pangoomis

@NoelC - With my previous PC almost 4 years ago, I was having 19 processes at bootup with WinXP, those were the days Also, try getting your head around all those new services in services.msc in Win10 In Win7 I know which one does what, and which I need, resulting in low process count, which is something I pay close attention to. But in Win10, we have all those UWP services mixed with regular ones... @My1 - It's the Pentium G4560, it has Hyper-Threading unlike older Pentiums, I have an SSD as well. I re-did the test just for you The Pentium is the bottleneck however , an I5 should max out the test:

I know those games are best suited for XP or above. I'm just doing it just for fun, to see how much I can push 98SE to its limits. I haven't encountered a single game I could not get to run under Win7 at all which does run on 98SE, no matter of what patching, DOSBox, or VM's I've used. I'm all doing this in the name of (pointless) science. It does not make sense, but why should it? Do you think we all use 98SE just because nothing works on XP/7/10? Of course not. Even @rloew uses modern Windows OSes...

Why would I ever need Windows 10 if there are no DirectX12 exclusive games other than from Microsoft Studios? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support Why should I have more processes running in the background? Try making Win10 work with only ~28 processes Why should I get rid of my well organized Start Menu? This doesn't look good? M$ plz tell me what's wrong with my system that I HAVE to update it! One thing besides those games?!

Shouldn't simple : WIN work? And for safe mode: WIN /D:M Make sure to set in MSDOS.SYS - BootGUI=0, otherwise, it will run Windows no matter what. More info here: http://www.mdgx.com/newtip10.htm#WINSWITCH (Off-topic: It seems like no matter what you do, nothing works for you, and no one else can reproduce your problems :/)

Seeing as rloew does not have all the patches to make AHCI/USB3.0(therefore USB 2.0 as well) work on modern chipsets with 98SE, this won't end well...unless you want to do everything via add-in cards like people done for a couple of years now...just now we need even more add-in cards = therefore more money! I ain't up for that. ...7

Fable requires these DLL files: As you can see, it does not use OpenGL at all, it uses DirectX 9.0 which only truly works under 98SE and newer. The files D3D9.DLL (main DX9.0 file) and D3DX9_25.DLL (supplementary DX9.0 file, many versions were made up from _24 to _43), makes it impossible to run this game under Win95. These files all work only under 98SE, sorry. You can try copying the missing files from this list from a DirectX 9 installer, but it will certainly not work. Where did you get the info this game uses OpenGL?

But on ASUS X75VB and Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 98SE did shutdown correctly, both have ACPI obviously, so that's not the problem, isn't (wasn't) ACPI backwards compatible with APM?

Hello. I'm back with more observations and things to say. @rloew - I wish I had the XHDD utility again, I've deleted it in much anger that day, I won't bother sending another e-mail to the author. If I had it, I would test the RAM Patch Demo with the /M switch. Also, I've tested the APMOFF program, and it shows that APM is not present, so that's why 98SE did not shutdown, why is there no APM? I've tested the AHCISW.COM program. Both alone, and with "noint" switch, the program just hangs, you can see all of this here: https://s26.postimg.org/os8qtdoo9/20170831_213516.jpg @98SE - Installing anything, such as DirectX, or deleting a Folder with 50 files causes a delay proportionally to the amount and size of the files, due to Real Mode disk access. Alongside 3DMark2001 SE, I also wanted to try out NFS Carbon (while installing it, I got the disk write error BSOD, which scared me), and maybe finally get GTA IV to work now that I had a 512MB GPU. With my previous rig, I got out of video memory errors with my GPU (6600 GT), which is false message, as GTA IV works fine under XP on the same GPU and rig. And also test out Fallout 3 and The Witcher 1 with a more powerful GPU, as I know those work under 98SE (albeit poorly), as I've done it on my previous rig. As for 98SE as a whole, here's a quote (I've translated it myself) from a Polish guy which wrote here (I recommend translating it in Google Translate, interesting read): https://www.dobreprogramy.pl/wielkipiec/Przypomnijmy-co-to-naprawde-jest-okropny-system-czyli-pare-slow-o-Windows-Millennium,75140.html As much as I love 98SE, I do agree with the quote.

Use only this installer for later reference, this is the only one I've used, I had ZERO problems with it: You don't need DX7, it works straight after 98SE installation. It unzips to a folder, in which you need to run the setup within the folder you've extracted it. https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=353 Back it up, since M$ will delete it with no notice, I'm sure!

Sorry for off-topic, but how ABCDEFG made the Device Manager window resizeable? As for RAM, just stick to 1GB limited with HIMEMX.EXE, and apply the Xeno's Vcache patch, nothing else. No SYSTEM.INI modifications at all. That's what I've used, and worked flawlessly, especially with newer motherboards. I like simple solutions.

@Damnation I know there are USB 2.0 PCI-E x1 cards, but that's spending more money on stuff Besides, I only have one PCI-E x1 slot, if I had two of them, I would consider it, alongside a SATA PCI-E x1 card compatible with 98SE. But as of now, I'm so freaking tired of 98SE, I don't want to look at it, at least for now. @ragnargd Hehe, thanks I know you are very experienced with 98SE, and know that it's a tough OS to love.

Sadly, I will have to call this a defeat. I'll no longer be interested in putting 98SE on my main rig. The number of obstacles is simply too much for what it's worth. So here's what's wrong: 1. NO USB Support! (therefore no Audio whatsoever!) The USB controller in the motherboard uses this hardware ID: PCI\CC_0C0330 But USB drivers, such as NUSB expect this ID: PCI\CC_0C0320 So I can't use any USB devices, other than the keyboard and mouse I use emulated as a PS/2 devices via BIOS option. This means I cannot use the USB audio card I've bought 2. Drive forced in compatibility mode with no hope whatsoever! :/ This is the biggest issue. I've tried many methods to make the drive not at slow as it is: -tried XHDD, machine hangs in BOOTLOG.TXT at "DEVICEINIT = VFAT" -tried XMGR, does not load at all -even contacted rloew about the SATA Patch, with the result I got from his "test" program, it shows the SATA controller in my motherboard works only in AHCI mode, which is bad :/ (maybe related to that, the ESDI file is not attempted to load at all, it goes straight to the compatibility mode) I know I could use SMARTDRV, or other workarounds, but they will not be as stable and reliable as a true 32-bit disk access with the ESDI_506.PDR file. I want that, nothing else. The results are constant freezes when there's lots of file moving/copying. I also got some disk write error BSODs, which got me scared. 3. The system randomly freezes for no apparent reason after installing the 82.69 drivers. I though the freezes would be detected by the TESTEOI test device form rloew, but no, I didn't get a single error message/BSOD related to the EOI bug. 4. The system does not shutdown, it just hangs at the shutdown logo, I've tried everything, like the shutdown supplement, and service packs, but nothing worked. 5. The NVCHECK utility from rloew did show correctly that -> "Resource Under Allocated Driver Patch or BIOS Flash Needed" 6. The 3DMark2001 SE scores I got were really low. I got about 45k score, where as I wanted to get about 65k as seen here: http://hwbot.org/submission/3228042 (this very submission was partly the reason I bought the 7900 GTO and started this whole build, hoping I could be as good as him, but...nope ) So, in conclusion...not worth it. I love 98SE, but the design choices made back in 1999 do show their cons in 2017 Now I got a 7900 GTO and a USB sound card I don't know what to do with now...I'll keep them, maybe they'll come in handy later, who knows, I'm mad enough I got rid of some stuff I sold for practically nothing I could have used

Hello! My 7900 GTO has arrived on Friday. I was super busy with other stuff, and could not focus fully on the build. Further discussion will be in the topic below, which will be up (hopefully) tomorrow, once I gather enough resources, and testing materials. It will be a final topic, no more extra topics, promise It will contain everything you might know about my build, and a step by step guide how I've installed 98SE on such a new motherboard. Enjoy! (placeholder topic link) See below

WDM, not VMD. This website might help you: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/best-sound-card-for-super-socket-7.html Basically choosing between performance (VXD) or having advanced sound options like EAX and digital CD audio (WDM). That's all I know.

I'll get my paycheck on about the 10th next month, maybe then we'll talk about the patches, for now, I'll just use my experience with 98SE and modern hardware. Need to have something more than VBEMP and USB 2.0 disk speeds. @rloew How should I contact you to obtain a SATA Compatibility Testing Program should I need one? EDIT: Main post edited, reflecting current situation, it's looking good, here's how partitions and disks stack up: To make the partition bootable, I've used Rufus to make a MS-DOS USB bootdisk (need Win8.1 or below, can't do it on Win10, no, FreeDOS will not work), then I've downloaded FORMAT.COM from here (no ramdrive) , and used it to format it. Then I've copied the command.com and io.sys to the partion, and voila!

Umm...If I was interested in generic drivers, I would not buy a 7900 GTO. I will try to run it without the NVIDIA patch. I'm more happy to see that my partition plan will not blow things up. @dencorso I know about this, I've used it to make the first DOS part (Win3.1) of the Win95/Win98 setup in 1024x768x256. It looks nice, but is not what I'm looking for

EDIT: See this post, this project is abandoned: I'll have my 7900 GTO very shortly. So with that, I will have all the parts to make my ultimate 98SE PC. The catch is to have it as seamless as with my main, modern PC build, with as little part swapping as possible. It will have these parts: - ASRock H110M-DVS R3.0 motherboard with the latest 1.20 UEFI BIOS. It has CSM and PS/2 Simulator options, it can run 98SE, as I've showcased in this topic (but it was running from USB flash drive at that time and was not usable too much) Realtek LAN drivers for 98SE from their website works flawlessly with this motherboard as seen above as well. - Intel Pentium G4560 With its high single core performance, it maybe(?) will compete with current 98SE kings in ranks of the Core 2 Duo E8600 and alike. - 2x4GB sticks of DDR4 RAM 2400MHz I'll limit it with either HIMEMX.EXE or MaxPhysPage in SYSTEM.INI to either 512MB or 1024MB (with Xeno's VCACHE.VXD patch) - GoodRam Iridium Pro 240GB SSD It hosts my modern Win7 installation, currently it works as a single NTFS partition running in MBR mode, it will not be used. (maybe it will be used with a read-only NTFS driver, as I don't want any data loss to try the Paragon's utility, but...no risk, no fun ) - Inno3D GeForce GTX 1050 Ti X2 GPU It won't be used, obviously It gives graphical glitches right at the beginning of the Win98 setup! Surprisingly, the Intel HD 610 built into the CPU did not. - MSI GeForce 7900 GTO 512MB I'll use the 82.69 drivers, they should work, hopefully. I don't know/care if they run in Windows 7, but I'll get used to GPU swapping I will overclock the GPU using RivaTuner in 98SE, obviously, I've done it all before on my old 98SE rig. -Generic "3D Sound" Chinese USB Audio Device Maybe it will provide some sound. Works on Win7, haven't tested it on 98SE yet. - Less important stuff: Seasonic Eco 430W PSU, Aerocool QS-182 Case - 98SE will be located on the separate Toshiba P300 1TB SATA HDD To not waste the whole 1TB of space, I've used only the 60GB portion at the beginning of the drive for a FAT32 98SE partition, the rest is a second, NTFS partition for data storage. I'll be testing as soon as I get the 7900 GTO. I know I might require a SATA and/or an NVIDIA patch, but I want to work without them as long as possible. Who needs ESDI_506.PDR anyways? Isn't 16bit disk access fun with all its file operation delays?

If the developers include such checks, they either do it without testing to skip some valuable time, or they have tried it in those old OS'es and decided to not support it. And yes, things are indeed also changed, not added/removed. And maybe those changes make more trouble than trying to add new functions via KernelEx. That are the problems with closed software.

HWINFO.EXE (with the /UI switch to show the...well, UI ) that comes natively with 98SE on the Windows folder, also sorta works. I've used it. Here's a sample screenshot: It shows the Device Name exactly like in the Device Manager as well as the exact Registry Key. Also, nice find about the SIV, will take a look at it, while I run 98SE again, for PC listings, I've used AIDA64 on 98SE for many months now. It runs natively without KernelEx as well, even the latest portable version.

Win98 uses outdated ANSI version of the WinAPI with ANSI only calls and functions. With Unicows and KernelEx you can only add so much of the modern Unicode calls that are used by NT based operating systems. NTKERN.VXD also only implemented so much at that time. (especially when talking about the cross-compatibility with 2000 WDM drivers) You can't remake a whole operating system's kernel and main system files, it's not Linux. With thousands of new calls made for NT operating systems that can make software faster, easier to write, debug, test and distribute. Having 98SE in mind, would require probably a whole new executable of that program with functions purposely designed for 98SE (if we're not talking about using KernelEx). That costs time and money. What if a developer says a particular Unicode call is required for software to work, and it can't be faked/hooked with KernelEx? You'll be stuck like we all are right now. With Win2000/XP being more and more outdates in terms of drivers/software support, having new 98SE software is virtually impossible, as Vista introduced another major changes to the API, kernel and framework. So you either develop specifically for 98SE, or not at all. Here's a recent example: https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-for-windows-98-seme2000-pre-release/ http://retroarch.com/index.php?page=platforms https://buildbot.libretro.com/docs/compilation/windows98/ It's a completely separate package which requires a completely different compiler to be build. It's a lot of work for probably like only 1000+ max people that would care about new 98SE software. We people expect to have great success without much work. Maybe creating software 98SE would please such 1000 people, but would it be enough in the long run, if you have millions of people running the same software on modern OS's? Without a seperate team dedicated for only 98SE builds, you wouldn't have time to support, and bug fix both builds. As I've said, it takes time and money. If I'm wrong at something (@rloew probably will correct me at something ) just let me know, but this is the image I have in my mind.

Yes, I've tried exactly that, alongside the included OEMSETUP.INF file. It did not work. The DOS messages before Windows splash screen show that it is connected, but the system hangs at that point. Then, after the reboot, the system boots, but the ASD.EXE utility should that there was a problem with TCP/IP, which is the EXACT same behaviour, as with using a .SYS driver. I don't have this laptop anymore, so I can't test it with your INF.

I haven't used PS/2 ports in any of my modern PC 98SE installations, so they are not a problem, I haven't seen a single motherboard without at least the Legacy USB setting. "SETUP /P I" fixes all ACPI problems, the computer might not shutdown after successful install, but that's not such a big nuisance, just pull the power plug/hold power button/flip the switch on PSU/download a DOS program to shutdown and exit to dos to shutdown/etc. I didn't have to use any paid patches to make 98SE work on my modern computers so far. (I'm lucky or what? ) Yes, CSM is required on newer UEFI motherboard to make any non-UEFI OS work. Including 9x, 2000, XP, and possible even DOS? That's the main concern I have too.

I've tried using the DOS driver in my old Lenovo laptop with this ID: PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8136&REV_07 It didn't work, so even if they are not any revision checks, they are not guaranteed to work at all.

Apologize to rloew, I probably misread that old post of yours. But even it if was an older motherboard, the procedures would have been pretty much the same. They can apply to any modern motherboard. So putting bare-bones 98SE on any modern PC is easy. The drivers and patches are what's more important, and those must be decided on individual bases.

My board works with 98SE. It's not news, rloew uses his Z170 motherboards with 98SE as well. Currently it's running off the integrated Intel HD 610 GPU from the Pentium G4560 with the VBEMP generic driver. It's good for what it's worth, consideting it's limitations. I use a USB keyboard and mouse. The Ethernet card, as I've wrote in my previous posts, works flawlessly with the 2008 98SE driver from Realtek's website, the screenshot shows that clearly. No Audio, but buying a cheap Chinese USB Audio Card should work. I'm planning on getting a 7900 GTO. (same as 7900 GTX but with lower memory clocks, the PCB and cooler are identical) I also must consider on getting a normal HDD, (a 1TB Toshiba should be fine, with the partition limited), because now, I'm running 98SE from my SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 32GB flashdrive (plugged into a USB 2.0 port). I use the Rufus utility to create a MS-DOS bootable stick (can't do it on Win10, I had to use the free virtual machines MS provides), then I copy the Win98 folder from the 98SE CD onto it (and remove fluff from USB stick that Rufus creates except for IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM, obviously). Then I boot from it, run "setup /is /ie /iv /iq /im /nr /p i" and let the first part complete. (it completes with no errors) Then I copy the Vcache patch by Xeno to SYSTEM/VMM32, and the HIMEMX.EXE file to root. I put HIMEMX.EXE into CONFIG.SYS with the /MAX parameter in bytes (I've used 512MB, but 1GB should work too). Those two things make it so that I don't have to modify SYSTEM.INI to get to the second part of the install. Then I finish the second part (it might freeze, but a restart fixes that). After it boots. I've installed the VBEMP driver, and the LAN driver, also copied the latest portable version of AIDA64 to showcase the PC specs. And that's pretty much it. This is the only method I've tried that works...and I've tried A LOT! Of course the USB drive works entirely in 16-bit DOS compatibility mode (Windows complains a lot in system properties), so any file operations hang the system for a good while. It is REALLY annoying! And of course, I've turned Legacy USB, CSM, XHCI Hand-Off, PS/2 Emulator all ON. So as you can see, it's not perfect, but with a few purchases, I might have the world's fastest 98SE build with the best 3DMark scores, we shall see...Maybe I won't have to buy the SATA or NVIDIA patch at all. I know there's no Legacy SATA option in the UEFI. So maybe the SATA patch will be a necessity...or I develop one on my own This is my only PC, normally it runs Win10 on a 240GB SSD. (will back to Win7, since Win10 is getting on my nerves more and more with every day). I obviously won't install 98SE on it, I could in theory do a multi boot with Win7/Win98SE once I get the 1TB HDD, but I would have to switch the GPUs for every OS. (I'm getting a GTX 1050 Ti), and that takes (albeit not much) time... Also, almost all of the 1TB space would be wasted.