shamino wrote on 2020-08-20, 13:31:

For whatever it's worth, I remember installing a Matrox driver for the G200 that added support for multiple desktops (as often s […]
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For whatever it's worth, I remember installing a Matrox driver for the G200 that added support for multiple desktops (as often seen on Unix GUIs). That was on Windows 2000 though, no idea if they did that under Win9x.
That was a very long time ago. Much more recently I installed a driver for a G400 under Win98 and didn't see that feature. Maybe it was just for NT.

Since you probably aren't planning to do "serious desktop computing" on this machine, the value of multiple desktops is certainly questionable. But it's the only card where I've ever run into that feature in a Windows driver.

Back in the day, lots of people used to insist that a K6 series CPU shouldn't have anything later than a TNT2, but that wisdom was wrong. A GF2 MX can push performance a bit further and it's easier on the motherboard (electrically).

With the Geforce2 MX, resist the temptation to install a late driver. Older drivers are faster with the K6 CPUs. It's kind of erratic from version to version though, like NVidia didn't pay consistent attention to testing on K6 (shocking). If you want to optimize then find some way to benchmark the games you care about. In general I like 8.05 or whatever it was (8.something anyway).

The full Matrox Powerdesk package should give you multiple desktops in Windows 9x as well. I remember having that on my Millennium G200 back in the day. It is however possible that the Mystique driver package omitted that feature, as I can see Matrox feeling that this should be a more "professional" feature.

matze79 wrote on 2020-08-19, 15:04:

swaaye wrote on 2020-08-18, 22:51:

That's a Matrox G200. It was for a very brief period of time in 1998 the best 2D+3D card. Should have clear output quality and be fast for 2D in general. It is a bit faster than Voodoo1 for games and much nicer image quality.

Ist was a shit Card in 1998 hab various Problems with drivers , Rendering errors , Transparency issues...

I bought one back then And Quickly replaced it with a 3Dfx Banshee

I can't remember ever having rendering issues on my Millennium G200 back in the day. It was a bit slower than my Voodoo 2, but in most games not that much, but it provided a much better overall picture. 32-bit colours, sharper picture... What's not to like? I played Carmageddon 2 day in and day out for months on the G200. I played Quake 3 on it. Unreal Tournament. It lasted me until the GeForce 256ddr.

As for the GeForce 2 MX400... There is a reason why it's very popular among the retro comminuty. Back in the day, it provided decent performance at an affordable price, so lots of people bought them, which means that they are pretty easy to get hold of today, and they don't cost ridiculous money like the more flagship models do. It's a good choice when you want versatility, good performance and low cost.

i think it was issue with matrox drivers.
But back then with no internet @ home no way to get updates..
i had various fun with this card, black surfaces instead of transparency.
if you use newest drivers now you have fixed OpenGL and so on.

i also remember savage 4 on release, it was really unuseable..
2-3 months later you got new drivers on discmags and it worked fine.

LunarG wrote on 2020-08-23, 07:58:

The full Matrox Powerdesk package should give you multiple desktops in Windows 9x as well. I remember having that on my Millenni […]
Show full quote

shamino wrote on 2020-08-20, 13:31:

For whatever it's worth, I remember installing a Matrox driver for the G200 that added support for multiple desktops (as often s […]
Show full quote

For whatever it's worth, I remember installing a Matrox driver for the G200 that added support for multiple desktops (as often seen on Unix GUIs). That was on Windows 2000 though, no idea if they did that under Win9x.
That was a very long time ago. Much more recently I installed a driver for a G400 under Win98 and didn't see that feature. Maybe it was just for NT.

Since you probably aren't planning to do "serious desktop computing" on this machine, the value of multiple desktops is certainly questionable. But it's the only card where I've ever run into that feature in a Windows driver.

Back in the day, lots of people used to insist that a K6 series CPU shouldn't have anything later than a TNT2, but that wisdom was wrong. A GF2 MX can push performance a bit further and it's easier on the motherboard (electrically).

With the Geforce2 MX, resist the temptation to install a late driver. Older drivers are faster with the K6 CPUs. It's kind of erratic from version to version though, like NVidia didn't pay consistent attention to testing on K6 (shocking). If you want to optimize then find some way to benchmark the games you care about. In general I like 8.05 or whatever it was (8.something anyway).

The full Matrox Powerdesk package should give you multiple desktops in Windows 9x as well. I remember having that on my Millennium G200 back in the day. It is however possible that the Mystique driver package omitted that feature, as I can see Matrox feeling that this should be a more "professional" feature.

matze79 wrote on 2020-08-19, 15:04:

swaaye wrote on 2020-08-18, 22:51:

That's a Matrox G200. It was for a very brief period of time in 1998 the best 2D+3D card. Should have clear output quality and be fast for 2D in general. It is a bit faster than Voodoo1 for games and much nicer image quality.

Ist was a shit Card in 1998 hab various Problems with drivers , Rendering errors , Transparency issues...

I bought one back then And Quickly replaced it with a 3Dfx Banshee

I can't remember ever having rendering issues on my Millennium G200 back in the day. It was a bit slower than my Voodoo 2, but in most games not that much, but it provided a much better overall picture. 32-bit colours, sharper picture... What's not to like? I played Carmageddon 2 day in and day out for months on the G200. I played Quake 3 on it. Unreal Tournament. It lasted me until the GeForce 256ddr.

As for the GeForce 2 MX400... There is a reason why it's very popular among the retro comminuty. Back in the day, it provided decent performance at an affordable price, so lots of people bought them, which means that they are pretty easy to get hold of today, and they don't cost ridiculous money like the more flagship models do. It's a good choice when you want versatility, good performance and low cost.

I like your signature, I probably should do the same. DOS machine - Pentium or 486, w98 era - p2,p3. I'm not playing 3D shooters, but some cool strategies i might play

bloodem wrote on 2020-08-23, 07:30:

My suggestion is to remove the USB PCI adapter (and any other adapters that you don't really need on a SS7 platform). If you sim […]
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My suggestion is to remove the USB PCI adapter (and any other adapters that you don't really need on a SS7 platform). If you simply want to transfer data, there are other (much faster) ways of doing it - like a PATA/SATA to USB 3.0 adapter: just plug the HDD in your main rig & transfer everything you need. I've had many problems related to these PCI adapters on SS7, including extremely bad CPU performance. So I strongly recommend avoiding them.

The i440BX is generally a great, very stable platform, however it beeing better or not depends a lot on what you want to achieve:
- if you simply want a period correct system with decent performance in most Windows 98 games that were released before the 3rd millennium - i.e., before 2001 (and you are also looking for that 'cool factor'), then a PC with a Slot 1 440BX / Pentium 3 Coppermine / GeForce 2 GTS is certainly one of the first choices. This PC will also allow you to play quite a few DOS games, when using the right sound card. You could even use two sound cards - a Sound Blaster Live or Aureal Vortex 2 for Windows and an ISA card for DOS - or, you could go for a nice all-rounder such as an YMF7x4 card, which, especially on a 440BX, will work great in DOS with DDMA/SB-Link and will be very good for Windows too - albeit, not as good as the aforementioned cards). However, such a PC will lack the required speed flexibility that's needed in order to play as many DOS games as possible. In DOS it's either very fast or very slow (with the L1 cache disabled). So games that require a faster (but not too fast) CPU will have issues or will just refuse to run (patches can sometimes help with this, but not always). And as for Windows... well, it will generally be OK, but far from perfect. Games like NFS High Stakes/Porsche will struggle on such a system (especially by today's standards of "good framerates").
- if you want a very good all-in-one platform, that is very flexible when it comes to DOS + you are mostly interested in playing Windows games up to 1998 (and/or you don't really care about smooth framerates), a SS7 system is the way to go. Also, if you like tinkering with old hardware that does not necessarily run perfectly out of the box... a SS7 system is also the way to go - at least this is why I like them A LOT 😀
- if you want the ultimate time machine - a very stable PC that will allow you to play all Windows 98 games at VERY high resolutions & framerates + probably more than 98% of DOS games, then I would suggest something much more powerful and much more flexible - like an Athlon XP Thoroughbred / Athlon 64 running on a VIA chipset like the KT600 / K8T800. Add a GeForce 4 Ti 4200/4400/4600 (or, even better, an FX 5900) + a Yamaha YMF 7x4 sound card and... sky's the limit. 😁

Thank you for your full answer! I guess I need to set a goals for my x86 machines. I just wanted to build most powerful S7, push it to the limit with modern way of communication. And again, I can just switch off usb2pci in windows 98, that's ok.
I use sb16 + live on that machine, but my old combined wave + midi Cubase projects are kinda slow anyway on SS7, they were made btw on Celeron 300 and it was fine back in 2001.
I don't know if K6-2+ 500 more powerful... In some ways it's not, I guess in FPU. But anyway, i'll keep setting everything up. Hopefully GeForce will not explode, thinking to put a fan on top of the heatsink, or maybe better idea to remove it and replace thermal glue first
My specs now:
DFI k6vx+ 66 / k6-2+ 500/768MB/GF2 MX400/120GB + 200GB hdd/IDE-CF front reader (for experiments)/ usb 2.0 + usb card reader front/100mbit LAN
I'm not sure I need to push Ram to turbo in bios, I'm not sure I need that much ram as well 😀

"And again, I can just switch off usb2pci in windows 98, that's ok. " - well, at least for me, this did not make a difference. The issues I was having disappeared only after physically removing the PCI adapter (however, this was on a different SS7 motherboard, not the K6XV3+/66, so your mileage may vary). Either way, even if you want to experiment with other devices, my advice is to first start clean, with only the base components. Once it's stable like this, you can then try and add the other parts one by one, run benchmarks, see if you notice any performance/stability impact.
As for your cooling issues with the GeForce 2 MX400, this card should be fine with a good case airflow. However, most 128bit MX400 cards usually came with a fan. If yours is a heatsink-only model, you should check with Everest/Aida to make sure that you have a true MX400 and not a gimped 64bit version (which can be 3 times as slow at resolutions higher than 640x480). Also, if the heatsink is very hot, this means that it probably does not need new thermal paste - the heat transfer from the GPU to the heatsink is good. So, either add a good intake fan inside your case, or throw the card away if it's one of the 64bit SDRAM versions.

It is 128bit. Hot. Maybe I should order small 12v fan? I have agp fan connector on the motherboard

I fixed it!!! USB 2.0 problem solved. And who was responsible for that? Me, careless reader of instructions at first. All I needed to do is to delete everything from USB section in Safe mode, then reboot and install drivers, then reboot without card, then reboot with card installed! as suggested in other post on Vogons. So:
1.Delete all USB devices in safe mode. Install USB 2.0 drivers (actually I used different from NUSB) in safe mode. Shutdown. Remove PCI card.
2.Boot in USBless computer in regular mode. Shutdown.
4.Install PCI card. Boot in again, after all the installation with drivers... It asked me for USBNTMAP? I skipped it, looks like it's not for 9x even?
5.Everything works fine! No exclamation point on USB 2.0 Hub . Works fine, card reader and usb flash drives.
Thought to put back second NEC USB 2.0 card with external 4 ports + 1 inside, but then thought it's enough to have 2 in front of the computer and one back. Too much for that system! I saved it for later system.
Happy!
Now the time for AGP Texas summer like hot d#mn heatsink around 3pm 😀 Thinking of ordering small fan for the heatsink and power it up from the motherboard AGP connection.
Thank y'all

Hehe,

i now fighting also the MVP3 fight, i run HOT591P
Inserting a Nvidia Card and installing Drivers results in windows 98 no longer booting 😀

matze79 wrote on 2020-08-24, 08:44:

Hehe,

i now fighting also the MVP3 fight, i run HOT591P
Inserting a Nvidia Card and installing Drivers results in windows 98 no longer booting 😀

On my 5EMA+, when I went from a Radeon 9200 to a GeForce 3 Ti 200, it got stuck on the Win98 splash screen. I had to move the Promise IDE card to another slot to get past this.

Yeah i currently use the Diamond S540 Savage Extreme 32Mb but the difference to 8Mb Number Nine Savage LT is minimal in default Settings (3DMark99).

Seems the Savage is already bottle necked by K6-2+

Depends on resolution. S3 Savage 4 is on par with TNT2 M64, which scales on PII/PIII.

Yeah its clear the Savage LT will run out of Memory on higher Resolutions 😀

I like the Savage for UT Engine Games, S3 Metal is the best looking API here.

Hey guys. What's wrong with windows 2k and why I can't get DVI working? Black screen (not out of range though)
Same GeForce 2 MX400 (msi 8837)

I tried drivers from 28 to 45. 77 is rebooting computer btw if DVI connected
98 is ok with DVI connected, now there opposite problem 😀 vga is out of range

S3 Metal is the best looking API here

That crown goes to modern DX10 renderer, which is highly customizable

kirikl wrote on 2020-08-24, 16:05:

Hey guys. What's wrong with windows 2k and why I can't get DVI working? Black screen (not out of range though) Same GeForce 2 M […]
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Hey guys. What's wrong with windows 2k and why I can't get DVI working? Black screen (not out of range though)
Same GeForce 2 MX400 (msi 8837)

I tried drivers from 28 to 45. 77 is rebooting computer btw if DVI connected
98 is ok with DVI connected, now there opposite problem 😀 vga is out of range

I don't think it's Win2k's fault or the card's fault... 😀 Most likely, you are facing more VIA MVP3 related issues. I for one would avoid Win2K on SS7 boards. That OS works better with faster / more stable platforms.
Then again, I was never a fan of Win2k. I remember waiting until the last moment to jump ship from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Tried Win2K a couple of times back in the day, wasn't very happy with it.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-08-24, 16:23:

S3 Metal is the best looking API here

That crown goes to modern DX10 renderer, which is highly customizable

maybe on modern machines, i thought this is about retro hardware 😀

Glide vs S3Metal ? i would take S3 Metal.

bloodem wrote on 2020-08-24, 16:53:

kirikl wrote on 2020-08-24, 16:05:

Hey guys. What's wrong with windows 2k and why I can't get DVI working? Black screen (not out of range though) Same GeForce 2 M […]
Show full quote

Hey guys. What's wrong with windows 2k and why I can't get DVI working? Black screen (not out of range though)
Same GeForce 2 MX400 (msi 8837)

I tried drivers from 28 to 45. 77 is rebooting computer btw if DVI connected
98 is ok with DVI connected, now there opposite problem 😀 vga is out of range

I don't think it's Win2k's fault or the card's fault... 😀 Most likely, you are facing more VIA MVP3 related issues. I for one would avoid Win2K on SS7 boards. That OS works better with faster / more stable platforms.
Then again, I was never a fan of Win2k. I remember waiting until the last moment to jump ship from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Tried Win2K a couple of times back in the day, wasn't very happy with it.

I just think XP is little too much for that platform. I tried... Not a fan, even with 768mb. I guess 98 is my best choice.
I tried to keep NT family OS there, just in case of working with some stuff. I hate all those messages with FAT32.... Scandisk after reboot...disappearing files.

Oh, for sure, don't even try WinXP 😁
After you manage to stabilize everything, Scandisk should be a very rare occurrence. 😀

BX440 is much better if you`re going to play Windows 9x Games.
At least if you want 3D.
Also you get RID of all compatibility issues, ALI Shit Drivers, VIA Problems..
The best Chipset so far is SiS 530 in terms of compatibility... but mostly no AGP 😒

A K6-2/2+/3/3+ maybe fine for 2D+ but simply lacks the FPU Power for 3D Gaming.
My PIII 450 runs circles around the K6-2+.

They all have their advantages & disadvantages. 440BX is indeed a very stable platform, but nowadays we are used to stable platforms. I haven't seen a BSOD on my modern PCs in over 10 years (do my 10 year old PCs actually count as "modern"? Hmmm...) 😁. I agree that the Slot 1 440BX motherboards do have a certain appeal to them, owning one makes you feel cool 😀
But other than that... there's nothing really special about 440BX. At least with the SS7 platforms you can have an all-in-one PC, one that is capable of successfully running most DOS games, Windows 95 and early Windows 98 games. Also, for me at least, debugging and solving their hardware and driver issues is a fun thing to do.
But the 440BX... is a bit boring. It's not that good for DOS, it's decent for Windows 98 (definitely better than SS7), but far from perfect - there are much faster, more versatile options that are often cheaper and also very stable.
Which is why it's better to just... have them all 😁