T-Squared wrote on 2020-06-20, 01:39:

Does anyone have problems with VGA and DVI being on the card bus with Windows 98? […]
Show full quote

Does anyone have problems with VGA and DVI being on the card bus with Windows 98?

Cause I seem to have freezes using/starting MS-DOS programs, or modifying system resources (i.e. enabling or disabling the cards) in Win98 when two different cards with two different standards share the PCI bus (Including AGP, since it's tied to PCI)

I used a Chaintech motherboard before, and I realized the system worked better with VGA back then, so I decided to use a card with dual VGA outputs. (A PCI PNY nVidia FX5200)

Recently, when I got my new ASUS P2B, I thought my problems were tied to power issues, so I bought a new power supply (not a big deal, even though it's less wattage, there's more amperage in the rails), but the problem moved, and now I'm realizing it's more-than-likely a DVI-VGA conflict again.

If we disregard the VGA on dual-standard cards, I think that's why I kept getting problems in my system with my 440MX (It's the same type of design as my nVidia FX5500, with VGA and DVI on one card, just with more memory.) and the solo-VGA cards I was using. They were conflicting.

No offence, but it's a bit hard to follow what you are getting at. First you talk about using multiple video card cards in one system and having issues, then you talk about cards with both DVI and VGA being a potential issue . I do not really see how the two would be related .

Both DVI and VGA work fine under Windows 98, as long as the card that has these connectors has proper Windows 98 drivers ,

I have no issues whatsoever to report with cards having both DVI and VGA under Windows 98 SE . I regularly use an AGP Geforce FX5900 with DVI and VGA along with a PCI Voodoo 3 under Windows 98 SE on an i815 board . I had previously tested a Radeon 9700 with DVI and VGA under Windows 98 SE on a 440BX (had to set AGP 1x, but that has nothing to do with DVI or VGA). I also tested multiple other DVI/VGA cards on an i815 base system under Windows 98 SE . These include, but were not limited to, Radeon 9600, Radeon 9550 and Geforce FX 5500 cards, all without issue .

Sorry about that. It's been a long day, and I have other projects I've been wanting to move on to.

1. I seem to have a conflict with cards that use DVI and VGA separately. I've seen this in the past.
2. Multiple VGA cards on one bus seem to work fine, because it's just one standard.
3. The conflict issue also seems to affect dual-standard cards & plain-VGA cards together on one motherboard bus.

I made some diagrams to help sort this out:
Situation 1: A typical 1999-2005 period gaming setup without DVI
Situation 2: My Current Setup (Card 1: nVidia FX5500 AGP + Card 2: ATI Rage Pro)
Situation 3: A typical 1999-2005 period gaming setup WITH DVI (EDIT: I also had 3 separate cards before like this, with DVI, Dual VGA, and normal VGA.)
Situation 4: The setup I've discovered that works fine (Card 1: PNY FX5200 + Card 2: ATI Rage Pro)

T-Squared wrote on 2020-06-20, 02:43:

Sorry about that. It's been a long day, and I have other projects I've been wanting to move on to. […]
Show full quote

Sorry about that. It's been a long day, and I have other projects I've been wanting to move on to.

1. I seem to have a conflict with cards that use DVI and VGA separately. I've seen this in the past.
2. Multiple VGA cards seem to work fine, because it's just one standard.
3. The conflict issue also seems to affect dual-standard cards & plain-VGA cards together on one motherboard bus.

I made some diagrams to help sort this out:
Situation 1: A typical 1999-2005 period gaming setup without DVI
Situation 2: My Current Setup (Card 1: nVidia FX5500 AGP + Card 2: ATI Rage Pro)
Situation 3: A typical 1999-2005 period gaming setup WITH DVI
Situation 4: The setup I've discovered that works fine (Card 1: PNY FX5200 + Card 2: ATI Rage Pro)

Thank you, that makes it much clearer .

I am not going to dispute that you have observed conflicts in the scenario described . I do not really see why it would be related to DVI vs VGA, however .

As mentioned before, I am currently using a setup fitting situation 2 (Geforce Fx 5900 with DVI and VGA, using DVI with Voodoo 3 3000 using VGA) and have no issues in multi-monitor mode under Windows 98 SE (which I have tried for kicks but do not heavily used).

I think it is more likely that you are hitting some incompatibility between specific card models . Whether DVI versus VGA comes into play for those specific card model combinations, I do not know, but I would doubt it . I could, of course, be wrong .

I have observed cards that do not work well together in Windows 98 SE multi-monitor, but that was before DVI was a common thing . I would be hard pressed to remember any models though, except maybe that a RIVA 128 was one of them .

the PCI bus has no idea whether the video card is running its output through a TMDS transmitter or a DAC, whatever issues you are having the output connectors are just a coincidence

All I know is that:

1. Doom, & one of its sourceports (and by extension, Heretic) really do NOT like DVI-VGA setups in Windows. (It crashes at the sound initialization)
2. The whole system seems to lose stability with both AGP and PCI video cards in-place. (Wrong memory count, crashes at setting the displays, system hangs at shutdown/turning off with ACPI)
3. This doesn't seem to be related to power problems. I posted a topic conjecturing about this a week or two ago. I thought removing a card or two (If it was straining the power supply) would stabilize the system. It didn't. It only seems to be related to the video cards.

Oh yeah, and I forgot, Situation 3 on my diagram posts was one of the setups I had before, except it had one DVI card, and TWO separate VGA cards.

I am curious . Is there a particular reason why you want 2 or even 3 screens at once under Windows 9x ?

Whatever the answer to that may be, you would probably avoid issues by using a single card for 2 monitors (VGA and DVI, DVI and DVI or VGA and VGA, whatever fits you monitor situation) or, if you must have 3 screens, by adding another card of the same brand and model as the first one .

EDIT: Multi-monitor support under Windows 98 was far from mature, issues are to be expected .

darry wrote on 2020-06-20, 17:34:

I am curious . Is there a particular reason why you want 2 or even 3 screens at once under Windows 9x ?

One is intended for Feature Connector output (The set of vertical pins, or in rare cases an extra edge connector, on 1990s VGA cards) for my VR helmet.

The other one is intended for DirectX 3D gaming that needs +32 MB of VRAM.

The reason I'm so hot on using the DVI-VGA card is because I can switch inputs easily on more-modern monitors without having to unscrew connectors from the back of the case.

If it was possible, I would use an ISA video card, but it seems with AGP-PCI motherboards, it's not possible to use them as display cards.

T-Squared wrote on 2020-06-20, 17:58:

One is intended for Feature Connector output (The set of vertical pins, or in rare cases an extra edge connector, on 1990s VGA c […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2020-06-20, 17:34:

I am curious . Is there a particular reason why you want 2 or even 3 screens at once under Windows 9x ?

One is intended for Feature Connector output (The set of vertical pins, or in rare cases an extra edge connector, on 1990s VGA cards) for my VR helmet.

The other one is intended for DirectX 3D gaming that needs +32 MB of VRAM.

The reason I'm so hot on using the DVI-VGA card is because I can switch inputs easily on more-modern monitors without having to unscrew connectors from the back of the case.

If it was possible, I would use an ISA video card, but it seems with AGP-PCI motherboards, it's not possible to use them as display cards.

Thank you for the explanation .

As said before, Windows 98 multi-monitor was not quite mature so, if I were you, I would just try to get a functional setup working with whatever cards you can, irrespective of what outputs they have .

Then, once there is a stable setup, I would get a high quality (high bandwidth) VGA switch . This would eliminate the inconvenience of constant plugging/unplugging and also prevent execssive connector wear .

Yeah, after putting in a spare Vanta that I had laying around, Doom started right up. Everything else about it seemed fine, but it glitched out after I exited.

I'm blaming that more on ping-ponging transfers (and thus something in the program may have been corrupted) from drive-to-drive when I have had to reinstall Win98 in the past.

But yeah, it seemed more stable afterwards, so it definitely does not like VGA and DVI sharing the PCI bus on separate cards in Windows 98.

I don't know. Maybe it's the chipset? The Asus P2B uses a 440BX chipset.

Maybe to pickup the topic again. I have also somehow a conflict with dvi and vga. I have a fx 5600 card. When running with dvi port the system seems to be very instabke after time. As you also mentioned, small modifications on windows may often lead to errors after a restart.
Its mostly the same, on windows startup it tries to find a new display and its flickering until i get a blue screen. Or i grt a windows protection error on boot. So i have to put in another card wirh only vga connection. Thsn windows boots again. After that i can again put my fx card back in and reinstall the driver.
With vga never experinced this problem.
With vga its way more stable.

How are you separating issues to do with the card, drivers and hw/sw interplay or corruptions from issues to do with the DVI? You're using the DVI output of a DVI+VGA card and encountering reproducible(?) issues, and comparing to using the same card with the VGA out?