VivienM wrote on 2024-01-07, 23:57:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-01-07, 18:54:

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-07, 18:15:

I thought the X-Fi cards, including the PCI ones, were a no for 98... (and in fact, my incomplete 98SE project that may never get finished has an Audigy 2 ZS for that very reason... )

So its upto an Audigy 2 ZS and thats it?

That's the impression I've gotten from this forum, yup...

Worth noting: I don't know about some of the later lower end models, like the CA0106 stuff. Maybe some of those would have 98SE support, maybe not, but I don't think you want those anyways, you want to stick to the flagship models like the 2 ZS...

Im not so much bothered by the audio at the minute.
I swapped to a 250Gb SATA disk this morning and Ive been trying without any success so far to install the chipset drivers.
nusb33e doesnt seem to want to work properly, and USB 1.1 speeds are painful to watch.

The Win98 install kept stalling until I turned on RAID mode in the BIOS, now it seems to install without a problem, even using a msbatch.inf. Which means it flys through the install.

Then I get to installing the 7100GS and it all falls apart.
It works on the IDE drive but not on the SATA drive so far.
I dont think its anything to do with the drive, its just that is where Windows is.
This time round there are two display adapters, onboard and the 7100GS and Im not sure why because there are no options in the BIOS to turn it off and yet its wasnt there before when I installed onto the IDE drive.

I think Ill have to dig around in the BIOS is see what i need to change to get rid of the onboard video as it seems to be messing everything up.

You think I could get it to run 98 on a striped pair of 60Gb SATA SSDs?

Got it all working in the end.
No exclimation marks in the device manager, running 1Gb RAM single channel, with a 7100GS and a 250Gb SATA disk on RAID controller.
Ill be changing it out for a RAID pair of 60 or 80Gb disks to try and ramp up the IO from about 80Mb/s... Not sure to go for spinning disks at 50p or SATA SSDs for £13.
Ill also be swapping out the 1Gb stick of RAM for 2x 512s to get dual channel going.

Runs PCMark 2002 quite nice. Finished the test anyway.

Just need to figure out what LP Creative sound card to use...
Maybe an Audigy SE 7.1

Which driver versions did you use eventually?

The ones off the MSI website.
They dont all work as you think they would there is something of a trick to get them working and some devices must be disabled in the BIOS as there are no Windows 98 drivers at all.
The Azalia sound and LAN.
There are no drivers for the sound at all and I havent bothered to look for the LAN as I wont be using it anyway. I have a 56k modem for access to my network.

You have to disable all the devices in the BIOS.
IDE, Azalia, LAN. I also disabled Serial, Parallel.
The only deivices active on install were SATA in RAID mode.
Install Win98 in the usual way then install the VIA 4in1 driver. It will install and then restart.
After its found all the devices restart it again.
Then shutdown
Start and enter BIOS and enable the devices you want to use
IDE has drivers for sound and LAN doesnt
When Windows loads it will find the IDE controller and there will be no exclamation mark next to it.

Then you need to point the USB 2.0 controller to the drivers which are already in the system drivers folder otherwise it wont see them.

Its a nice little system over all. I used the drivers above to get my 7100GS working, and Im just waiting on a low profile Creative Audigy SE to arrive before I can put this one to bed.

Audigy SE won't work in Win98!

For the Audigy cards you need something based off the EMU10k2 chip as Win9x drivers were never made for the "lesser" cards
Wikipedia is good for finding out which cards have which chip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_Audigy

And yes the X-FI cards mentioned earlier are actually the final cards for XP.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-23, 00:15:

Audigy SE won't work in Win98! […]
Show full quote

Audigy SE won't work in Win98!

For the Audigy cards you need something based off the EMU10k2 chip as Win9x drivers were never made for the "lesser" cards
Wikipedia is good for finding out which cards have which chip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_Audigy

And yes the X-FI cards mentioned earlier are actually the final cards for XP.

Are there any low profile audio cards that do support Win98?

Preferably one that has an AC97 front panel audio connector header

Or is there a USB sound card option that would work for Windows 98 games?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-01-23, 04:36:

Or is there a USB sound card option that would work for Windows 98 games?

See this thread --> Re: need temporary sound

Don't think any creative low profile cards exist with 9x support.

Only 2 low profile cards with 9x support are I know about are:

ESS Solo
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ess-es1938s-solo-1.html

ALS4000
The ALS4000 PCI Sound Card - PCI SB Compatibility in Newer Systems

Ironically both are average for windows but do have good dos support.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-23, 05:42:

Only 2 low profile cards with 9x support are I know about are:

Both are not really low profile, just smaller PCB. They may or may not clear in some SFF systems.
One more such "small" card is some variants of ES1371.
Real low-profile PCI audio option with win98 driver is CMI8738.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-01-14, 17:23:

Just need to figure out what LP Creative sound card to use...

There is no pure low-profile card from Creative with Win98 drivers.
Your alternatives:
1. Non-Creative LP audio (C-Media 8738)
2. USB audio (Creative Sound Blaster Extigy)
3. Use XP with onboard audio and dual-boot to DOS with SBEMU when needed.
4. Change the motherboard

Went with a C-Media 8738 based low profile PCI card.
Should be here early next week.

Does anybody know where I can get the drivers for the Creative Extigy for Windows 98 please?
Ive had a look on the creative site and given up in a state of confusion. There are no download links on the support page and dont seem to be getting anywhere with google either.

the internet archive has an install cd for download