can confirm the bug is with 45.23 Standard and 45.32 Beta Drivers on FX 5900 on my system. The bug is fixed in later drivers when I tested, however compatibility goes out the window with those drivers so the vga is the better fix if you want to sticken with 45.XX

Finally decided to take my Logitech RumblePad 2 out of storage and hook it up to this machine. I bought this gamepad around 2005 or so, and have kept it ever since. It still works fine to this day.

I have an old version of the Logitech Gaming Software (lgs460enu.exe) which can be installed under WinME and probably Win98SE too. It even has preset profiles for some Win9x era games like Tomb Raider 3 and Need for Speed: High Stakes.

The gamepad worked great with NFS:HS, and even force feedback was enabled and functional out of the box. The rumble effect was a bit too strong by default, but thankfully, you can fine tune it using the in-game controller options. I imagine it was designed for Microsoft and Saitek's force feedback joysticks from that time period, and probably feels much nicer on those devices. Anyway, I really enjoy playing racing games using the gamepad's analog sticks. It feels much more natural to me than using the keyboard.

That said, this gamepad really shines with PlayStation ports like Final Fantasy 7 and 8. It's possible to set up the game's controls to perfectly match the PlayStation layout. This is great for people who have played those games on consoles and have tons of muscle memory associated with that controller. And with some manual tweaking, you can map the analog stick for movement, while still using the D-Pad for menu navigation. Absolute perfection!

Lastly, I tried a couple of DOS games as well (from within the WinME DOS prompt) and they worked fine too. Both Tyrian and Descent correctly detected the gamepad and could use it without any additional tweaking. I do have a CH Flightstick for DOS gaming, but it's nice to know that the RumblePad 2 can be used as an alternative in some cases.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-08-15, 09:51:

Finally decided to take my Logitech RumblePad 2 out of storage and hook it up to this machine. I bought this gamepad around 2005 […]
Show full quote

Finally decided to take my Logitech RumblePad 2 out of storage and hook it up to this machine. I bought this gamepad around 2005 or so, and have kept it ever since. It still works fine to this day.

RumblePad2.jpg

I have an old version of the Logitech Gaming Software (lgs460enu.exe) which can be installed under WinME and probably Win98SE too. It even has preset profiles for some Win9x era games like Tomb Raider 3 and Need for Speed: High Stakes.

Logitech_Profiler.jpg

The gamepad worked great with NFS:HS, and even force feedback was enabled and functional out of the box. The rumble effect was a bit too strong by default, but thankfully, you can fine tune it using the in-game controller options. I imagine it was designed for Microsoft and Saitek's force feedback joysticks from that time period, and probably feels much nicer on those devices. Anyway, I really enjoy playing racing games using the gamepad's analog sticks. It feels much more natural to me than using the keyboard.

That said, this gamepad really shines with PlayStation ports like Final Fantasy 7 and 8. It's possible to set up the game's controls to perfectly match the PlayStation layout. This is great for people who have played those games on consoles and have tons of muscle memory associated with that controller. And with some manual tweaking, you can map the analog stick for movement, while still using the D-Pad for menu navigation. Absolute perfection!

Lastly, I tried a couple of DOS games as well (from within the WinME DOS prompt) and they worked fine too. Both Tyrian and Descent correctly detected the gamepad and could use it without any additional tweaking. I do have a CH Flightstick for DOS gaming, but it's nice to know that the RumblePad 2 can be used as an alternative in some cases.

Wonder if that's the exact same Logitech GamePad, I have ... actually had it out of storage like, last week 🤣 I may like to get a copy of that profiler software, if it's not for download somewhere already?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-08-16, 05:27:

Wonder if that's the exact same Logitech GamePad, I have ... actually had it out of storage like, last week 🤣

Nice! These things are built very sturdily, so I'm sure yours will be working fine too.

I may like to get a copy of that profiler software, if it's not for download somewhere already?

Looks like someone already uploaded it to Vogons drivers. You can grab it from here.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-08-16, 06:38:

Nice! These things are built very sturdily, so I'm sure yours will be working fine too. […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-08-16, 05:27:

Wonder if that's the exact same Logitech GamePad, I have ... actually had it out of storage like, last week 🤣

Nice! These things are built very sturdily, so I'm sure yours will be working fine too.

I may like to get a copy of that profiler software, if it's not for download somewhere already?

Looks like someone already uploaded it to Vogons drivers. You can grab it from here.

Yeah, I'm a huge fanboy of ALL Logitech 🤣

Great, I'll bookmark it 😀

Re-pasted my Leadtek 5900XT and lubricated the fan. Just a word of warning to anyone else who may want to do this: Leadtek used some pretty strong epoxy for gluing the heatsink to the GPU. I had to carefully slide a razor blade in-between the two and slowly cut the epoxy away. That weird stuff had the consistency of dried up bubblegum and was very difficult to remove.

Anyhow, after cleaning up that gunk and applying fresh thermal paste, temperatures dropped by 3-4 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the fan got a bit quieter after receiving some lubrication, so I think the extra effort was worth it. Also, for anyone who doesn't want to mess around with the epoxy, you can take out the fan for cleaning and maintenance without removing the heatsink from the card.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-09-16, 11:01:

Re-pasted my Leadtek 5900XT and lubricated the fan. Just a word of warning to anyone else who may want to do this: Leadtek used some pretty strong epoxy for gluing the heatsink to the GPU. I had to carefully slide a razor blade in-between the two and slowly cut the epoxy away. That weird stuff had the consistency of dried up bubblegum and was very difficult to remove.

My go-to solution to remove heatsinks that are attached with thermal glue has always been the freezing method. 30 min - 1h in the freezer, and then a flat screwdriver + credit card will do the job.
A freeze spray should also work, but never tried it myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hB4jOCHLHc

bloodem wrote on 2023-09-16, 12:57:

My go-to solution to remove heatsinks that are attached with thermal glue has always been the freezing method. 30 min - 1h in the freezer, and then a flat screwdriver + credit card will do the job.
A freeze spray should also work, but never tried it myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hB4jOCHLHc

I had heard about that method, but was hesitant to try it, because I didn't know how electrolytic capacitors would react to low temperatures. Good to hear that it works though.

As for the razor blade technique, I use a thin box cutter for that purpose. Something like this. The trick is to carefully start cutting from one of the corners of the chip. Also, to avoid scraping the chip, I found it best to slightly angle the blade toward the heatsink during the process. I've also removed memory heatsinks using that method (on a different card) without causing any damage to the chips underneath.

Just a quick note regarding upscaling on the Samsung SyncMaster S24B420BW monitor that I'm using with this build. In the past, I always used a VGA connection when playing games in anything lower than 1600x1200 (native 4:3 resolution on this monitor) as that gave me the very good results.

However, I have since discovered that for the 800x600 resolution specifically, I can use a DVI connection if I set the Nvidia drivers to employ "Monitor Scaling" and change the aspect ratio to "Auto" on the monitor's OSD. With all that, and the monitor's Sharpness setting cranked up to 100, I get a very clean 2x upscale of 800x600 with the correct 4:3 aspect ratio, without any noticeable sharpening artifacts. Pretty nice for playing some older 2D games which only run in that particular resolution, like Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

To clarify, the monitor's Sharpness setting should only be increased when gaming in lower (non-native) resolutions. If the native 1600x1200 resolution is used, Sharpness should be left at its default value.

Is your Logitech RumblePad 2 a gameport or USB device?

villeneuve wrote on 2023-10-21, 01:32:

Is your Logitech RumblePad 2 a gameport or USB device?

It's a USB device.

Oh wow, I didn't know that DOS games can be controlled with USB devices when being played inside Windows. Thanks for answering!

I've replaced the Audigy 1 (SB0090) with an Audigy 2 (SB0240) in this build.

The reason being that the VIA + SBLive/Audigy1 bug does appear to affect this motherboard, albeit in a very minor way. Sometimes, I wold get a system freeze at boot when the Audigy 1 was first initialized by the drivers. I've re-tested that card on an Intel system, and there were no problems there. Likewise, using an Audigy 2 card on this VIA-based motheboard causes no such issues. Googling the problem suggests that Creative fixed whatever was causing the latency issues when they released the Audigy 2, so I guess this makes sense.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-11-07, 16:16:

system freeze at boot when the Audigy 1 was first initialized by the drivers.

Is it about Win9x or dos driver?

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-11-07, 23:03:

Is it about Win9x or dos driver?

Win9x driver.

It happens even if the DOS driver pack is not installed at all.

WDM or VXD drivers or the same problem with both would've also been interesting to try.

villeneuve wrote on 2023-11-08, 13:18:

WDM or VXD drivers or the same problem with both would've also been interesting to try.

I didn't test WDM, but I did try a couple of different VxD releases.

The drivers from the original Audigy 1 installation CD and the latest ZS drivers both had the same issue. And both of those worked fine on an Intel system.

Having recently played through a SC:Conviction and SC:Double Agent, I decided to revisit the original Splinter Cell on this system. One of the reasons why I got my GeForce FX 5900XT was to improve performance in that game. Last time I played through Splinter Cell, I was using a GeForce 4 Ti4200, and it ran fine at 800x600, but performance went down steeply if I raised the resolution any higher than that. In comparison, the 5900XT runs Splinter Cell at 1280x1024 with fairly decent frame rates.

I'm happy to report that my 5900XT does not suffer from the disappearing shadow bug which Phil demonstrates here on his 5950 Ultra. My card does have the shiny texture glitch that Phil shows a bit earlier in his video, but that one is far less intrusive. This is great, because the GeForce FX series are the last Nvidia cards which can correctly render all the cool Shadow Buffer effects in this game.

To me, performance on this card is good enough for a stealth game. At 1280x1024 with all in-game graphical settings maxed out (but no AA or AF forced in the driver) I get 30 FPS most of the time. This can jump to 60 FPS in smaller areas or fall to 20 FPS in places where there are a lot of Shadow Buffer effects. Still, this is reasonably playable for a period correct GPU which came out in the same year when Splinter Cell was released on PC.

For reference, I'm playing this under WinXP+SP3 using Nvidia's 45.23 drivers. Also, I'm using the retail CD release of Splinter Cell with the latest official patch 1.3 applied. No third-party fixes or mods are used.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-11-26, 12:17:

For reference, I'm playing this under WinXP+SP3 using Nvidia's 45.23 drivers.

While I agree that 45.23 is the most compatible, I’ve noticed that FX5900 doesn’t like (blank screen / monitor out of range / bad scaling) widescreen resolutions over DVI-D until 61.76. It’s not a random version for that purpose, because release notes mention that.

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-11-26, 18:11:

While I agree that 45.23 is the most compatible, I’ve noticed that FX5900 doesn’t like (blank screen / monitor out of range / bad scaling) widescreen resolutions over DVI-D until 61.76. It’s not a random version for that purpose, because release notes mention that.

I did notice the black screen issue when attempting to open the MS-DOS prompt (from within WinME) while using a DVI connection. I think that particular bug was fixed in 53.04 drivers and newer.

That said, I don't recall having any issues when using 1920x1200 (16:10 widescreen) with 45.23 drivers. However, I only used that resolution for the desktop, never for Win9x gaming.