Hi,

I'm trying to benchmark with 3DMark suite a bunch of old Windows 98SE machines. I've tracked down all the latest applications available to Win98SE, including DirectX 9.0c (August 2006) and 3DMark2001 SE. The last one, however, refuse to install. The error says that it needs DX8.1 or newer, but I've already installed DX9.0c. So, I took a look to DxDiag: it is actually detecting DX6.1!!The point is that nVidia Control Panel (I'm using a GF4 MX440) is detecting the latest DX9.0c.

I really don't know what to do. Can anybody help me?

Zago

Edited August 29, 20179 yr by zago27

Well, I managed to successfully upgrade to DX9.0c. I located an older DX7 setup from my Half-Life CD and I got DxDiag to see at least DX7. Then I extracted all the CABs from the DX9 folder and manually installed all the INF files. Rebooted and reran DxDiag, finally detected DX9.

I needed help because I'm in a hurry preparing some machines for a retro LAN party, but I solved my problem easier than I expected.

I really dont know if is Direct9 officially supported on W98, last safe and not problematic could be 8.1b, but i never had problem with Dxdiag, but there some strange DX9 installer which are only extracting data, which should be installer in next step, or only SDK which are not DirectX runtime replacement.

I've never had a problem with DirectX 9.0c. It sounds like your Installer failed. There may be some prerequisite updates needed.

I installed DX9 a lot in last days, clean Win98SE installation not need any other prerequisites.. Maybe it is nonsense, but more could safe is upgrade step by step DX6 to DX7,DX7-8, DX8-DX8.1.. etc..

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!

Edited August 30, 20179 yr by MrMateczko

I always use the DX setup files from the Microsoft Download Center and it is a Zipped file after all. As usual I ran dxsetup.exe, but it works only once and, as I could see, it doesn't work properly. The second time I used it, it was stuck at the initialization stage and it never started the copying stage.

I used the DX7 setup only to check if I had any Win98 problem, but that one worked fine. After that I tried the "manual way" and it is currently working with DX9. 

It's the first time I've ever seen this issue. I've been working on Win9x for about 5 years and it always worked fine.

At least, I managed to fix it easily. I think I may create a batch file in order to register all the INFs and skipping the stock setup.