Need a little help with 98/ ram issue

[thisis1984]

Hello there,

My system is an MSI 865g neo 2-p motherboard, 3.4ghz pentium 4 northwood, with a 256mb agp Geforce 6800 ultra video card.

My goal is to eventually be able to tripple boot 98se, xp, and 7 on the same system. SO far I have installed 98se and xp. Everything went swimingly with a 512mb ram modual. The goal is to set the system up with 4 gb of ram which I have. I do not expect to be able to use all that ram in 98, I just want the system to work.

 

I have run auto patcher on 98, placed "MaxFileCache=131072" under the vcache section of the system.ini file and also set "MaxPhysPage=30000" under [386Enh] to limit the amount of ram windows 98 sees, I tryed it at 40000 as well. Once I set the MaxPhysPage= I am now able to boot windows 98 with the large ammount of ram installed; however, now I have a new problem. Once I did that my video card quit working properly and windows 98 will only boot into 640x480 vga with an error message that begins with "there is a problem with your display settings". The correct drivers are installed and it was working before.

 

What did I just do? I'm not really an expert on these things, what do I need to do to get this back working correctly with the large ammount of ram installed to use under xp and 7?

[dencorso]

I don't know anybody who's got a 6800 to work right... so it may simply be impossible...

Then again, if anything can help you at this point, that'd be the RAM Limitation Patch. Do try it.

[thisis1984]

Well, even though I had those settings set in the system.ini and the system was able to boot with the large ammount of ram installed I was unable to install the patch from there to test it because it was saying I was out of ram. I've looked over this forum but I must be doing something wrong. As soon as I took the ram out and put the 512mb modual back in everything is back to normal. With Forceware81.98 I have 32bit color and high resolutions back. The problem only presents itself when I install the large ammount of ram. and even with those system ini settings it still told me that I was out of ram to run anything dos. So that must have something to do with the fact that the graphics quit working as well.

 

Now that things are working again I will try to install the patch and swap the memory back out to see if that works. I'll update this post witht the results.

[sdfox7]

Are you using the correct drivers? NVIDIA did in fact make Windows 95 and 98 drivers for this card:

 

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/11/en-us

[thisis1984]

Well I got the ram patch installed by removing the large ram, going back to the 512mb modual, instaling the patch, and then reinserting the full 4 gigs after I had installed the patch and everything went back to being right as rain. Ram is still limited due to my settings in the system.ini file but the system boots and works like it did before when the 512mb modual alone was installed. I thought that I could limit the ram using those settings but appearently not. I guess I need the patch. Is Mr. Loew still activly selling it? Should I expect a prompt reply from him? I dont understand why I just couldnt make it work by limiting the ram like than in the ini file. Regardless everything seems to be working right with the patch.

 

to sdfox7

Yes I'm using the right drivers. Before with only 512mb installed everything worked fine.

 

to dencorso

Thats interesting about you saying that you've never heard of a 6800 working right with 98. I was under the impression that the 6 series was the last nvidia supported for 98 and so I just reacently bought the best card in the series, the 6800 ultra, specifically for this system for this purpose. I havent tried to play any games yet but it seems that its working for me. What kinds of problems have you heard about happening with this card? Is there some nastiness that I should expect?

[dencorso]

It only means that I don't recall anyone having reported success with a 6800 here... It's been a long time since I actually read the threads In the link I just gave you, so I may be wrong, but what I remember is that the 6200 works.

 

You should contact RLoew by e-mail. When doing the definitive install, be sure to use the /M switch.

[LoneCrusader]

I dont understand why I just couldnt make it work by limiting the ram like than in the ini file.

 

I was under the impression that the 6 series was the last nvidia supported for 98 and so I just reacently bought the best card in the series, the 6800 ultra, specifically for this system for this purpose.

Limiting RAM on a system with the various "tweaks" floating around the net never worked for me, not even to run anything over 512MB much less 4GB. The RAM Limitation Patch is the way to go, I purchased it, installed it, and never looked back. RLoew is very prompt and helpful in his responses.

As far as I know you are right about the 6800 Ultra, it should work. I have virtually all ATI brand video cards myself but I always planned to try to get a 6800 Ultra at some point so I would have the "top of the line" in both brands for 9x.

[dencorso]

I provided you the correct link: nVidia GeForce and Win 9x/ME - Relevant Threads
There you'll find a link to the only thread specifically about a 6800 where the OP didn't succeed.
And in it I mention Multibooter uses successfully a 7800.
The only function of a index thread like that is to help people locate things more easily...

But it turns out I was wrong, after all: risk_reversal actually has been using a 6800 for quite some time, already.

[Nomen]

Isin't (wasn't) there an issue with Nvidia cards with "Turbo Cache" not being compatible with win-9x - including the 6xxx series?

Would the AGP aperture setting in the motherboard BIOS play a role when installing more than 512 mb of system ram?

[submix8c]

AGP Aperture gave me a problem, so there's that. Had to cut it in half and then it booted.