Forcing the video card to play nicely with the half-compatible motherboard in 98.

[jumper]

The chipset is not a pci-connected device.

[ZaPbUzZ]

On 3/29/2020 at 11:17 AM, IoI_xD said:

Before I list the specs of the Windows 98 PC I'm building I want to confirm that this is very much the poor mans Windows 98 PC. Many of the parts here were either given to me for free or pulled from other computers. I don't have that much money, and on top of that I've spent almost three weeks trying to get this PC working. I'm really hoping that I can get Windows 98 working even with the half-compatible setup I have right now:

My setup is:

• MOTHERBOARD: Intel Desktop Board D945GCFG1
• PROCESSOR: 1.7GhZ Core Two Duo
• GRAPHICS: Nvidia Geforce 5200FX
• SOUND: Soundblaster Live!
• RAM: 512MB
• CASE: Cheap $30 ""GAMER"" plastic case I bought off of Ebay (that may as well be the actual name of the case because of how awful it is)
• OTHER: 1.44MB Floppy Drive and an IDE CD-ROM

Almost everything on the computer works except for the CD-ROM (I'll get to that eventually, probably just a missing driver), the sound (also missing drivers, I'll get around to it once I get the graphics out of the way), and of course...the graphics card, which has conflicts with the motherboard (It can't access any of it's default memory ranges because the motherboard is using them, presumably.) The graphics card works, but until I solve the resource conflicts, it's stuck in 16 colors at 640x480. I tried changing the memory addresses that I could to ones that were avaliable, and it resulted in Windows giving me a protection error at boot, even after I renamed smartdrv.exe via safe mode. (It's important to note that I can never change the third set of memory addresses, as Windows always tells me that I'm unable to do so, without giving me an error explaining why. The Bootlog, which is attached the post, doesn't tell me much either). I tried disabling the motherboard resources, which Windows let me do without any errors, but it still complains about the resource conflicts (...even though they shouldn't be there). I tried swapping PCI slots, but I get the same error. I tried going into the BIOS to disable Onboard VGA, and I think I did it, but apparently the manual for this motherboard is just as unknown as the motherboard itself, so I have no idea how I'm actually supposed to do it (I just changed the default video to PCI). Speaking of the onboard VGA, it's either not designed for 98 or not designed for serious use, because it outputs only 640x480 at 16 colors (I assume the latter because when I install the drivers I get the extra option of outputting in 2 colors), so that's a no go. I really don't want to buy another video card - or worse, another motherboard.

Is there any reason why Windows won't just let me change those third memory addresses? How can I make Windows 98 just suck it up and make the video card work?

BOOTLOG.TXT 20.26 kB · 2 downloads

fails to mention if installed windows from hard disk as boot disk or cd rom as boot disk - setup from booted hard disk has been known to rely on dos loaded cdriom driver thereafter. soundblaster and gpu probably no driver for it. i mean Live didn't even release anything for win9x after 2004 like everyone else. There are reference drivers for gpu but they do not support even opengl acceleration (or true type fonts). I hate to say but the older the better everything 2004 and older there is old new stock out there.

Edited April 11, 2020 by ZaPbUzZ