5u3 wrote:

Maybe it's a problem with the hardware mouse cursor. Try setting the graphics hardware acceleration slider back one notch in the advanced display settings.

I really forgot about the hardware acceleration levels 😳 But it's a bit of a problem when the hardware accleration needs to be decreased.... I upgraded from the onboard 1mb Cirrus chip because it was slow! I don't want the S3 Virge to be as slow as that crappy old Cirrus 😖 I don't suppose using Windows 98SE instead would make much of a difference?

Just try it doh...

Ok i want to retain as much compatibility as i can with Dos based games but what would be better to use... Windows 95 OSR2 or Windows 98SE? (currently using Windows 95)

Also would Windows 98SE run slower on my machine?:

Pentium 133mhz
48mb EDO RAM
4mb S3 Virge
4mb Orchid Righteous Voodoo 1
8gb HDD
Maxi Sound 64 Dynamic 3D sound card (ESS 1868F) with 18mb Dream wavetable
8x Sony CD drive

Use Win98SE! It shouldn't run noticeably slower than Win95, and it should definitely be more stable / less clunky. It's the best in the Windows 4.x series.

Win98SE's system requirements are a 486DX2-66 and ~16MB of RAM (can be hacked to run on 8, and 24 is recommended) according to Wikipedia.

Also, all Windows 4.x versions sit on top of DOS in mostly the same way. Even WinME does, although its DOS system is hobbled - supposedly to speed up boot time - so you'll want to stay away from WinME if you're building a box for old games.

you said there is no way to disable the on-board gfx in the bios is there a init pci (or agp) graphics first ?

I would still go for Win95 OSR2. I mean, come on - 48mb RAM? Win 98 is sluggish on everything under 128mb RAM, whatever you might say. Win95 however... is jumping merrily with so much RAM 😀

I remember installing Win98 on P1 90 Mhz system and it was a pain in the back. Installation lasted more then an hour to complete and performance was notably slower then Win "97".

Davros wrote:

you said there is no way to disable the on-board gfx in the bios is there a init pci (or agp) graphics first ?

No it does not have that option... It does not have an AGP slot either, it's just ISA/PCI bus.

Ok i have downloaded some better/newer drivers and it all seems fine 😀 With the old drivers i had to turn the acceleration down which defeats the object of getting a better graphics card! Everything is fine now and i will not be installing Windows 98SE 😁

Thanks for all your help people 😎

Can you give any info on what drivers you found to fix your issue?

Also, you could probably install Win98SE on a separate partition and dual-boot, or install an uninstallable upgrade to Win95.

There's really no need for me to install Windows 98se now 😎

The S3 drivers i am using now have the following details in the version.txt:

S3 Virge/DX/GX Windows 95 Driver
Version * 4.10.01.2110-3.30.13 *
S3D Tool Kit version (s3dtkw.dll) * 5.00.01 *
- 02/18/98 -

and the drivers i was using before had this in the version.txt:

S3 Virge/VX/DX/GX Windows 95 Driver
Version 4.03.00.2111-3.12.01 *
S3 Refresh Rate utility version * 2.01.01 *
S3D Tool Kit version (s3dtkw.dll) * 4.07.01 *
- 08/01/97 -

The one's i am using now are newer than the one's from the S3 website and i found them on driverguide.com 😀

Interesting, thanks.