PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I was hoping for a more interesting outcome, but sometimes there just isn't much to talk about 😀

Sometimes the silence sais it all 🤣

Maybe try a different chipset or tweak both of them 😜

Those cache tweaks may help a bit 😜

Any disadvantages to using ME (aside from a bit more space used), or is it all pretty much a wash? I didn't get a sense there was any, but sometimes you have to pound the information into my skull.

No MS-DOS mode?

Actually, MS-DOS mode is there, it's just not well advertised.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080706070535/htt … /mfd4life_2000/

That information can be just as important. As you say, Win 98SE needs a generic USB mass storage driver to support flash drives, but Win ME needs a real-mode DOS patch to restore equally useful functionality.

What this video doesnt show of course is what happens when you mix vxd and wdm drivers in win me.. bsod galore..

Recent GeForce 2 GTS vs Kyro II comparison does not specify how much VRAM both cards have. Most likely it's 32mb (GTS) vs 64mb (Kyro II) showdown, where heavy tests just demonstrate VRAM bottleneck instead of pure performance difference between this cards.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Recent GeForce 2 GTS vs Kyro II comparison does not specify how much VRAM both cards have. Most likely it's 32mb (GTS) vs 64mb (Kyro II) showdown, where heavy tests just demonstrate VRAM bottleneck instead of pure performance difference between this cards.

To Kyro II's credit, doing more with less silicon and using more VRAM instead is actually a benefit of the architecture so you can't really hold its abundance of VRAM against it, it actually cost less despite more memory IIRC..

appiah4 wrote:

so you can't really hold its abundance of VRAM against it, it actually cost less despite more memory IIRC.

Kyro II was released in early 2001 and GTS in early 2000.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Win ME needs a real-mode DOS patch to restore equally useful functionality

That patch actually is useless, it's just a ripoff of the ME emergency boot disk. No himem.sys and of course no emm386.exe so not enough conventional memory. Other managers won't work either. Personally i never had released such thing and call it an ms-dos mode patch. Don't waste your time with it, period.
Moreover it tries to access the floppy drive on every boot and restarting in ms-dos mode never worked.

appiah4 wrote:

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Recent GeForce 2 GTS vs Kyro II comparison does not specify how much VRAM both cards have. Most likely it's 32mb (GTS) vs 64mb (Kyro II) showdown, where heavy tests just demonstrate VRAM bottleneck instead of pure performance difference between this cards.

To Kyro II's credit, doing more with less silicon and using more VRAM instead is actually a benefit of the architecture so you can't really hold its abundance of VRAM against it, it actually cost less despite more memory IIRC..

This was why it was natural for PowerVR to pivot to mobile graphics.

How does the PowerVR Kyro II compare against GeForce 2 GTS? https://youtu.be/LuPuuCgciA4

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

How does the PowerVR Kyro II compare against GeForce 2 GTS? https://youtu.be/LuPuuCgciA4

One explanation for the Quake III's better performance (relative) to say Quake 2 is because at the time we used Quake 3 timedemo a lot as our benchmark in the OpenGL driver team to tune the Kyro's drivers.

I am also surprised at the drop in performance when EnTnL is turned on. I remembered the software TnL being quite well written. But then that was a long time ago...

vladstamate wrote:

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

How does the PowerVR Kyro II compare against GeForce 2 GTS? https://youtu.be/LuPuuCgciA4

One explanation for the Quake III's better performance (relative) to say Quake 2 is because at the time we used Quake 3 timedemo a lot as our benchmark in the OpenGL driver team to tune the Kyro's drivers.

I am also surprised at the drop in performance when EnTnL is turned on. I remembered the software TnL being quite well written. But then that was a long time ago...

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

With the Enhanced TnL, the alternative is the "Athlon" option in 3DMark2000 and I guess this is highly optimised and at 1 GHz quite potent. I also tried the "3Dnow!" option, and it is slower than "Athlon".

dondiego wrote:

Great Hierophant wrote:

Win ME needs a real-mode DOS patch to restore equally useful functionality

That patch actually is useless, it's just a ripoff of the ME emergency boot disk. No himem.sys and of course no emm386.exe so not enough conventional memory. Other managers won't work either. Personally i never had released such thing and call it an ms-dos mode patch. Don't waste your time with it, period.
Moreover it tries to access the floppy drive on every boot and restarting in ms-dos mode never worked.

No XMS, no EMS and no (easy) UMB, full restarts and floppy access? Yeah, that patch is not worthy of its name. Without proper support for such routine DOS features and a convenient way to access them, you might as well run Windows 2000. That shit is not for me!

Great Hierophant wrote:

dondiego wrote:

Great Hierophant wrote:

Win ME needs a real-mode DOS patch to restore equally useful functionality

That patch actually is useless, it's just a ripoff of the ME emergency boot disk. No himem.sys and of course no emm386.exe so not enough conventional memory. Other managers won't work either. Personally i never had released such thing and call it an ms-dos mode patch. Don't waste your time with it, period.
Moreover it tries to access the floppy drive on every boot and restarting in ms-dos mode never worked.

No XMS, no EMS and no (easy) UMB, full restarts and floppy access? Yeah, that patch is not worthy of its name. Without proper support for such routine DOS features and a convenient way to access them, you might as well run Windows 2000. That shit is not for me!

Personally I think it's kinda clear ME was a lesser solution to playing DOS games than 98SE was, but for DOS maybe using real DOS is still the best thing overall 😜
But for me, DOS games would often still at least kinda work (which wasn't a bad thing since I knew hardly anything about computers and OS's back in those days).

I'm not really sure about the ME ≈ 2k when it comes to DOS.

Windows 2000 compared with 98 and ME or When things go wrong: https://youtu.be/LXy2xgcgddM

Unlucky with this build and Windows 2000, but still a great OS.

Also tried the Kyro II in an Athlon 64, no nice, might the VIA chipset, it does work in a SIS Pentium 4 2.8 GHz though. Just shows that every machine is different and you never know what you can expect 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Windows 2000 compared with 98 and ME or When things go wrong: https://youtu.be/LXy2xgcgddM

Unlucky with this build and Windows 2000, but still a great OS.

Also tried the Kyro II in an Athlon 64, no nice, might the VIA chipset, it does work in a SIS Pentium 4 2.8 GHz though. Just shows that every machine is different and you never know what you can expect 😀

This is one good reason to have many parts to swap out when any particular combination just doesn't want to cooperate 😜

Gonna watch your vid right now 😜

Edit: Watched it, kinda ironic but it reminds me a bit of the woes I had when I tried out 2k.
And nice to see someone actually showing how real life experience with ME and 2k really is, instead of just assuming stuff from heresay 😀
"Nicely" done 🤣!

Amazing how it was opposite for me. ME was nothing but headaches while 2K was a dream come true. I was an MSDN member back then and used both OS's from the time they were both in beta and RC stages. 2K just worked on everything I tried it on and BSOD's dropped off 80-90% compared to ME or older 9X. It's PnP was a godsend compared to NT 4, and 3.51.

2K will always be one of my all-time favorite OS's.

Kodai wrote:

Amazing how it was opposite for me. ME was nothing but headaches while 2K was a dream come true. I was an MSDN member back then and used both OS's from the time they were both in beta and RC stages. 2K just worked on everything I tried it on and BSOD's dropped off 80-90% compared to ME or older 9X. It's PnP was a godsend compared to NT 4, and 3.51.

2K will always be one of my all-time favorite OS's.

This is what I actually consider to be one of the fun and strong things about having a community like the one here, we can actually learn from eachother and see the flaws of our own knowledge, so we can learn from eachother provided we're open to the information that is given to us.
I would've never actually tried some things out if it weren't for some Vogoners convincing me to give something another go, like for instance how I actually hated anything Netburst, but later I found out for myself that i865 + Northwood is actually pretty much fool proof 🤣!.
Same thing with 2k. My experiences weren't stellar and I actually have virtually no logical reason to ever attempt 2k on a retro rig (save for maybe the beta that was the final NT OS that still supported very specific hardware like certain LS-120 drives), but I still believe that 2k is respectable in its own right 😀

In the end it's not about who is wrong or right, because all of us will be wrong at any one time, it happens and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's about us enjoying our hobby to the fullest, taking advantage of the knowledge that is embedded here by people who all have their own experiences and their own specialities and interests. For instance, I know very little about sound cards compared to many people here, but if I ever need any info, I'm sure I'll know where to ask 😜

All this stuff is old by now and much of the little bits of details that can make one's lives much easier when dealing with all this stuff is largely lost on the internet or buried below stacks of dust, lying dormant within old forgotten memories.
And here it's all available, which is nice!