Compatibility is poor,

I would see if a mirror of th’s stud.fermguten pcchips lottery still exists.

Occasionally something odd like leaving ram out of bank zero can help but in general not much you can do.

Good Luck
Ryan

Thanks Ryan,
I'll try a couple different cards and see if anything sticks...

Nvidia FX series card are usually rather compatible. Maybe a PCI FX5200 or FX5500 would work .

Thanks darry, I'll see if I can source one of those in PCI...

Qubiq wrote on 2020-08-14, 18:52:

Thanks darry, I'll see if I can source one of those in PCI...

The Quadro NVS 280 is the workstation version of an FX5200, and the PCI version is readily available on Ebay for low prices. Be sure to get the cable as well.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2020-08-14, 23:44:

Qubiq wrote on 2020-08-14, 18:52:

Thanks darry, I'll see if I can source one of those in PCI...

The Quadro NVS 280 is the workstation version of an FX5200, and the PCI version is readily available on Ebay for low prices. Be sure to get the cable as well.

They go for around £30 around here. I might try one. It looks like there is good Windows 98 support. Do you have any experience with DOS compatibility?

I have a PC with an SIS 530 chipset (microATX form factor though), but I've never considered trying a PCI graphics card that new on it.

I personally just run a PCI Voodoo 3 in mine and would probably recommend a graphics card from around that same era, ie. 1998-2000. I'm not sure trying to use a 2001 or 2003-released graphics card would really benefit much, as the CPU would be a bit of bottleneck to any games that specifically require those.

Just a thought of something to check - does your DigiPOS motherboard have onboard graphics at all? The microATX board I have has SIS 530 onboard graphics and if yours does too it could possibly be causing issues getting a PCI graphics card to function.

PTherapist wrote on 2020-08-15, 10:09:

I have a PC with an SIS 530 chipset (microATX form factor though), but I've never considered trying a PCI graphics card that new on it.

I personally just run a PCI Voodoo 3 in mine and would probably recommend a graphics card from around that same era, ie. 1998-2000. I'm not sure trying to use a 2001 or 2003-released graphics card would really benefit much, as the CPU would be a bit of bottleneck to any games that specifically require those.

Just a thought of something to check - does your DigiPOS motherboard have onboard graphics at all? The microATX board I have has SIS 530 onboard graphics and if yours does too it could possibly be causing issues getting a PCI graphics card to function.

Hi,
Thanks for your thoughts. It has integrated SiS530 graphics. I can't get direct3d work on it for some reason (drivers are still available from SIS webasite). I believe this igpu has 3D capability.
I've ordered ATI Rage Pro which i found for very cheap and is more period appropriate (I'll see if it works when it arrives). I've been trying to make it work with that Radeon 7500 because that's something I've had lying around and it would be a quick fix (alhtough a bit of an overkill performance wise)...

...so I've managed to get 3D working on iGPU by getting rid of DX9 and installing DX6 instead. Yay.

Qubiq wrote on 2020-08-15, 08:37:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2020-08-14, 23:44:

Qubiq wrote on 2020-08-14, 18:52:

Thanks darry, I'll see if I can source one of those in PCI...

The Quadro NVS 280 is the workstation version of an FX5200, and the PCI version is readily available on Ebay for low prices. Be sure to get the cable as well.

They go for around £30 around here. I might try one. It looks like there is good Windows 98 support. Do you have any experience with DOS compatibility?

I don't.

Just had another thought, since I'm working on my SIS 530 PC at the moment.

I just updated the BIOS for my motherboard and the PCI Voodoo 3 I'm using stopped working. System wouldn't output a display on either the Voodoo or the onboard SIS 530 with the Voodoo card connected, regardless of the init PCI first option. This sounds like what you are experiencing trying to connect a PCI graphics card.

I had to remove the PCI graphics card and then go into the BIOS using the SIS 530 and enable a few things to get it working again:
PCI Peer Concurrency
CPU to PCI Burst Mem. WR
CPU to PCI Post Write
PCI Post Write Buffer
PCI Delayed Transaction

For good measure I also disabled Video BIOS shadow and left Video BIOS Cacheable disabled.

So have a look at your BIOS options for any of the above. However if you have a cut-down BIOS with limited options, which is possible on a DigiPOS computer, then you may be out of luck.

PTherapist wrote on 2020-08-15, 16:47:

Just had another thought, since I'm working on my SIS 530 PC at the moment. […]
Show full quote

Just had another thought, since I'm working on my SIS 530 PC at the moment.

I just updated the BIOS for my motherboard and the PCI Voodoo 3 I'm using stopped working. System wouldn't output a display on either the Voodoo or the onboard SIS 530 with the Voodoo card connected, regardless of the init PCI first option. This sounds like what you are experiencing trying to connect a PCI graphics card.

I had to remove the PCI graphics card and then go into the BIOS using the SIS 530 and enable a few things to get it working again:
PCI Peer Concurrency
CPU to PCI Burst Mem. WR
CPU to PCI Post Write
PCI Post Write Buffer
PCI Delayed Transaction

For good measure I also disabled Video BIOS shadow and left Video BIOS Cacheable disabled.

So have a look at your BIOS options for any of the above. However if you have a cut-down BIOS with limited options, which is possible on a DigiPOS computer, then you may be out of luck.

Thanks for those suggestions!
I've tried to play with various BIOS settings as per your post but unfortunatelly this didn't help. Maybe the Radeon card is just too new for it...
There are also lots of memory/cache timing options in the BIOS which I am not too confident about. Could this have any impact on the PCI bus/compatibility?
It looks like I'll have to try some older card. I've ordered a Rage pro for £10 off ebay to see if it would work with it. Performance wise it's probably not too far from the integrated GPU. Ultimately I'd probably settle with a TNT2/M64 for PCI or some such if I can get it for a good price and make it work.
I've just installed SB Live in it and that works perfectly, so at least something 😀
Thanks again for your help!

Qubiq wrote on 2020-08-15, 11:47:

...so I've managed to get 3D working on iGPU by getting rid of DX9 and installing DX6 instead. Yay.

Don't expect much. The core itself is a rather lacklustre SiS 6326, but far worse, it has to share limited memory bandwidth with CPU, so whenever both want lots (i.e. playing a game), each will only get half of what they want. Even a PCI SiS 6326 would boost performance very significantly, as it would have its own RAM and would let CPU get full system RAM bandwidth.

dionb wrote on 2020-08-16, 10:47:

Qubiq wrote on 2020-08-15, 11:47:

...so I've managed to get 3D working on iGPU by getting rid of DX9 and installing DX6 instead. Yay.

Don't expect much. The core itself is a rather lacklustre SiS 6326, but far worse, it has to share limited memory bandwidth with CPU, so whenever both want lots (i.e. playing a game), each will only get half of what they want. Even a PCI SiS 6326 would boost performance very significantly, as it would have its own RAM and would let CPU get full system RAM bandwidth.

You're right. It's not much but I'm actually surprised how well it runs Diablo II in directdraw mode.

Hi,
So I've tried Ati Rage Pro PCI 4MB card which does appear to work but I've run into the following issues:
With the Sound Blaster Live the system will freeze whilst booting into windows 98SE (even afer reinstall).
Without the sound card the system will boot into Windows and lets me install drivers but randomly freezes. This happens even in DOS.
It could be a faulty card but equally I think this could be a compatibility issue/conflict. I've spent ages trying to tweak different bios settings to make it work but so far no luck. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Hello, I've just picked up one of these digipos amd k6 machines and I love the small form factor but I'm having the same problem with using both a PCI graphics card (nvs280) and PCI sound card (ct5807) they both work independently but not at the same time! They both seem to want to use the same IRQ in Windows and manually changing prevents Windows from booting. There's nothing helpful in the bios but there are a ton of jumpers on the motherboard so maybe having the manual would help - do you have it Qubiq?

Sis530 is very odd chipset. It support 133MHz FSB and have 1/4 divider for PCI, IGP (6326) support Direct3D but sometimes it act strange. When I add Voodoo2, IGP lost drivers for good. There was no way to make it work

I had problems with Shuttle HOT-599 mainboard http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/shuttle/HOT-599.htm
I wanted to use iGPU with additional 3Dfx card, but I couldn't get Voodoo 1 or Voodoo 2 to work. First I only got black screen with either card inserted. Then I updated BIOS and I could boot only if Voodoo was installed in particular PCI slot. But Voodoo 2 was not detected at all, and Voodoo 1 didn't work, even though it was detected.