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I've been playing with SMPlayer on Windows 98, some time ago. It worked, but I had no possibility to controll the playback with keyboard commands, then. On the other hand it works much better on Linux. I have a Ubuntu with SMPlayer installed on the same computer Windows 98 is installed on. The difference in speed between Ubutu + SMPlayer and Windows 98 + GOM Player is huge. To put it simply, Ubuntu + SMPlayer combo does not stand a chance when facing Windows 98 + GOM Player on a computer with a single core processor. I noticed my ATI All in wonder 9000 is able to use AGPx4 only. I'm curious if the performance will be better, if I replace it with AGPx8 capable GeForce FX 5500.

I did an experiment with a 1920x1080 video clip with a little over 23fps. To get the best out of the computer I disabled the GOM Player internal filters, so the only available performance data were from FFDshow OSD filter. Still, the speed was changing so fast, I could not read the result. The first digit was 1 or 2, the second 0 or 6. So, the fps readouts could be anything between 10, 16, 20 or 26. On scene changes the video was often freezing with 9 or 8 fps on diplay. While using GOM internal filters the speed was changing in 15-25fps range, with video freezing from time to time. The test was performed on Windows 98 with P4 2.8Ghz/800Mhz/512kb using DDR400 in qadruple channel and ATI All in Wonder 9000. The overal experience: It is usable, yet, the frame rate is visibly lower and video freezing on scene changes effect is quiite annoying. The sound was working perfectly.

I've been playing with older versions with VLC player, only. As far as I remember there were no functions necesary for me. I wanted to have audio video time shift correction, video size and position correction, an a few others. It was not efficient enough, as well.

Well, I'm aiming much above the DVD level. The Blu ray and HD DVD resolutions are gaining market, right now. I'm also using the DVI interface. To be more specific DVI is compatible with HDMI. The difference is, the HDMI can also transfer audio, while DVI can only transfer video data. Using DVI to HDMI cable it is possible to connect to any new TV. My 42" plasma is only 1024x768, so it is not a HD screen. But, the h264 1280x720 and 1920x1080 are more and more common. In order to play them back smoothly, significant processing power is necesary. I started from a 1GHz PIII CPU as well. I noticed, it plays video much more smoothly than the PIV does. But, at 1280x720 video data resolution it is not able to keep up. The video playback is getting choppy. It looks like frame rate gets reduced. It also depends on the software used. Either the video or audio smooth play has to be sacrificed if the processing power is insufficient. In case of the P4 CPUs it seems the high resolution data stream is played smoother. Instead of a general frame reduction either video or audio gets frozen for some time, when the processing power is insufficient. It appears, the P4 is significantly faster with multimedia processing than PIII, but in case of a processing power shortage it takes much more time for it to recover the smooth play. It mostly happens on a scene changes, when the amount of data to be processed is highest. The whole thing can be related to a fact the PIV CPUs have a faster memory access in general. In case of PIII the CPU can not play smoothly high resolution video, because the amount of data to be transferred does not go through system buses.

For quite a time I'm using Windows 98 SE as video player. The idea was to connect a 42" plasma TV to a computer in order to play video files. In either case, the most efficient software I've found so far. GOM Player - quite a nice video player with many advantages and a few problems. - does not support a** subtitles - does not resolve correctly time conflicts in subtitles - the efficiency of the built in h264 decoder and mkv and mp4 splitters are not that great + high quality subtitles + supports many video formats with built in codecs FFDShow - it covers for almost everything what GOM Player is lacking + does support a** + the built in h264 decoder is a fast one - the non a** subtitles are poor in quality - does not seem to be able to play subtitles directly from MKV files. It is necesary to extract them to separate files, first. (It is not a problem for me, since I'm using an additional tool for subtitles timing and font enhacement.) - there are rare problems with system resources in case of some a** subtitles. Haali Matroska Splitter - a fast MKV and MP4 splitter It requires some tweaking to get the best performance, but these were the best I found. I've tried a few operating systems in order to find the one fastest on a single core CPU. Windows 98 appeared to be the fastest one. Currently I'm using a Pentium 4 2,8/800 HT CPU with DDR400 memory in dual (or rather quadruple) channel. The power is more than enough for smooth play of 1280x720 h264 coded video, but is not enough for 1920x1080. So, the question is where to go from here. It is possible to aim for multi core CPUs, but it would require to change the OS to some Windows NT core system or Linux, probably. On the other hand I've heard something about DXVA being available on Windows 98. - According to my research the newer versions of FFDShow are able to use DXVA. The newest one comes in two different builds, one is Windows 2000 compatible, the other is not. Perhaps, it could be possible to port it to Windows 98 with KernelEX. - DXVA 1.0 was released for Windows 2000 and newer. I've heard some rumors about Windows 98 compatibility, however. The DXVA 2.0 seems to available from Vista up. - It could be difficult to find a DXVA compatible graphics card able to work in Windows 98. I'm curious, if anybody was able to get the full HD with Windows 98. In my case the the playback is not efficient, enough. -------- For GOD sake. Why am I not able to write Advanced Substation Alpha file format? It always ends up as a**. The HELL with the automatic word correction on this forum.

Well, the PersistBrowsers registry key does work. But, I've noticed significant differencies in this feature. In case of Windows 98 all restored Explorer windows had the default size. For some reason the windows restored by Windows 2000 are resized in most cases. To be more specific, the windows just opened and left without any action are restored as they were. On the other hand windows with the default directory changed are restored in different sizes.

I gave up on complicated solutions. So, I used an old 20GB HDD, installed Windows 2000 on it, turned the LBA48 registry support keys on, then transferred the system to the big hdd through simple file copy. There are two things unavailable in Windows 2000. - 98 does remember the opened Explorer windows between sessions. (useful sometimes) - 98 can remember the positions and sizes of console aplications, while 2000 does not. (very useful for me)

I just installed Windows 2000 on another computer. It was working with just Windows 98, so far. The Windows 2000 is still faster with downloads from some servers. The hardware is completely different from the previous one, so the speed difference must be comming from OS itself.

This plan would work perfectly with Windows 98. But, in case of Windows 2000 it does not work at all. After the first reboot, the installer ends with a message "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". So, I guess, there is no easy way. I will have to add the registry patch during the installation, somehow.

It's a plain ethernet. To be exact, it is a city wide network with fiber optic skeleton and 10/100 ethernet inside buildings. In any case, exactly the same syptoms are visible on a cable TV connection, as well. Still, there is ethernet between computer and modem.

The article "Windows TCP/IP Registry Entries" from Microsoft says: Since in my system there is no MaxMTU registry key, the default should be 1500, unless the media driver takes it down. I do not know how to test the media driver value, however.

As far as I understand the TCP, MTU seems to be related to the size of outgoing packets. Since, the issue is in slow receive, the MTU setting should not have any effect in this case. In other words, the MTU does not affect the size of incoming packets, so it should not affect download speed. I had an opportunity to make yet another experiment considering file transfer through Microsoft Networking using LAN. A 2.4GHz P4 Windows 98 and a 1GHz PIII Windows 2000 were used, both having the same amount of RAM (512Mb). While sending files from 98 to 2000 it went twice as fast as the other way around. So, Windows 2000 seems to be twice as fast when working as a server. So, the 98 seems to be able to send data fast, while being slow on receiving them. On the other hand, I did some experimenting with network efficiency in Windows 98. It seemed the fastest way is to use Windows 2000 as a server, while using NetBeui on Windows 98. A 98 NetBeui client sometimes worked faster than 2000 client. The 98 TCP client was slower than the 2000 one. It seemed the 2000 does not care if NetBeui or TCP is used, the result was exactly the same. The tests were done through the time measurements of a certain network database application tasks (not SQL). The application is sensitive to the workstation CPU related power. So, it is possible to conclude the TCP is more CPU demanding on Windows 98. But, it is just a guess, since the test was not designed to prove such a theory.

I do have several WRV200 routers distributed among my clients. They do work as IPSec G2G VPN gateways and Internet gateway NAT routes with WLAN disabled. Recently I'm observing tendency for WRV200 to hang a few times a day. The replacement of the device does not solve the problem. All do have the latest 1.0.39 firmware installed. After a few months of observations of the fenomenon, I came to the conclusion, the WRV200 starts to hang frequently after adding a new Windows XP SP3 to the network. So, far there were just Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP SP2 upgraded later to SP3 in all networks. But, after addind compures with default fresh instalation of Windows XP SP3, something triggers WRV200 instability issue. I've observed the effect in 3 different networks with 4 or 5 different WRV200 devices. I'm suspecting some XP SP3 specific network related component is the cause of the phenomenon. I have no idea, which particular system service could be related. Apparently, upgrading the XP to SP3 after installation of SP2 is safe. On the other hand installation of the SP3 directly with Windows XP Professional or Home triggers the issue. The same goes to the reinstalation of SP2 with SP3. Something with SP3 network setup wizard in the system installer seems to make the key difference. That's why I'm looking for differences in default network setup between XP SP3 and SP2 upgraded later to SP3.

I'm planning to install a Windows 2000 along with Windows 98. So, I do have a few questions about how Windows 2000 SP4 Professional can get along with large hard drives and FAT32 partitions. In case of Windows 98 the demads are quite simple. It is safe to install it on a partition smaller than 128GB, then some patching will be necesary, before it will be safe to use partitions above LBA48 limit. It is a good idea to keep FAT32 partitions below 1GB in size, as well. But, what about Windows 2000? I know the SP3 is necesary. There is also a LBA48 registry key to be turned on. In any case: - Is it necesary to install Windows 2000 SP4 on a partition below LBA48 limit? Perhaps the problem was fixed in the installer of the Windows 2000 SP4. - Is it safe to use huge FAT32 partitions? Currently I do have a couple of 600-999GB FAT32 partitions filled with data. In my case the HDD hardware is a bit extreme. I do have one 2TB and one 1.5TB hard drives installed. The plan is to install a Winndows 2000 SP4 Professional on the first partition of the second HDD (about 200GB). So, should I decrease the size of the targeted partition, before installing the Windows 2000, then turn the registry LBA48 support on, then resize the partition back to 200GB? Also, I've been observing some differences in HTTP file download speeds between Windows 98 and 2000. Apparently, I'm unable to get the full connection speed from Windows 98 unless using more than just one connection. On the same computer from the same server I'm getting a full connection transfer speed with just one HTTP connection. The conclusion could be, the Windows 98 is not as fast as Windows 2000 with TCP traffic by adding some significant delay in packet processing.

I've noticed a difference in download speed between Windows 98 and Windows 2000 on the same computer. I'm using WGET to download files through scripting. While I'm getting full 240kb/s on Windows 2000 the Windows 98 goes up to 178kb/s, with the same file. Since I did not tested it on other computers, I can not say for sure the difference comes just from the OS used. I can get the full connection speed on Windows 98, as well. But, I have to use two simultaneous file downloads, to get such a score. The first impression is, the Windows 98 adds a significant delay to the TCP traffic. When added to the overal response times of the HTTP server the top possible single connection speed can decrease below the ISP connection speed.

The device is no longer in my posession, I'm afraid. It worked well for more than a year, and now it ia a part of a backup server. I'm planning to buy a few of those in the future. The modification was emulating the 80 wires cable. Inside of those line from pin 34 is grounded. So, IDE controller can see a difference between 40 wire and 80 wire cables.

The smbclient does not work, as well. But, it provides some information about source of the problem. Here is the message: ------------------------------------------------ Addition of a following line to smb.conf solved the problem: client lanman auth = yes

Well, the BackupPC does use the Samba settings, while working with SMB shares. So, BackupPC national character settings are ignored, in such a case. All I had to do was to set a correct national character translation in the samba.conf. The BackupPC expects Samba to convert national characters to UTF8. But, I've encountered yet another problem. Apparently, I can not access password protected Windows 98 network shares with Samba. Everything works fine, if no password is necesary.

Only partialy true. I'm using TCP/IP along with NetBEUI. Ipconfig will not affect NetBEUI protocol. Another problem is to run Ipconfig with power button.

That's not what I had in mind. I'm shutting down the server. The connection is maintained by a remote computer. This particular case is about shutting down Microsoft Networking server. Other computers are connecting to it from time to time. Quite often a connection is still active, when I'm shutting down the server. There are no files open, but the Windows still nags about some connections being active. It is not possible to kill a process responsible for Microsoft Networking services, I believe.

I do have a Windows 98 computer working without the monitor turned on, very often. I would like to be able to shut down the system with a single power button push, but there are network shutdown procedures in the way. Every time there is a network connection active, the shutdown stops asking if I do want to shutdown system, because there is a network connection active (I can not put the exact message here, since I'm using a polish language Windows version). Is there a way to get rid of these nagging dialogs? It should be possible to make an AutoIt script closing the dialogs automaticaly, but perhaps there is a simpler way.

One of the BackupPC systems of file restore is a TAR archive. The problem is I can get those TAR archive extracted correcty in Linux only. In Windows enviroment 7Zip does not detect polish national characters correctly. Is there any better extractor with national character support? I can only suspect the TAR files I'm dealing with are coded in UTF8.

I just obtained a 2TB HDD. Now I've got two (1.5TB and 2TB) Seagate drives. One of the partitions is 0.99TB, others are smaller. So far so good, but... After the computer remained idle for a few hours the new 2TB HDD had to spin up. Apparently it spinned down on its own. The data transfers were few times slower, than usual. System reboot solved the problem. The problem seems to be related to the mentioned Seagate auto spin down issue. But, it would be good to confirm the diagnose, first. As a partitioning software I had to use GParted. I've encountered an issue in the process. GParted failed on resizing a 512BG partition to 0.99TB. The size of the partition was changed, but the partition structures remained at 512GB. So, the system detected partition as 512GB, while partition managers were telling it's 0.99TB. I had to delete the partition and then to create a new one, again. The problem could be related to old version of System Rescue CD I'm using. Apparently, the support for FAT32 partitions larger than 256GB is just a partial one. This version of GParted does not show the stastistics for FAT32 partitions larger then 256GB.

I've encountered a problem with one of the portals and Firefox 2.0.0.20. The window scrolling was missing there. Everything was working perfectly fine with 2.0.0.17. I did not tested the 2.0.0.18-19, however.

Well, I can install the JRE enviroment above 6u20. But, the Firefox always wants to download and install additional plugin and fails at this task. I do believe Firefox tries to download and execute the JRE online installer. It does not seem to make any sense, since the whole JRE was installed, already.