VOGONS


First post, by ruthan

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This post is WIP - Work in progress it would be updated, with new info.

Introduction:
Hi,
i spend quite lot of time to manage to get working old OSes to work on modern HW, so as named Guru, i can share the knowledge.

So if you have question related to this topic ask here, im here for you, i can be your OS spiritual leader, other high priests of Compatibility goddess are welcomed too.

My achievements:

  • WIn98SE on X58/Z97/X99 (+ eight core CPU for modern OSes)/AMD 970 (AM3).
  • WinXP on intel Z370 chipset MB - it doents maybe look complicated, but it was.
  • DOS on X58 (+Six core for OSes modern)

Basic info:

  • I know that there is lots of thread for specific MB or OS or similar thread, but i wanted to make something more universal and by my way.
  • We need some simple definition what is modern HW, its simply HW which is faster that minimal specs for target OSes and which has not official support (usually = drivers ) for target OSes, or target OS is not listed between supported OS (its mainly because of DOS it doesnt need manufactors drivers for MB).
  • I have some Linux and MacOS skill to make them working too, but this not right disscussion for it. I only redirect you someone, Linux is working virtually on everything and i good bootloader (Grub) and recovery OSes for modern machines, for MacOS go to Tonymac.
  • In general DOS make sense for gaming, only on board where you able to make sound card working, there are always new discoveries and work around, but because so far, we werent able run PCI sound cards on PCI-E to PCI bridge even on MB, which are supporting PCI sound cards natively, its now go. For progress in this area try to push Rayer by some PM or email / donation etc.. because he is only who i know and its able to some research and work arounds in this area. Last info from him its: I need to check it and maybe i will able to make it working.. - these are not exactly his words, but it was something like i already send him quite few logs form my PCI-E to PCI bridge experiments.
    So - PCI soundcards are confirmed as working up to - i865 chipset, intel X38, intel X58, VIA 880 /890 chipsets, Intel X6X(like P67) chipset with ITE bridge and other X6x + X7x will probably work too they still have native PCI, but its untested.
  • There is my X58 Sound card compatibility thread., its results is my modern system compatibility matrix here you can see i865 / VIA 880 Ultra and X58 testing, with Aureal Vortex 1 (results would be very similar to Vortex 2) / Yamaha 744 (result would very similar to Yamaha 744 and 754) and ESS Solo1.
  • If you care about DOS networking, there is my thread for it, its possible to make modern PCI/PCI-E 1Gbit networking NIC to working, some integrated 1 Gbit as realtek or Broadcom are working too.
  • Win 98 its possible to make working almost on everything form MB+CPU view, are confirmed up to Z170 so it means other Z1xx and Z2xx chipset will with very high change work too, but you need somerLoews paid patchesfor it. So far Ryzen is no go (info, mighty rLoew was attended dissuasion too) and Z3xx wasnt tested.
  • WinXP because of MSFN.org 4 months forum history loss, i cant link my how to make XP working on Z370 thread, its lots. I have to integrated lots of drivers through nLite, setup networking, enable remote desktop access to, create self installation image and even that, input (even PS/2 ) wasnt working and i had to do first login and installation steps through remote access.
  • Advantages and Disavantages of different era machines HW for DOS is dissussed at top of my X58 thread.Search for text "Brief summary of modern HW options"
  • Vitantage 3D - site with lots of reviews of old Videocards.
  • Video card Bios size research thread - smaller is better for DOS (more conventional memory).
  • Agent007 made Geforce 1080 working with Socket 478 PCIe motherboard - proof.

Knowledge pit:

  • You can download my ultimate configs and tools and drivers package for DOS. Again in my X58 thread, search for text "eurotime" to find links - there are 2 packages, first config files only, second utils. There is ~18+ branches for different menu boot options and global corfiguration options at the top of Autoexec.. Details are again in post/link above.
  • For proper DOS/Win98 mouse and keyboard experience you need PS/2 mouse and keyboard, if you have only 1 PS/2 port, you can try PS/2 Y cable, its working with some MB, some manufactures are lazy but you cant try their BIOS support team, its software not HW problem to make both devices working with one port. PS/2 emulation through USB could look like working, but from my experience you always net wild auto clicking / mad cursor movement bug in Win98 or not working DOS games bugs. There are some PCI PS/2 controllers, but they are expensive and dont have possive info that they are working with DOS and Win98. Not its possible to buy some MBs without PS/2 ports, not buy them..
  • DOS is usually simple you need just PS/2 mouse + keyboard, storage controller in IDE mode and RAM memory limiter (himemX, burnmem.sys) or some alternative memory manager like JEMM, JEMMEX, QEMM, but for best compatibility, im still recommending to use EMM386. If you are unlucky as i was with VIA 880 Ultra chipset + AGP or PCI-E videocards you will need to fiddle with graphics cards too, i with VIA 880 i had to use PCI video card. If you have EMM386 error during start up as Unable to set frame or some confict memory areas etc, its whole new chapter, its explained in my X58 thread - search for Dos memory types text and read bellow, there is universal solution its machine specific and you have to figure proper memory areas by yourself, never believe magical EMM386.exe I=XXXX-XXX or FRAM=YYYY values. they could work for you if you are lucky, but they are hardly best ones for your machine to reach emptiness (i mean maximal possible free conventional memory amount for you system).
  • For max compatibility its always good to start in storage controllers in IDE mode if your board supports it - on intel up to X58 /Z97/X99, otherwise you need PCI/PCI-E PATA/SATA controllers which support IDE mode (configuration is often through controller boot menu or through special IDE BIOS).
  • Even if BIOS has IDE mode, it doesnt means that Windows 98 storage performance would be great and DMA will work, just try to copy some files to discover transfer speed, it is < 10 MB on modern disks, will need special WIndows 98 drivers for external controller, or rLoew paid patch for internal controller.
  • For Win 98 / WinXP you really dont need chipset drivers for make them working, because of beauty of PC and x86, you need only to make work storage drivers to boot and drivers for PCI/PCI-E cards, like is Videocard, Sound / Network card etc. You will have some unknown devices in your system for fancy stuff like Intel Managed engine, integrated Sound card and NIC (if there are enabled in BIOS), but doesn't blocks rest system to work, for rest system devices would be default Windows drivers fine.
    There are so called drivers, which are just unknow device renamers to to proper names, but they not do annything else that just assign proper name, but it still could be good know, that is in system and debug some HW conficts (that is for Windows 98 are famous). Nice dummy renamer package is from LoneCrusader from MSFN forum.
  • If you dont care about 3D and you just need bigger resolution in 2D for some debugging there are universal Vesa Russian Bear drivers, its working even with Geforce 970, which otherwise has glitches even in VGA modes.
  • To make Videocards 3D / Sound card and Network card working with DOS / Win98 / WinXP you need drivers for it, there are not universal, system drivers no way around it.
  • If you are thinking about multiboot with modern systems and you probably do with modern HW, because otherwise is less PITA just use old HW, its good to buy Gigabyte board or HP O.E.M only these vendors have primary PCI-E slot selection so you can have multiple PCI-E video cards in system and use one of them depends on OS which you want to boot (you just change primary PCI-E slot videocard bios option). Its also good to have use HDMi or DVI to HDMI cables and HDMI switch with input signal detection to have to fiddle with cables or monitor inpunt setting (or you auto input detection in monitor settings).
    There some older MB which have primary video card selection on PCI/PCI-E/AGP level, especially Asrock so-called Frakenstein MBs, but its not ideal, because you have AGP + PCI-E combo, because PCI videocard is so fast as fastest PCI-E videocard for Windows98.
  • Its also good to have MB with support multiple bios profiles, you can save profiles depends on target OS, you can live without it, but its more cleaner. Its shame that even some new board have it only in same expensive line-up.. For example i have quite modern Asus Z97-P and its profile-less.
  • I dont recommend Geforce 4-7 videocard for Win98, because of full screen DOS mode bug, details are here., so i exclude too slow Voodoo 3 and Matrox cards, fastest PCI-E / AGP cards are Radeon X300-X850 series.
  • Some modern MB had bad memory areas mapping bios, it its not problem with 64bit OSes, but you can have much less that ~3 GB of RAM available for 32 bit OSes, i had MSI X99 MB of 920 MB available in WinXP. Only solution is spam Bios team or change MB. There are some urban legends that it depends on used videocards or other cards etc, but i have same problem even with any additional card with 128 MB videocards etc.
  • With newer MB or additional cards (i have Broadcom PCI-E NIC, which is doing it Win98) is quite often what ACPI in Win98 or WinXP (Z370 i have to boot in not ACPI mode otherwise i got crash) its not working, except some power saving it is needed for automatic shutdown, automatic reset usually working, its annoying like in days of AT PSU shutdown machine manually.
  • In last updates of Win10 was removed support of AGP, be aware of it.
  • If you have great old installation of WinXP+ and what to keep it, you can, have almost 15 years old WinXP installation still running i changed lots of MB during time. For WinXP you need just search for P2P utilies or HW migration to make it working, hardcore Windows admins could probably use syspred, on which is lots of these utils build. I recommend to use Paragon HDD Manager - you need some more expensive version - P2P Adjust, other workaround is migrate machine to virtual machine and migrate it back to physical, its usually working to.
  • You can migrate Win98 to new HW (of course after proper whole partition backup ) to if you are able to boot at least in safe mode for it disconnect, connect storage to controller in IDE mode and disable in Bios maximum thing which you can and if you have more that 512 MB of RAM, make sure that Rayers IO.sys patch for Safe its installed or you have other workaround for it. In safe mode only PS/2 mouse is working. Now you can go to Device manager and remove virtually everything expect virtual sound devices like sound kernel, sound streaming proxy, codecs etc.. (these are not easily reinstallable).. so all MB devices, controllers bus, controller, storage controller devices, USB devices, USB controllers, NICs, Sound cards and try to reboot.. Usually its working, some system devices are detected right after reboot, rest would be re-detected after you manually through add new HW wizard add PCI bus device..
  • Nice hack from Agent007 - if you problem with some device, or dont want to have some unknown device etc, you can try to find and device who PCI/PCI-E controller for slot where device is connected. Agent is doing this thing in this Madness X58 machine video. In thing in Win98 or WIn2000 part of video, but im not sure.
  • USB3 controller are backward compatible with USB2/USB1.1 but only when USB3 drivers are installed and these drivers are only for modern OSes, so from my experience USB3 ports are simply dead for Win98 and some of them like Renesas (not Intel) have WinXP drivers. With Win98 nUSB drivers for your USB 2.0 ports, i made them working on Z97.
  • What is no go, are Voodoo cards on modern chipset in DOS, on X58 - Voodoo 2/3 not working at all, on i865 Voodoo 2 is not working, Voodoo 3 is working. But list of DOS Glide game which are working on Voodoo 3 is pretty limited, its 1/2 of all DOS Glide titles. More info.
  • Avoid Creative integrated 3D sound card, its not working in WinXP.
  • Realtek HD and Realtek Gigabit ethernet, are not working in Win98, but there are fine for XP and MAC OS.

Questions / TODO:
- nobody know everything and there are always new barrier to break and new dead ends to discover

  1. Make Dos Sound cards working inside PCIe to PCI bridge.
  2. Was someone able to make work PCI-E Gen1 card with intel X3XX chipset? Because i wasnt, on my Z370 AORUS, so no Win98..
  3. Test PCI videocard with PCI-e to PCI bridge, if would provide video signal.

Disclaimer:
As you probably find out, im not good with letters+grammar in every language, i never had brain for that, i was always better with numbers and analytic, sorry. If something is not clear, just ask.

Guides for responses:
When you address something form Question section pleas use issue number from list (numbers are hardcore so, they are future proof), thanks.

Thanks all people who helped / are helping with this thread!
The knowledge must flow!

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 1 of 7, by matti157

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Hi,
I found an Asrock X58 supercomputer board and am waiting for a Xeon CPU from China. As soon as it arrives I will try the adventure of installing Windows 98 on it.
For now I have:
-Floppy (the Asrock has a built-in controller).
-Nvidia Quadro NVS 100 video card.
-Sound Blaster Audigy PCI
-HDD Sata (the card also has a built-in IDE controller, I want to see if I can use SATA though)
-Master SATA (but I also have an IDE ready)
-3com Etherlink PCI (but I want to see if one of the 2 built-in lanes works)

I don't understand if with the Asrock X58 I have the PCIEX to PCI conversion problem or if they are native PCI slots

Any opinions?

Reply 2 of 7, by stanwebber

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ruthan wrote on 2018-09-19, 23:14:

[*] USB3 controller are backward compatible with USB2/USB1.1 but only when USB3 drivers are installed and these drivers are only for modern OSes, so from my experience USB3 ports are simply dead for Win98 and some of them like Renesas (not Intel) have WinXP drivers. With Win98 nUSB drivers for your USB 2.0 ports, i made them working on Z97.

can you help me get this working under win98se? i had a working setup with an nec usb 2.0 pci card with the nusb33e drivers. i swapped the card with a renasas usb3.0 pci card that i understand uses a pcie bridge (which operates fine when dual-booted to xp/linux). in win98se i have a pci bus unrecognized device in device manager. how to proceed?

Reply 3 of 7, by Horun

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ruthan wrote on 2018-09-19, 23:14:

[*] Win 98 its possible to make working almost on everything form MB+CPU view, are confirmed up to Z170 so it means other Z1xx and Z2xx chipset will with very high change work too, but you need somerLoews paid patchesfor it. So far Ryzen is no go (info, mighty rLoew was attended dissuasion too) and Z3xx wasnt tested.

R. Loew's stuff was released free by the family after his death in 2019, you can get some of it here at Phils: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/rudolph-r-loew-patches.html
and the archive pages (in case something happens to original site, had trouble accessing it lately): http://web.archive.org/web/20220321030306/htt … lectronics.com/
Note: his old "free" stuff is not at Phils AFAIK: http://web.archive.org/web/20220321030316/htt … cs.com/free.htm
yeah many of us know this but thought this topic should be updated....

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 4 of 7, by Warlord

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stanwebber wrote on 2023-01-03, 22:51:
ruthan wrote on 2018-09-19, 23:14:

[*] USB3 controller are backward compatible with USB2/USB1.1 but only when USB3 drivers are installed and these drivers are only for modern OSes, so from my experience USB3 ports are simply dead for Win98 and some of them like Renesas (not Intel) have WinXP drivers. With Win98 nUSB drivers for your USB 2.0 ports, i made them working on Z97.

can you help me get this working under win98se? i had a working setup with an nec usb 2.0 pci card with the nusb33e drivers. i swapped the card with a renasas usb3.0 pci card that i understand uses a pcie bridge (which operates fine when dual-booted to xp/linux). in win98se i have a pci bus unrecognized device in device manager. how to proceed?

Rutans statement about usb3 is convoluted to me to understand, but I don't think he meants to say usb3 works on 98, when he says usb3 ports are simply dead on win98. He says renesas works on xp becasue there are drivers unlike intel but I dont think he is implying that it works on 98. He says he got USB 2.0 ports woring on z97, and renesas 3.0 is not the same as 2.0 ports even if usb 3 is backward compatible to 2, it is not the same thing.

Reply 5 of 7, by Horun

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Warlord wrote on 2023-01-04, 03:50:
stanwebber wrote on 2023-01-03, 22:51:
ruthan wrote on 2018-09-19, 23:14:

[*] USB3 controller are backward compatible with USB2/USB1.1 but only when USB3 drivers are installed and these drivers are only for modern OSes, so from my experience USB3 ports are simply dead for Win98 and some of them like Renesas (not Intel) have WinXP drivers. With Win98 nUSB drivers for your USB 2.0 ports, i made them working on Z97.

can you help me get this working under win98se? i had a working setup with an nec usb 2.0 pci card with the nusb33e drivers. i swapped the card with a renasas usb3.0 pci card that i understand uses a pcie bridge (which operates fine when dual-booted to xp/linux). in win98se i have a pci bus unrecognized device in device manager. how to proceed?

Rutans statement about usb3 is convoluted to me to understand, but I don't think he meants to say usb3 works on 98, when he says usb3 ports are simply dead on win98. He says renesas works on xp becasue there are drivers unlike intel but I dont think he is implying that it works on 98. He says he got USB 2.0 ports woring on z97, and renesas 3.0 is not the same as 2.0 ports even if usb 3 is backward compatible to 2, it is not the same thing.

Agree !

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 7 of 7, by ruthan

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Better later than never..
If memory servers, no way to make USB3 controller in Win9x at any speed.. This message seems to be quite clear regardless of my bad Moldovan English (i never was in Moldova)..
USB3 controller are backward compatible with USB2/USB1.1 but only when USB3 drivers are installed and these drivers are only for modern OSes, so from my experience USB3 ports are simply dead for Win98 and some of them like Renesas (not Intel) have WinXP drivers. With Win98 nUSB drivers for your USB 2.0 ports, i made them working on Z97.
So you need PCI USB2 controller.. or use onboard USB2 ports and get lucky.. i assume that it need chipset with USB2 controller where USB3 controller is realized by additional external chip.. and you have to use nUSB drivers..

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.