What to do after Windows 98 Second Edition setup for most stability

[Fido-X 1]

Hello everyone, i'm posting this here because i'd like answers from those who really know.

System specifications:

Processor: AMD Sempron 2500+
Motherboard: Gigabyte K8VT800-8237
Graphics Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 128 MB
RAM: 1024 MB, 1 STICK
Hard Drive: Maxtor IDE 40 GB 
CD/DVD:SONY CD-DVD ROM DVD-RW (SATA)

Most of hardware including the motherboard was made in China.

I have found that Gigabyte motherboards really don't like NVIDIA video adapters.  So i decided to ask here what should i do because everything works fine without updates, drivers and service packs so i figure the hardware is fine.

I'd like to know what to do AFTER Windows setup and after i limit RAM to 511 MB:

1. Which patches should i get and in which exact order to install them (first to last) also before or after some or all drivers or service packs?

2. Which service packs should i install (i'm not sure because some claim i should get the latest while some say i should get a Service pack 2 2.03 Dutch or Danish version)?

Thank you in advance.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Tripredacus

[Tripredacus 369]

Fix your topic title.

[cov3rt 7]

On 4/8/2017 at 11:02 PM, Fido-X said:

Hello everyone, i'm posting this here because i'd like answers from those who really know.

System specifications:

Processor: AMD Sempron 2500+
Motherboard: Gigabyte K8VT800-8237
Graphics Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 128 MB
RAM: 1024 MB, 1 STICK
Hard Drive: Maxtor IDE 40 GB 
CD/DVD:SONY CD-DVD ROM DVD-RW (SATA)

Most of hardware including the motherboard was made in China.

I have found that Gigabyte motherboards really don't like NVIDIA video adapters.  So i decided to ask here what should i do because everything works fine without updates, drivers and service packs so i figure the hardware is fine.

I'd like to know what to do AFTER Windows setup and after i limit RAM to 511 MB:

1. Which patches should i get and in which exact order to install them (first to last) also before or after some or all drivers or service packs?

2. Which service packs should i install (i'm not sure because some claim i should get the latest while some say i should get a Service pack 2 2.03 Dutch or Danish version)?

Thank you in advance.

im not sure why the gigabyte boards would have a problem with nvidia adapters, all of the regular desktop geforce 6000 series gpu's have official windows 98SE drivers, i would use the oldest one possible, forceware 66.94 should be good, although i've heard up to 77.xx can be used without modification and works properly still, although there IS a shutdown patch for the 81.98 driver, i dont remember if it fixed this AND the utility problem i believe it has, i would still try forceware 66.94 first and make sure its the 9x version. the most recent unofficial service pack is 3.56 i believe. 

you do not need to limit ram to 511 MB, up to just under 1 GB can be limited and still the system will work fine, the "minfilecache" and "maxfilecache" settings are what are just as important. i set mine to 4300 for both settings which is about the minimum you should put for 1 GB systems and my systems have been working fine with this recent setting. "maxphyspage=40000" should be a good setting for the ram limit. i also set the option in folders to show all system files and smooth edges of screen fonts, also you can delete the favorites menu from the start menu, make sure to allocate dma memory in device manager for direct access memory controller as well as enabling it on the drive, you can also check the setting for write cache enabling on drives in the performance menu and set the drive performance to network. 

[LoneCrusader 182]

On Monday, April 10, 2017 at 11:30 AM, Tripredacus said:

Fix your topic title.

Yes. I see you've made it more descriptive since Trip posted but also there's no need to shout.

On Sunday, April 09, 2017 at 2:02 AM, Fido-X said:

Hello everyone, i'm posting this here because i'd like answers from those who really know.

System specifications:

Processor: AMD Sempron 2500+
Motherboard: Gigabyte K8VT800-8237
Graphics Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 128 MB
RAM: 1024 MB, 1 STICK
Hard Drive: Maxtor IDE 40 GB 
CD/DVD:SONY CD-DVD ROM DVD-RW (SATA)

Most of hardware including the motherboard was made in China.

I have found that Gigabyte motherboards really don't like NVIDIA video adapters.  So i decided to ask here what should i do because everything works fine without updates, drivers and service packs so i figure the hardware is fine.

I'd like to know what to do AFTER Windows setup and after i limit RAM to 511 MB:

1. Which patches should i get and in which exact order to install them (first to last) also before or after some or all drivers or service packs?

2. Which service packs should i install (i'm not sure because some claim i should get the latest while some say i should get a Service pack 2 2.03 Dutch or Danish version)?

Thank you in advance.

I personally don't use any of the unofficial 98SE packs except NUSB. You definitely do not want to install a different language version of a package on an English version of the OS however (assuming you're running the English version, if not then disregard this).

[rloew 139]

MaxFileCache must be set to at least 44000 NOT 4300 with 1GiB of RAM.
It can be set much higher if you want more Disk Cache.
Going above 524288 is risky.

MinFileCache is not important.

[cov3rt 7]

18 hours ago, rloew said:

MaxFileCache must be set to at least 44000 NOT 4300 with 1GiB of RAM.
It can be set much higher if you want more Disk Cache.
Going above 524288 is risky.

MinFileCache is not important.

hi rloew, can you explain why i should use 44000 and not 4300 for maxfilecache for 1 GB systems? would the minimum for both the minfilecache and maxfilecache not be 1/24 of your system ram? i thought 4300 was about 1/24 of 1 GB of ram? that being said, the systems i ran recently with the 4300 settings ran fine, however i suppose they could have run better with higher settings? one thing i noticed i didn't seem to have was the weird virtual memory problem of it becoming disabled and having the main partition running in compatibility mode, i feel like it was fixed by using the 4300 settings, because before, when i had used "minfilecache=0" and "maxfilecache=0", on every system that had a main partition larger than 32 GB, it would cause the virtual memory becoming disabled problem, unless ram was limited to 384 MB, who knows? how do i calculate the numbers for min and max file cache? i know that for maxphyspage, 40000 = about 1 GB, but 44000 apparently uses different conversion in the min and max file cache?

[rloew 139]

Assuming you set RAM Memory to exactly 1GiB using MaxPhysPage=40000.

1GiB = 1048576KiB. MaxFileCache is in KiB so the minimum is 1048576/24 = 43691. I rounded up to 44000.

If you try to set MaxFileCache to less than the minimum, then Windows will simply ignore the setting and stick with it's internal value which can be as high as 8192000 or 800MiB.

I never looked at MinFileCache. It didn't seem important.

I haven't experimented with Main Partitions being larger than 32GB so I don't know anything about cache issues relating to it.

[cov3rt 7]

46 minutes ago, rloew said:

Assuming you set RAM Memory to exactly 1GiB using MaxPhysPage=40000.

1GiB = 1048576KiB. MaxFileCache is in KiB so the minimum is 1048576/24 = 43691. I rounded up to 44000.

If you try to set MaxFileCache to less than the minimum, then Windows will simply ignore the setting and stick with it's internal value which can be as high as 8192000 or 800MiB.

I never looked at MinFileCache. It didn't seem important.

I haven't experimented with Main Partitions being larger than 32GB so I don't know anything about cache issues relating to it.

thanks for the information. i will make the necessary changes in my docs based on these values and numbers.