixing Renderer 7 = Video Renderer (Default). Both are same in Windows 98 and XP but in XP it can be addressed by two methods. There is no benefit when using VMR7 instead of Default renderer, but a little bit important is that it makes difference between ms OSs and lowers compatibility...

what i know is that DX9 can work with all aplications which were designed for previous versions. but for me is quite strange that in win98 is present only one Video Mixing Renderer from DX9, and previous renderer v7 is absenting... I try to uninstall DX9, install DX 7 and then dx 9. shall see...

I had an occasion to use Windows XP on my computer so i decided to make a FaceToFace comparison. Testing system: Celeron, Tualatin 1,12 Ghz 1,5 GB ram Ati Radeon 9800Pro ATA100 disks, Fat32 Functionality of following items has been examined: Soundcard: FM801 with Radio tuner Drivers: FM801 - 2.01, Terratec i512 - 2.00g (both WDM) Application: PCIRadio (Radioaktiv 4.0) TvTuner: PV951 Driver: Ivan Uskov's Tweaked drivers (WDM) Application: ATV2000 by mike crash Video Player: Windows media player Classic by Gabest (MPC) Ultima Online The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Windows 98SE + SP2 + KUP, DX9.0c Boot time: 45s-1minute Sound Card Sound driver FM801 2.01 was causing following issues: Slowing down Internet Explorer, sound corruption while playing, loud beeping while Ultima Online was running Sound driver i512: Silent beeping while Ultima Online was running PciRadio - Error message that Radio tuner is not available - common bug at WDM version of drivers for this card, with both drivers Radio sucesfully started despite error. TV Card: No issuses caused by driver. Application is giving error message "Video frame grabber cannot be found", during startup is system choppy. Available video renderers: Video Renderer (default) Video Mixing Renderer 9 Video player No known issues Available video renderers: Video Renderer (default) Video Mixing Renderer 9 Ultima Online Issues caused by sound card already mentioned Oblivion: Long start time, sometimes missing audio - mostly dialogs Windows XP, home edition, SP2, DX9.0c Boot time: 1-2 minutes Sound Card Sound driver FM801 2.01 was causing following issues: Control panel of sound provided by forte media was crashing constantly Sound driver i512: Silent beeping while Ultima Online was running - same bug as in w98 PciRadio - Error message that Radio tuner is not available - common bug at WDM version of drivers for this card, with both drivers. Radio didnt start TV Card: No issuses caused by driver. Application is giving error message "Video frame grabber cannot be found"(same as w98), system was not affected during start. Available video renderers: Video Renderer (default) Video Mixing Renderer 7 Video Mixing Renderer 9 Video player No known issues Available video renderers: Video Renderer (default) Video Mixing Renderer 7 Video Mixing Renderer 9 Ultima Online Issues caused by sound card already mentioned Oblivion: No visible bugs. Conclusion: All that worked with Win XP also worked with upgraded Win98SE. There is but one very strange difference and it is presence of DX 7 video renderers in WinXP and absence of them in Windows 98 which have been upgraded by DirectX 9.0c redist pack from oblivon package. There is high possibility that ATV2000 and Oblivion (game designed for winxp) are trying to load dx7 interfaces which are natively present in windows XP, and this is causing all issues with sound and video. For example if are DX sound acceleration disabled in win98 all issues in Oblivion vanish (at cost of performance) Presence of DX7 interface can be easily detected by WMPC by gabest, in Options, Output , and in "Direct Show Video" table. Why is DX7 interface present in WinXP, and absent in Win98SE even updated with DX9 package? hard to say, but i am sure that presence of both of them can give better compability and reliability. Is there any way how to install them both at Windows98?

WDM drivers... i use WDM on tv tuner and soundcard. When i run Ultima online i can hear strange sound (bzzzz), when i turn off DX9 sound acceleration it vanish. This bug indicated more problems especially with 3d games. As i know some upgrades of w98 were giving better wdm support, but is there another way how to upgrade it further? There is possibility that it is caused by rather old driver interface contained in w98 (after using w98 2 ME it vanished for a short period)

I have been examining this problem today. There are ways how to supress this problem by editing drivers which are in config sys and autoexec.bat. let most of them work in upper memory by "devicehigh" or "lh" parameters. 640k is hardware limit and it cant be crossed. Certain aplications are using this small block of memory for many basic operations - for instance TV tuner, and also there are some aplications which are poorly written and they consume all available system resources... I had same problem with upper memory. I installed there so much drivers as possible, but then when i wanted to enter windows i gived me error message that i dont have enough memory to start... At these times i was trying to use memory manager called UMBPCI and in it is included program called umbfill. it can allocate all free upper blocks and it prevents windows to consume them (and then fail to start). Maybe it can be written similar dos based "driver" which can handle conventional memory...

Has somebody PCI SATA controller and windows 98 machine to test it?

to Analada and Eck: i have taken a look at catalyst 6.2 and it supports up to Radeon X800 and older cards of X series. Those Vista drivers didnd work indeed, but they are not so far from new "lower compatible" 2k drivers... They are very similar. They need Framework 2.0 to work and i was able to fool some installers of this package - some parts especially control panel installed but they didnt work (or at least i dont see any difference now) also it seems that Registry entries between windows 98, 2000 and Xp are not so different. I was able to install Ati Control panel for windows XP without any error during install and using of it. It works correctly. (maybe KUP is helping here). Vista based control panel is installed too and it is active in background althought i really dont know if it does sometning. i try some benchmarkings... Also if possible i avoid installation of all systems above windows 2000. Microsoft really forgets that OS means Operating system and its function is to edit, view, and manipulate with files and applications in unified and compatible software environment. Xp has cut off one type of line, and Vista is too different to be compatible. edit: It seems that some of components that i installed today is affecting graphic quality in positive way. I have installed NetFramework 2,0 and part of Vista Driver - catalytist control center (it works but it is impossible to open its window). i also try control centers for other windowses and check the difference.

to Analada: Highest version of drivers workable with win9x based systems developed by Nvidia was version 81.98, from december 21st 2005. This driver was causing some trouble with FX 5xxx series cards for them is most suitable version 5. Highest drivers for ATI cards (including serie Radeon X) were beta drivers for windows ME, officially last drivers were Catalyst 6.2 for Radeon 9800 as highest card and X serie is not supported. At this point may be interesting that new types of drivers are currently available - Vista drivers. One driver has 100Mb. I shall download them and test them on win9x. but i dont think it shall work.

to Eck: Drivers for windows 98 from Via hyperion pack worked correctly, but i looked at the Temp directory in win folder and there i found drivers for Win2k of Hyperion pack. As i said before, all of them (w98 and w2k drivers) worked perfectly but i prefer higher standardized drivers, because they have some advantages. Compatibility spectrum of Windows 9x: So what i know from some sources Win9x based systems are compatible with 16bit and 32bit based computers. That means that it can be installed on 486, Pentium 1 - 4 core systems, almost all AMD processor systems. Multiprocessor, multicore, hyperthreading and 64bit processor systems are out of its range. Are these information correct? Also i found one piece of hardware - SATA Raid Controller for PCI-E. Manufacturer of this controller was offering "All Windows" driver, which include Windows 98. At this point is interesting that if there is new hardware for new type of bus there also must be some kind of support for the PCI-E bus itself. There is possibility that if one SATA driver works it is possible that it can work for all other devices which are using same chip.

to Eck: sorry i see now... it has confused me that you was mentioning something about win95... Via Hyperion pack installed new devices of my Mb correcty, but i was not satisfied using those drivers because they were made not too well. At all manuall installment is better way ...

Geforce FX 5700 had bad driver provided by Nvidia. Mostly trouble with graphics were caused by newer drivers (version 6 and newer). On asus webpage is one older driver (version 5 +-) but it also works best with this card...

Via Boards seems to be good choice. However i dont know if they will keep their MB drivers at this highly compatible standards. By the way if you are trying to use win98/NT/2k AGP driver on windows 95 it is certain that it should not work. Windows 95 use older Vxd drivers only and it is not compatible with newer drivers - windows 98 is much more compatible... Also there is one strange myth that windows 9x based systems are not able to use AGP correctly and graphic quality is poor. Many users even dont know that they need driver not only for graphic card, but for motherboard too. each graphic card is almost useless without compatible AGP port driver (if needed). I know people which have replaced motherboard and graphics for newer ones, and bought XP's because they thought that their hw and os is obsolete

so, i have extracted some drivers from ViaHyperion pack... I replaced their w98 drivers by drivers for w2k... USB root hub is for w2k, USB controller, and AGP to CPU controller are using sys files throught ntkern.vxd. No trouble at all. If any trouble graphics shall be corrupted. but it works without any error.