Solved: CRT monitor refresh rate drops on games under Windows 98SE

[Nokiamies]

I have annoying issue with my Windows 98 setup. Last week I got new CRT monitor to it (Mitsubishi Diamond View 1772ie) to replace flatscreen I had before. I installed monitor driver to use 100hz refresh rate at 800x600 resolution (offically supported by crt) and all been working fine expect one issue,

 

When I launch any game that uses fullscreen (on resolution 640x480 or 800x600) refresh rate drops to 85hz. When to I close the game screen refresh rate is back to 100hz. I verified that using crt OSD. Here is specs of system that I use

Gigabyte GA-60MM7 motherboard

Intel Pentium 3 EB 800mhz

Nvidia TNT2 M64 32mb (29.42 driver)

512mb RAM

Mitsubishi Diamond View 1772ie CRT monitor

 

So far have been trying drivers up to 41.09 without success. Also tried advanced forceware options but they had no help. NVRefreshTool would fix it but it works only works XP and upwards. Anyone knows soluction to lock it 100hz? Either Windows 98 setting tweak or third party utility. I want keep using crt and have max refresh rate on games to reduce flicker

Edited July 24, 2021 by Mr.Scienceman2000
solved

[Goodmaneuver]

The game may be choosing optimum or default monitor settings which could be 85Hz or it knows your video card and determines that 85Hz is the highest it can run at. Also the video driver may have different refresh rates for 3D which could be a maximum of 85Hz. You could try updating the monitor driver to a default monitor where there is no restriction in refresh rates and resolutions. It will obey the video driver available settings and those that the monitor can handle. You may just need time for your eyes to adjust to a CRT screen again. Perhaps use 85Hz on the desktop as well. Flicker is best seen when not looking directly at the screen.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Goodmaneuver

[Nokiamies]

4 hours ago, Goodmaneuver said:

The game may be choosing optimum or default monitor settings which could be 85Hz or it knows your video card and determines that 85Hz is the highest it can run at. Also the video driver may have different refresh rates for 3D which could be a maximum of 85Hz.

do you have any idea what could control it on driver? On Windowed mode games run at 100hz, but not all games run Windowed

4 hours ago, Goodmaneuver said:

You could try updating the monitor driver to a default monitor where there is no restriction in refresh rates and resolutions. It will obey the video driver available settings and those that the monitor can handle.

On default pnp driver it allows max 85hz (tested with tnt2, ati 9200). And according crt manufacture site monitor can do following:

Quote

Resolutions and Refresh Rates

1152 x 864/870 up to 75 Hz
1024 x 768 up to 85 Hz
800 x 600 up to 100 Hz
640 x 480 up to 110 Hz

 

4 hours ago, Goodmaneuver said:

You may just need time for your eyes to adjust to a CRT screen again. Perhaps use 85Hz on the desktop as well. Flicker is best seen when not looking directly at the screen.

oddly enough I had no eye strain on screen on 100hz. And I still wish to get 100hz out of it

[Goodmaneuver]

It is not the plug and play monitor though. Go to update monitor from System Properties and update driver then Specify the location of driver then Select a list of all the drivers then Show all hardware and under Standard monitor types there is Default Monitor and it should be the top one. It was odd for me going back to a CRT and it hurt like you said but a dot going faster from left to right does not mean that it is easier on your eye system. It should be OK as we used them before but Beta particles (β) are high energy, high speed electrons and hitting the steel grid would create X-rays I think. You would have to be within 200mm of the screen though to be effected by it. My skin on my thighs went numb for a long time like months or it may have been a year or 2, it was a long time, after working for several hours bending over the front of a color TV CRT. The CRTs can not be recycled because the residual radiation in the glass.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Goodmaneuver
I was right the first time, look it up to get the facts

[UCyborg]

DirectDraw has a setting to force specific refresh rate, settable in dxdiag on the last tab.

Regarding 3rd party utilities, don't know whether it'll help, but there's HZ Tool.

[Nokiamies]

5 hours ago, Goodmaneuver said:

It was odd for me going back to a CRT and it hurt like you said but a dot going faster from left to right does not mean that it is easier on your eye system. It should be OK as we used them before but Beta particles (β) are high energy, high speed electrons and hitting the steel grid would create X-rays I think. You would have to be within 200mm of the screen though to be effected by it. My skin on my thighs went numb for a long time like months or it may have been a year or 2, it was a long time, after working for several hours bending over the front of a color TV CRT. The CRTs can not be recycled because the residual radiation in the glass.

Yeah last time used crt was about 10 years ago and wanted one back. Flicker is bad first but I will get used to it. Also on refresh rates over 75 you wont see flicker as much. Biggest flicker was on cheap analog crt that did 56hz max. Crt do have few advantages over LCD or other flat panel. One is it can do much more resolutions and got softer image on older and even newer games.

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by Mr.Scienceman2000

[Nokiamies]

2 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Regarding 3rd party utilities, don't know whether it'll help, but there's HZ Tool.

Thank you this fixed my issue! I applied 100hz to resolutions I wanted and now when run half-life or any other game it is running 100hz according my CRT OSD display

 

I have been trying find utility for while that can do it but trying find info today can be hard so was nice that someone knew util to do it

Edited July 24, 2021 by Mr.Scienceman2000

[UCyborg]

Half-Life doesn't explicitly set refresh rate. Did the resolution you set on desktop use 100 Hz, but the same resolution didn't use 100 Hz in Half-Life?  Also, unless you overrode it with command line parameter, old WON versions set 16-bit color depth, though since you mentioned having the problem with other games as well, I assume it's not connected. Windows 98 has this concept of "default" and "optimal" refresh rate, but on the API level, you have the option to explicitly set specific rate or leave it to the system.

In the process writing a patch to make this old version of the game behave better, I found out it switches the screen to 800x600 before switching to whatever is set in Video modes menu, which can be turned off with -noextracds command line parameter. Doesn't make much difference if you're playing at 800x600 anyway, but it's still code that must be executed. Wonder what they wanted to achieve with that. WON versions are quite messy in how they do window management in general.

Interestingly, last update for this game was released in August 2020, that's 21 years and 9 months after initial release date (update history as of 2013 here). Or how about UnReal World that has been kicking since 1992! Both cases of official updates.

[Nokiamies]

3 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Half-Life doesn't explicitly set refresh rate. Did the resolution you set on desktop use 100 Hz, but the same resolution didn't use 100 Hz in Half-Life?  Also, unless you overrode it with command line parameter, old WON versions set 16-bit color depth, though since you mentioned having the problem with other games as well, I assume it's not connected. Windows 98 has this concept of "default" and "optimal" refresh rate, but on the API level, you have the option to explicitly set specific rate or leave it to the system.

it was something related games defaulting vga before going which I wanted or directx/opengl/directdraw forcing it own refresh rate on any game. Also can be that it drops to 16bit colors that reduced refresh rate since use 32bit on desktop. I guess forcing refresh rate using util made it work despite color depht

3 hours ago, UCyborg said:

In the process writing a patch to make this old version of the game behave better, I found out it switches the screen to 800x600 before switching to whatever is set in Video modes menu, which can be turned off with -noextracds command line parameter. Doesn't make much difference if you're playing at 800x600 anyway, but it's still code that must be executed. Wonder what they wanted to achieve with that. WON versions are quite messy in how they do window management in general.

I do have both offical steam release on Windows 7 and also original cd copies of Half-Life GOTY. I like play original on my older systems.

3 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Interestingly, last update for this game was released in August 2020, that's 21 years and 9 months after initial release date (update history as of 2013 here). Or how about UnReal World that has been kicking since 1992! Both cases of official updates.
 

noticed that which was nice to see old game recieving fixes still

Edited July 24, 2021 by Mr.Scienceman2000