I can't answer your question, but I thought you might like to know that there's an even newer version of the Forceware drivers that supports Windows 98; 82.16. It used to be available from the XFXForce site, but after I reported that the uninstaller didn't work, they appear to have downgraded to one of the 7x.xx versions. You can download 82.16 here;

http://www.bfgtech.com/7800GS_256.html

Update: a friend on TR said that 6800 SLI on Windows 98 should be possible, as long as I could find a PCI Express motherboard with Windows 98 driver.

Any suggestion?

By the way, I also wonder: does Windows 98 need driver to run on a particular motherboard? I thought motherboard driver (or is it chipset driver?) is something that started from Windows XP.

Also, I wonder about Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI mobo. It is an SLI mobo based on nForce 4 chipset. I'm not sure about Win 98 support, but the product profile page says something about "Power-off by Windows 98/ Me/ 2000/ XP shut down and switch". Does it mean that the mobo can run Win 98?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

By the way, I also wonder: does Windows 98 need driver to run on a particular motherboard? I thought motherboard driver (or is it chipset driver?) is something that started from Windows XP.

Nope. There's a Windows 98 "Chipset ID utility" for Win9x available on Intel's website, and I've seen similar drivers for other motherboards. Windows 98 includes drivers for the popular chipsets of its time on its CD.

Jorpho wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

By the way, I also wonder: does Windows 98 need driver to run on a particular motherboard? I thought motherboard driver (or is it chipset driver?) is something that started from Windows XP.

Nope. There's a Windows 98 "Chipset ID utility" for Win9x available on Intel's website, and I've seen similar drivers for other motherboards. Windows 98 includes drivers for the popular chipsets of its time on its CD.

I see. So modern mobos won't work win Win98, will they? What's the latest chipset still support Win98, then? Anyone?

Update: I read a lot over the internet that nForce4 chipset (which is, unfortunately, the chipset needed for nVidia SLI setup) "does not support Windows 98". 🙁

I wonder whether any chipset other than nForce4 that also support nVidia SLI.....

I am not sure what it is that you thing won't run on newer motherboards. I have MS-DOS, Windows 95 OSR2, and Windows 98 running happily on my nForce2 chipset.

MiniMax wrote:

I am not sure what it is that you thing won't run on newer motherboards. I have MS-DOS, Windows 95 OSR2, and Windows 98 running happily on my nForce2 chipset.

I imagine you at least have a couple of unidentified devices in Device Manager.

Jorpho wrote:

MiniMax wrote:

I am not sure what it is that you thing won't run on newer motherboards. I have MS-DOS, Windows 95 OSR2, and Windows 98 running happily on my nForce2 chipset.

I imagine you at least have a couple of unidentified devices in Device Manager.

How mobo-dependent an 6800 SLI solution is? Suppose I'm using nForce4 (the only mobo supporting SLI 🙁 ), and get a couple of unidentified devices in Device Manager (the chipset, I suppose), but I do install the Win98 ForceWare driver above. Could I use SLI in Win98 then?

Something else you may want to bear in mind. I have a 6600 and it will not play AvP, the display is useless. Apparently this something to do with the way the card works - some aspects of old-style are not implemented [I forget what the explanation was I'm afraid]. If the 6800 is based on the same chip design then it may have similar problems.

Of course if anyone knows the 6600 can be made to display AvP properly, please let me know!

Come to think of it, have you tried posting your question on forums.guru3d.com?

You mean Alien vs Predator? Why can't it run on 6800? How about older Direct3D games like the original MDK, Incoming, or Hellbender?

ratfink wrote:

Of course if anyone knows the 6600 can be made to display AvP properly, please let me know!

[Apparently] you need to run with 66.93 version of the nVidia drivers to get AvP to play as it should. According to reports this is the last set known to work with AvP and isn't much of a solution if you run a mix of games (where the newer ones will probably require newer drivers).

I've tried this and it's true. Driver versions up to 66.93 will allow a 6600 or 6800 to play AvP, but with anything later you just get glowing patches and no real picture.

The theory on the nvidia forum is that nvidia have turned off some functionality as part of the attempt to squeeze as much performance as possible for recent stuff. You don't of course have the same problem with ATi or so it seems.

Later nvidia cards will need later driver versions - so AvP won't be possible on these at all unless and until nvidia fix the problem.

I doubt nVidia care that they've broken support for a 6 year old game 🙁

As an aside I've started to look at the possibility of lifting the OpenGL (via SDL) implementation from the linux source code and squeezing it into the Windows release. So far in a week I've installed a Linux dev environment, compiled the code and have run the game using the compiled binary together with game files from my Windows install. The game certainly didn't exhibit the same problems but wasn't too playable as I'm running Linux inside of Virtual PC.

As for 'fixing' the Windows sources as is... a compilation of those (using VC6) produced an exe that crashed! I'd expect given the right person and time it's likely the original graphical problems would be fixable.

I've *no* prior experience with this sort of task (Linux, SDL, OpenGL, D3D, game development, etc.... it's all new to me!). If I had the skills of 'Qbix', 'moe', 'gulikoza', etc. etc. I'd be more confident in reaching a conclusion but as it is, don't expect results!

In case anyone's interested, I just tried AvP under XP on a 6800gt using 94.24 drivers. It worked fine. Not using any compatibility mode either.
😀

If you go to www.msfn.org (Not msdn) forums, there is a community of die hard win98 users there. They also have a list of modern tech that works in win98. You could also ask questions about this there, as someone there probably knows.

ratfink wrote:

In case anyone's interested, I just tried AvP under XP on a 6800gt using 94.24 drivers. It worked fine. Not using any compatibility mode either.
😀

WTF does this have to do with Windows 98?

Alien vs predator was fixed in later nv drivers (after complaining for 2 years in the nvidia foums)

Jorpho wrote:

MiniMax wrote:

I am not sure what it is that you thing won't run on newer motherboards. I have MS-DOS, Windows 95 OSR2, and Windows 98 running happily on my nForce2 chipset.

I imagine you at least have a couple of unidentified devices in Device Manager.

Nope - until recently I also had a rig with NF2 chipset and it worked quite nicely in Win98.

elfuego wrote:

until recently I also had a rig with NF2 chipset and it worked quite nicely in Win98.

Yeah, my Abit AN7 has nforce2 and runs Win98SE with all devices identified. In Windows 98 this was not possible, only Second Edition. But it's not a pci-e board, let alone sli.