Will nvidia 8600/9600GT 256MB work under W98? test please

[xrayer]

Hi,

currently I'm running Asus 7900GT but I found that videomemory is failing. I'm got some artifact even in text mode! Underclocking to lowest GPU/RAM frequency didn't help. So I will need to buy some replacement. But 7900/7950 is too old - they disappeared from shops here. If I will have a luck I could buy it from other user otherwise I will need to buy something newer. From previous experiences and reading around here maybe 8600GT would work if equipped with 256MB. 8800 would be better but I saw only with 384MB or more. I belive that VRAM size is important. Please can somebody test the 256MB version of 8xxx/9xxx chip under win98?

[cooksy]

Hi xrayer,

8600gt with 256MB is not working, although the modified nvidia driver 82.69 recognises the card properly. I tried manual install on a clean win98, but the computer freezes during booting up. In safe mode the PC is booting and shows the graphics card properly in the device manager.

I was investigating on a AliveDual-Sata and AM2NF3-VST motherboards with Athlon 6000/Phenom 9950 and 1 GB or 2 GB RAM, no chance.

So I had to stick to the 7950gt as best card.

[dencorso]

@cooksy: what graphics card do you presntly have? A 7950gt as per the above post or a 7900gs as in this other post of yours? Or both? And how well do they work with the unofficial 82.69 drivers?

[rloew]

I have tried a 512MB 8400GS in my ECS 6100SM and Gigabyte MA78GM Computers with the 82.69 Drivers. Both crashed in bootup on the second initialization of NVCORE.VXD. The Motherboard Video on the ECS 6100SM also failed in the same manner, regardless of AGP Aperture size.

Tests with a 512MB 6200 show that the VRAM size is not an issue with the 77.72 or 81.98 Drivers, so it is unlikely an issue with the 82.69 Drivers.

Unlike my 128MB ATI Radeon card, these drivers do not allocate all of the AGP space at one time. This is the likely cause of problems using 512MB Graphics cards, that other people have reported, since this would exhaust System Arena Memory unless the File Cache is made very small. I also tried reducing File Cache without result.

Substituting 81.98 Files seemed to have no effect.

Substituting 77.72 Files disabled the Driver, allowing the Computer to boot into 640x480x16 mode.

[cooksy]

@cooksy: what graphics card do you presntly have? A 7950gt as per the above post or a 7900gs as in this other post of yours? Or both? And how well do they work with the unofficial 82.69 drivers?

I have currently the 7950gt in my AMD System, the 7900GS is in my second Intel System. Both cards have 256MB and work fine with the 82.69 drivers.

[dencorso]

So, my understanding is that no Series 8 or higher nVidia card has been found out to work with Win 9x/ME.

If some user has actually managed to get any such card working with Win 9x/ME, please do come forward and share your findings!

But, until someone finds a way to use the Series 8 and higher cards, if ever such a way will be found, I do highly recommend that you all consider the second-hand market as an option. I've never bought a brand new graphics card in my life, and had no problems with the various second-hand ones I acquired along the years. My most recent acquisition was a dead GeForce FX5200 (AGP, 128 MiB) given me by a client: it wasn't quite obvious, but the problem was just 5 bad capacitors, which I substituted, and it's now working like a champ again.

[cooksy]

Hi everybody,

after my attempts some time ago with the 8600gts card, I tried this week a 9600gt with 512MB memory.

Unfortunately, no success. Windows is recognizing the card properly when installing the latest 82.69 driver files. After restart I get a "Windows protection error - Restart your system" error.

When I boot again, Windows is coming up in VGA mode, the graphic card is shown with a yellow exclamation mark. I'm currently not able to boot in safe mode, as I have 4GB ram installed, so I need to get a 521MB bar for further testing.

However I managed to use Win98 normal, by installing my old ATI 9600Pro card in the AGP slot of the AliveDual-eSATAII motherboard, while keeping the 9600gt in the PCIe slot, using it in WInXP and Vista. Just needed to disable the ATI card, however one could use both cards under XP and even Vista. just need to switch the primary card in the BIOS to AGP before starting Win98.

In case I will not be able to get the 9600gt running under Win98, I will stick to this solution, as the VESA drivers are not able to run 3D games.

Keep you informed!

[Laaca]

The last chance is to try the VESA drivers from VBEPM project by Bear Window.

here

[dencorso]

There is valuable info and discussion on bearwindows driver here also: Asus Eee PC and Windows 9x.

[xrayer]

Hi,

I was just testing a borrowed GF 8800GTS/640MB/PCIE and I didn't managed it to work in any way.

As cooksy reported it installed properly with 82.69 drivers but after restart I got mentioned

"Windows protection error - Restart your system" error.

But in my case it apeared everytime on boot. I could boot in safemode only.

After some further messing I gave up.

Cooksy and schwups reported that he even tried a 256MB 8600 card and also didn't work.

So now I'm pretty sure that 82.69 drivers simply don't support G80 core and newer.

It's not enough to put device ID into INF files but would require upgrading binary.

As Win2k/XP drivers are very different kind it is not possible (maybe if someone

make something like kernelex for drivers )

So I'm keeping my 7900GT and if I will see some cheap 7950GX2 I'll upgrade...

Edited December 11, 2009 by dencorso
When warranted, as here is the case, quote explicitly your other post across threads, but don't doublepost, please.