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Best Graphics Card With Win98SE Drivers?

Dave-H

By Dave-H
in Windows 9x/ME

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dencorso

dencorso

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My point is that Gape's SP 2.1a installs VMM.VxD 4.10.0.2226. Somehow you've downgraded to VMM.VxD 4.10.0.2222 somewhere along the way, because 2222 is the only version that (when extracted fom inside VMM32.VXD by RLoew's patcher) has no version info (because, when the windows installer first compiles VMM32.VxD during the installation process it stripes the version info from all the VxD it'll compile, to save space). So, after uSP 2.1a and RLoew's patch, your %WINDIR%\SYSTEM\VMM32 folder should have the contents below:

125,593 CONFIGMG.VXD
186,470 IFSMGR.VXD
 69,594 IOS.VXD
195,262 NTKERN.VXD
  9,792 QEMMFIX.VXD
 36,606 VCACHE.BAK
 37,159 VCACHE.VXD
 33,115 VCOMM.VXD
 77,993 VFAT.VXD
 22,615 VMCPD.VXD
472,564 VMM.BAK
472,564 VMM.VXD
 33,356 VMOUSE.VXD
 47,497 VPICD.VXD
 41,615 UDF.VXD

With VMM.VxD being v. 4.10.0.2226! Since this is not the case, I do suggest that you make a backup of the contents of that folder. Then get Q288430, open it with 7-zip and get NTKern.VxD and VMM.VxD from inside it. Then reboot to true DOS, uninstall RLoew's patch with the original installer, substitute both NTKern.VxD and VMM.VxD by the ones got from Q288430, then reinstall Rloew's patch and reboot. Let's see whether updating your VMM.VxD will make any difference.

I sure hope it will. :yes:

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Cyker

Cyker

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@DaveH - I think you can hack the BIOS/firmware with something like NiBiTor to make the card think it only has 256MB RAM... There are lots of stuff you can tweak but can't remember if RAM size is one of them

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Dave-H

Dave-H

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@dencorso.

I've done as you suggested.

I seem to have four additional files in the VMM32 folder, which are mrci2.vxd, vdd.vxd, vdmad.vxd, and vflatd.vxd.

VMM.VXD is now version 4.10.2226.

Unfortunately this has made no difference to either the start-up or shut-down error message.

:no:

BTW, were you aware that Windows XP cannot read the version information from these files?!

I was completely thrown when I came to post this while in XP and found that the Windows Explorer wouldn't show me the file information to confirm it. In Windows 98 the version information shows fine. Bizarre!

@cyker

Thanks for that. I had looked as the information on BIOS tweaking programs, and couldn't see any mention of being able to tweak the amount of available memory. In fact the one I tried didn't even recognise the card!

I will investigate further on this. Do you have any recommendations?

I have found a BFG NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS AGP card for sale, which only has 256 MB of memory.

I'm now wondering whether to try that to see if the overlay will work.

I'm assuming that the modified Windows 98 driver will work with it!

:)

Edited by Dave-H
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Cyker

Cyker

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Darn :(

I must admit the only times I've used such BIOS editor were to overclock my old Ti4200 and to convert an X850PE to an X850XT :lol:

I'll have a poke around and get back to you...

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dencorso

dencorso

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@dencorso.

I've done as you suggested.

I seem to have four additional files in the VMM32 folder, which are mrci2.vxd, vdd.vxd, vdmad.vxd, and vflatd.vxd.

mrci2.vxd seems to be the Matrox version of mrci.vxd, which is related to DoubleSpace (see this and this). The other 3 are normal Win 98SE VxDs, probably v. 4.10.0.2222, as AFICR there were no updates to them (and they also exist inside VMM32.VxD). All four are harmless, but you can rename them to, say, .ant and see whether they are missed. If you don't have any DoubleSpace compressed drives, I'd say they won't.

VMM.VXD is now version 4.10.2226.

Unfortunately this has made no difference to either the start-up or shut-down error message.

:no:

Well that's now right. But I did hope it would help... too bad it doesn't. :(

BTW, were you aware that Windows XP cannot read the version information from these files?!

I was completely thrown when I came to post this while in XP and found that the Windows Explorer wouldn't show me the file information to confirm it. In Windows 98 the version information shows fine. Bizarre!

Yes. I think the problem is Win XP actively avoids anything having to do with VxDs (or executables in the LE format), while it will gladly read the version info for both NE (16-bit) and PE (32-bit) executables. So, while it knows all about VS_VERSION_INFO structures, it ignores those that are inside VxDs (and .386 files). I think that's "by design". :wacko: So, when in XP, the only way I know of finding the version of VxDs is by opening them in an hexeditor and browsing for the version info.

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Dave-H

Dave-H

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mrci2.vxd seems to be the Matrox version of mrci.vxd, which is related to DoubleSpace (see this and this). The other 3 are normal Win 98SE VxDs, probably v. 4.10.0.2222, as AFICR there were no updates to them (and they also exist inside VMM32.VxD). All four are harmless, but you can rename them to, say, .ant and see whether they are missed. If you don't have any DoubleSpace compressed drives, I'd say they won't.

DoubleSpace, now there's a blast from the past!

I think I may have used it when I was running Windows 3.1 over 15 years ago.

Yes, I've still got files on my system from then!

:blushing:

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Dave-H

Dave-H

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Well, I've just bought the BFG NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS here.

It only has 256 MB on board, and I will be interested to see how it compares with the XFX 512 MB card.

What I'm really hoping is that the hardware overlay works again of course, but there's unfortunately no way of knowing that without actually buying the card and trying it!

:)

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risk_reversal

risk_reversal

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Well, I've just bought the BFG NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS here.

It only has 256 MB on board, and I will be interested to see how it compares with the XFX 512 MB card.

What I'm really hoping is that the hardware overlay works again of course, but there's unfortunately no way of knowing that without actually buying the card and trying it!

:)

I wish I had seen your post sooner re the BFG 7800GS.

I did not have any luck with it overall (perhaps fortune will smile upon your endeavors). I reverted back to my trusted BFG 6800GT. A point which I do not recall trying with the 7800GS is driver related. By that I mean that the most stable 6800GT drivers that I am using is the 61.59 (i think. definitely 61.xx) but can't recall trying those on the BFG 7800GS.

By the way the 7800GS is a good card but from a performance point of view not that far ahead of the 6800GT.

Good Luck

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Dave-H

Dave-H

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Thanks for that.

I'm still waiting for my card to be delivered (I went for the cheapest shipping option!) so have nothing to report as yet.

Did you ever try Maximus-Decim's modified 82.69 driver?

That's the only one that will work on Windows 98 with my present 7950 GT card.

I'm hoping it will work with the 7800 as well!

:)

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Cyker

Cyker

Posted
Posted (edited)

Thanks for that.

I'm still waiting for my card to be delivered (I went for the cheapest shipping option!) so have nothing to report as yet.

Did you ever try Maximus-Decim's modified 82.69 driver?

That's the only one that will work on Windows 98 with my present 7950 GT card.

I'm hoping it will work with the 7800 as well!

:)

Yeah, I think that and one other driver are the only ones that actually detect and 'work' properly with the 7950GT.

The problem I have is that once you reboot to enable the new driver, things stop working; I can see that the graphics system has been init'd (That's what the message says on the 9200! :lol: ), but that's where it stops :(

I might have to install VNC just to see if its just the graphics system that's not working or whether the whole boot process stalls at that point...

That driver should work with the 7800, but one good thing about the 7800 is you have more options for drivers with that core (Plus the 'official' driver that I linked to ;))

Edited by Cyker
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risk_reversal

risk_reversal

Posted
Posted (edited)

Thanks for that.

Did you ever try Maximus-Decim's modified 82.69 driver?

That's the only one that will work on Windows 98 with my present 7950 GT card.

I'm hoping it will work with the 7800 as well!

:)

I can't remember, it was about 3 years ago when I tried it. As I said If you have no luck with the BFG 7800GS then the 6800GT will purr without issues as you are well aware.

The only reason I went with the BFG 6800GT as opposed to an ultra is because the difference in performance is not huge. Plus from a gaming point of view those cards are old hat and finally the GT are single height with only one additional molex connector.

I wish you luck and will monitor your efforts as it may encourage me to try again (perhaps).

Cheers

Edited by risk_reversal
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Dave-H

Dave-H

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Back again!

:hello:

My BFG GE 7800 GS 256 MB card finally arrived today.

Put it in, and it works fine, but exactly the same as the XFX GE 7950 GT 512 MB card.

That is to say I still have the two error messages in Windows 98 on start-up and shut-down, and my hardware overlay still doesn't work properly.

:(

So, it looks as if I bought it for nothing.

The overlay problem is obviously nothing to do with the 512 MB of memory on the card, which I thought it might be.

I've put the XFX card back in, as it's the better card.

I don't know where to go from here now.

At least I've proved that it is possible to get a 512 MB card working in Windows 98, if you don't mind working around a couple of niggling error messages.

The overlay problem is a killer though.

I can't just keep on buying cards and trying them in the hope of finding one that works!

:no:

I have a nasty suspicion that the capture/editing card that I have never did really work well with nVidia graphics cards.

I'm worried that even if I went for even earlier 6 or even 5 series cards I might well have the same issue.

So, that leaves me with trying a more up-to-date ATI/AMD card.

Someone here has been trying to use a more recent ATI card than the one I have, and it looks as if the very latest ATI AGP cards that will work with Windows 98 are the X800 series.

Is that so, and if it is maybe I'll try and get hold of one.

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Bleeder

Bleeder

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Posted (edited)

So, that leaves me with trying a more up-to-date ATI/AMD card.

Someone here has been trying to use a more recent ATI card than the one I have, and it looks as if the very latest ATI AGP cards that will work with Windows 98 are the X800 series.

As you said something about playing recent games, an ATI card is going to be a bad choice if any of your games need (or would look better with) shader model 3.0 support. The x8xx series cards do not support SM 3.0. The x1xxx cards do support SM 3.0, but they have no drivers for Win9x/ME. I discovered this the hard way when I purchased BioShock three years ago :-(

Edited by Bleeder
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dencorso

dencorso

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Dave, while you still have the cards, would you please check

how does the system behave in case you take your vidocapture card out (just for testing, of course)?

I'm interested in finding out which (if any) of the issues you have are due to the (bad) interaction between the cards.

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