ragnargd

>>rt28609x.sys I used my google-fu to no avail. Only the usual suspects (cnet etc.), that claim W98SE-support for every computer-hardware, your toaster and your dog. And then some PCI- and PCMCIA-cards that are vailable since 2014, claiming W98SE support (No trivers neded!!! Pphul Windos suppoat!!!). Yeah. Maybe.

I prefer the NVidia 79xx series, as they are faster, use less power, and can be used even with Windows 10, if so desired (i.e. in Multiboot). Do i assume correctly none of them provide that video capture capabilities of the ATI cards? Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

Me. I'm booting my fastest rig with a 60GB SATA SSD from a PCI add-in card with a VIA VT6421 chipset. VT6421A would work as well. That chipset has the best driver-support, as it works from W9x to W10. I have my SATA-DVD hooked to that controller as well. I have a multi-boot configuration, and my XP Pro and W10 (and soon my Kali Linux) boot from the onboard ICH9R chipset in AHCI mode. Advantage: - All systems BUT W98SE have native trim, NCQ, and all that luxury because of AHCI. Disadvantages: - RLoew delivers software that enables TRIM on W98SE, which i do not have with the add-in card, so my W98SE-SSD will age a bit faster. - needs one more PCI-slot, which sometimes is hard to get - RLoews solution is a bit cheaper, although not much, though. - more hassle while installing those systems. I recommend against the SIL controllers, i have one, it was awkward at times, and is not fully supported on modern OSes. Just my 2ct. Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

Thanks, I had no knowledge of this. What are the advantages of DosBox compared to other Virtual software? Been there, seen it, laughed, deleted. On the DOSBOX Homepage, they describe Win98SE compatibility as extremely unstable, and very slow. They recommend against it. I have run W98SE in VMWare, VirtualBox and MS Virtual PC. There it runs fine, as long as you do not need graphic acceleration (DirectX/OpenGL), which is not supported for W98SE in either. As for me it's about old games that require DX9.0c and EAX 2.0 at least (not speaking of horesepower, Video-memory for high resolution, you name it), only hardware will do it.

FYI: Windows Compatibility Center is history (for all Versions of Windows). I was just on the "community forums", to look for a reason. Let's put it like this: I think it is not good to have it dropped, as it contained valuable infos (for me, at least, and my array of old hardware). I don't value the stated reasons for their decision as very convincing. Just my 2ct. Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

I think there are two unknown factors still looming, that might bring bumps in the curve: 1. MS uttered the "free update" will be possible for one year from launch. If they stay true to what they said, this may (in an unpredictable manner) affect the conversion rate. 2. "DX12 only" games within that period that might convince gamers to actually use this upgrade offer. Once people actually have to pay for W10, the curve will show more truth about what people really think about it. Anyone not convinced by W7 to upgrade from XP will not be convinced by anything, and especially not by W10. Those XPs will only drop out once the corresponding hardware dies, or a botnet owning those PCs kills them accicdentally. If MS actually killed pirated XPs, half of XP out there would be gone, half of china would be without working PCs, and botnets would drop by 96%. Just my 2 ct...

After a tip from someone on vogons.net, i exchanged BOTH the card AND the cable. (Yes, they did this to each other: A really small part of the pin sticks in the DVI-port. I hate them) Elimination process always has to account for the possebility of TWO faulty components. Now, every game works on DVI. Thanks to everyone! And sorry for me not testing thoroughly...

I can start up and until into the game menu, and the game CTD when either starting a new game, or loading an old one. Switching to the VGA-port allows a new game, and loading of the same old savegame (after rebooting inbetween, of course). Changing the in-game screen resolution to any allowed value does not change anything. I do used both the GOLD version, and the original one, same result. I know of those patches, by being a regular visitor to TTLG (as i modded quite some LG-game, although not having enogh confidence to release my mods), and they do help getting higher resolutions, and avoid the nauseating switch of screen-resolutions. I did not apply those patches here, but i will, and report. I also will test this on three other monitors in my room, as it may be, even though not highly probable, the monitors mentioned above are part of the problem. (If a patch for the game fixes this, it does not mean you cannot encounter a similar problem elsewhere. Again, i have the same behaviour for the game "Jetz", for which noone should be bothered to produce a patch... :-) Cheers, Ragnar G.D P.S.: I really appreciate the help you (and anyone else) provide! Thank you in any case!

I'm using a (eight years ols) 17" Hyundai TN LCD with both DVI and VGA-port, native resolution being 1280*1024. I can replicate this problem with a (ten years old) 37" BenQ LCD TV, that also has DVI and VGA-ports (among others like Video-S, SCART, and such). I can look up the detailed type if that helps, but i'd rather not, as they are quite dusty and hard to lift... Cheers, and thank you for your efforts!!! Ragnar G.D. P.S.: Observation: Windows 10 freaks out when using it's own driver on these monitors, i.e. declaring them as non-pnp, and setting 63Hz refresh-rate, which is only fixed if the NVidia-driver is installed right thereafter (otherwise the screen stays black after the next reboot).

I'll test this thoroughly happily, once you're done.

For the records: Thief: http://techland.time.com/2012/11/15/all-time-100-video-games/slide/thief-the-dark-project-1998/ Jetz: http://www.tower.com/games/pc-games/details/hot-wheels-jetz-pc-games-110717703 I tried Thief on Windows XP, and it happens there as well. It seems the games are not able to switch resolutions on DVI, as DVI limits the selection of resolutions, while VGA does not (which is a risk, in a way, for the monitor...)

Both DVI-port AND cable were broken... No i can use DVI with any game... my god... --------------------------- Hi, since the official driver, the family of usable video-cards has been significantly extended (by the GF 7xxxx series). And now, RLoew is working on an OS-patch, that might well enable cards (of the GF 6xxxx and GF 7xxxx families) with 512MB. Great. The last factor for me, that limits my choice of GPUs, is the DVI port. On any card and any motherboard i have, Thief 1 crashes, when the monitor is connected via DVI (the same happens with the rather unknown game "Jetz" by THQ, which was made for the "HotWheels" series of diecast toy cars - you fly around with a toy jet in your flat, fight toy-armies, ufos, dragons, and trash mums expensive inventory now and then - definitely fun, cannot be run on XP). As i want to have a system that is as compatible with any game of that time as possible, this severely limits my choce of GPUs. But, as my selection of hardware is big, but not complete by any means, and as there may be tricks do avoid this bug (if it is a bug at all, and not some quirk with my hardware or such), i'd like to ask you, if you had a similar experience as well. On the internetz, a saw some threads reporting similar problems (esp. with Thief 1), without any solution in sight. Thief 1 was a popular game, so if anyone of you has the old (non-gog.com) version, you could even try out, to see if you can verify this. Any idea anyone? Any ace up your sleeves? Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

For me, the patch for the OS would be enough, as when 98 was hip, everybody knew its limitations, and made no software that deliberately used that amount of Video RAM. And furthermore, this version is without risk for multi-boot-systems, as it does not touch other operating systems in any way. Still, regarding the VGA-Bios-patch, what effect can be expected on Windows XP or Windows 10? Did you already test such constellations? Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

I found an article on TH, with almost the same content, but there, the author (presumably FormatC) states his GF 6800 GT has 256MB of memory. An article by him with an 6800 GT 512MB cannot be found. So this dialog on TH maybe was before he wrote the article, and perhaps he changed some factors when finishing the article. If anyone has other info, just tell...

Me Like + 1 (hell, just NOW i saw the simple like button...)

Hi, this may insult the Professional, there may be better solutions (of which i don't know, unfortunately), but if you have this problem, this - admittingly non-elegant workaround - may help you: In a nutshell: I don't have a working WLAN-adapter on my notebook, and now, what to do about it.. Detail (you may ignore it): So i looked for a workaround, as there does not seem to be a thing as an "N" wireless Dongle or stick with w98SE support. I found it: USB-powered Travel-Routers, used as a driver-less replacement for a WLAN-Dongle... In this case, i'm using a TP-Link TL-WR802N in Client-Mode. A TL-WR702 works as well, and though it's slower technically, with a machine like that you may not even notice... Warning: TL-MR3020 and TL-MR3040 do NOT work out of the box, as the interesting option is missing (Open-WRT may help with 3020/3040, it's just not for the weak of heart or mind...) The WLAN-port is connected to the LAN-Port of my Laptop, and power comes from an unused USB-port. As the HDD of the Laptop is not that fast, i can copy 1MB/s through that connection. Not as much as technically possible, of course, but, well, better than nothing... That's it, have fun. Cheers, Ragnar G.D. Fun Facts: - I had to modify the INF of the Marvell LAN, as is was a - quite shabby - subset of the XP-INF, just without mobile versions of the NIC, and because of that, containes an "error" of some kind. If you have questions, just ask, but if you know inf-tweaking, you'll most likely be able to fix that in a second yourself. - I used this machine with power-chord only, as the battery-pack was basically broken. When i bought a new one - more expensive, and probably heavier, than the laptop itself - the laptop disconnected from the WLAN. I had to remove the "can be powered down to save energy"-checkbox on the NIC, then it worked again... - if you use a router like this, only do this in really trusted networks, as W98SE has absolutely no firewall, and the router does not have the usual NATting in that mode, naturally. Otherwise, look for a software-firewall (i.e. old Tiny Firewall or ZoneAlarm). Remember: Anyone who says W98SE is too old to be vulnerable, is outright wrong. And any browser that you can use on W98SE is fubar security-wise...

Maybe you were meaning "a decent machine for running Windows 10"? jaclaz I see what you did there...

>>Doesn't make much sense NOT to buy and use Rloew's patch for a setup such as this. >>What's $10 dollars for working SATA compared to the cost of the rest of the system? >>Same could be said for the RAM patch, but to each his own I guess. Long story short: You are right. On the other hand, we now know TWO ways to do it. Which doesn't hurt. >>This is board specific. I have two ICH8 boards where USB2 works fine under 98SE. >>The only issue I have seen with it was on an Intel DP43TF ICH10 board. That is good to know. Still, i think many have had this problem (by what people reported here on msfn.org). What bugs me: I cannot see a pattern, which this works sometimes, and sometimes not. >>I think xRayer is the one who provided the other INF method.. unless MDGx had one as well? My error. Corrected. >>I have a more complete set of INFs that does support ICH10, but it requires slightly different handling than the set I released before. [...] I wish there was a way to script that... yeah, there is no easy way. No less, quite good what you did there. >>Did you make certain that you had the latest BIOS version on your system? >>I had to update to the very latest BIOS to have support for the Q9550 on my Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6. C2Q 9550 is supported, but 9550S is not. The 9550S (much like the mostly unknown 9505S) were the last additions to this CPU family, and many boards didn't incorporate them. Mainly, this is not a big deal, as they basically work, but with cache and energy-handling, they are not used to their full potential. Not a big deal, but perfection is perfection no less... Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

Hi, as i already told, i'm searching of a hardware-combination, that allows me to run old games (i.er. Thief 1) on W98SE, with the full glory of DX9.0c and Creative EAX 2.0. But also, while not gaming, i wanted to have a decent Windows 10 machine (Quad Core, 8GB Ram, full AHCI SATA with Trim), not for gaming, but for everything else. As this could only be made true by choosing a 45mm/333FSB Intel Core 2 Quad with an AHCI-cabable southbride (ICH 7/8/9/10 R), i bought a motherboard of each type (yes, four of them all in all), and did some research if this is possible, and if, to what extent, and what "price" to pay. I did not use RLoews SATA-patch on purpose, although financially, it is on par with my solution, and technically probably even better, because it removes the need for IDE/SATA I, and thereby requires one slot less, which increases the choice of motherboards. In a nutshell: 1. It works. Yay! 2. Being able to boot into W98SE means either buying an add-on card or RLoews patch 3. I had to switch off onboard USB, as it effectually blocked W98SE from working stable. I bought a compatible add-in card. 4. I love NVidia and Creative for their dedicated and longstanding support for their old hardware. Period. 5. In W98SE, this machine idles with 72W, a bit less (exact measures here when done) in Windows 10. 6. For you old Pros on msfn.org, nothing new here, just confirmation of what you already found out. But still... More Details: USB: On ICH7/8/9/10, THE major obstacle was USB on the intel southbridge. It is unstable with W98SE in any case, on every board i had, with or without drivers/Inf/NUSB. Only switching it off made the boards stable (being able to shut down without freezing, random hickups, you name it...). No way around it. I bought a PCI add-in card with a VIA VT6212, as it is the only chipset known to me compatible with both W98SE and WX. I decided for one with an internal port, to be able to connect the front panel ports. Maximus Decim' NUSB (a must have on W98SE for me) works on this add-on card like a charm. SATA/IDE: There are no native SATA II drivers for W98SE for onboard SATA II, neither intel, nor JMicron, nor Marvell. You CAN boot from these controllers, but you will see no other drives or ODDs. No 32bit mode as well, i guess. If you don't install drivers, they won't impact the stability of your W98SE, though, it's just a yellow exclamation mark in your device-list. There are compatible Chipsets for SATA I, like the JMicron JMB360, but they are not known to be not on boards with ICH7-10 I bought a PCI add-in card with a VIA VT6421, as it is the only chipset known to me compatible with both W98SE and WX. It has both IDE and SATA I, and booting W98SE from it was nice and easy, speed with an SSD is fine. No native Trim, though. Chipset: The (newer) slip-stream method and INF-files by LoneCrusader are superior to the (older) add-on method by xRayer... @LoneCrusader: ICH®10? prettyplease... ...as long as you switch of the onboard USB. @xRayer and LoneCrusader (and everyone else): THANK YOU!!! There seems to be one small ressource conflict, but without any observable consequence. (did i thank the right persons this time? correct me if not...) PCIe/AGP: NVidia GeForce 6 and 7 work flawlessly with 82.69 (i took a 7600 GT), thanks to (primarily) MDGx and RLoew. THANK YOU!!! Sound: Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 1/2 ftw. Was able to control W98SE through the Creative IR Remote. Being able to rock hard my flat with my Fender Bullet eGuitar through the ZS Platinum Front Panel. B) Same with XP and WX. 'nuff said. Network I have an onboard Realtek 8111B GBit PCIe. If you can, have a compatible PCIe GBit NIC onboard (Marvell Yukon would work as well), many boards have this, it's pretty nice, one less add-on card needed. It's only worth it if you use SSDs, of course, as otherwise you have nothing to make use of your bandwith. RAM 8GB of Dual Channel Interleaved DDR2 800, of which W98SE sees 1GB, Ushers Method with himemX.exe. Always works, always fun. Finally, my choosen Motherboard: I finally settled with a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R, as it has enough AHCI-SATAII ports, 4 DDR2 slots (8GB Max.), 3 PCI, 3PCIe 1x, one PCIe 16x slot, and that nice compatible onboard PCIe-NIC 8111B from Realtek, which gave me ample of space for my badly-needed add-on-cards and memory. Native BIOS-support for my Core2Quad 9550S (not many boards have that) being a plus. Perhaps later on i'll ad an USB 3.0 PCIe 1x add-on card for Windows 10 (and maybe XP). The ASUS P5Q had a damaged USB-Hub, the ASRock G41C-S did not have enough PCI-slots in the end, the GA-965P-DS3 did not support my C2Q 9550S in the BIOS. All worked, though, one way ot the other. Questions? Critics? Suggestions? Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

What do you need him to tell you that is not already available here? [...] Perhaps the motherboard and GPU names? So i could see if i can buy them on ebay to experiment on it? None the less, he already answered: It took five months for him (he is still a bit upset :-), driver and GPU was given to him by NVidia directly. No data available anymore, as was to be expected, its a long time ago. Ok, i can see my open chassis from here, let's just do it...

For modded inf: FAIL on my side. Unless anyone has some bright idea, this JMicron 363 controller (with unpatched drivers) remains XP and up only. (rloew is another case... ;-)

Thread zombie resurrection... B) I got a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R, P35, ICH9R. It has an RTL811B onboard, so one less add-on card I'll try the inf files on that one during installation, and report. I'll also try the JMicron 360 0.92 driver on the IDE-part of the JMicron 363 (euphemistically named "Gigabyte SATA2 controller"... ) Didn't work... I'll be using my new 7600GT PCIe 256MB on this... but that will most probably work with the 82.69... I still had the installation from the P45/ICH10R board, and that one came up quite well. NUSB36 is working MOSTLY, i can work with USB3.0 sticks, just the eject-symbol in the taskbar does not come up. I'll still kill that installation, and start from scratch, to test the inf files, and all that. That's it for tonight, see ya... Because of that, research on GeForce 630a with Athlon II X4 has to wait a little bit more...

On Toms Hardware in the german forums, in a thread from 2009, FormatC claims he has produced working INFs for P35/ICH9 by instructions on msfn.org. He also claims he got a GeForce6800GT PCIe with 512MB running like a charm on that board. http://www.tomshardware.de/foren/240926-26-suche-windows-treiber-chipsatz I will contact him, although i doubt he can still remember what he did, and how, back in 2009... you never know, though, he is some competent technician...

I'm using an IDE SSD on the IDE port. Does your patch handle that?