Video drivers restart automatically if they can often resulting in a brief period of nothing displayed on the screen, I think it's possible that is what is going on, though actually that may be more of a later OS recovery than a windows 9x recovery, you may be right, it might just crash outright on 9x.

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-01-14, 06:34:

Video drivers restart automatically if they can often resulting in a brief period of nothing displayed on the screen, I think it's possible that is what is going on, though actually that may be more of a later OS recovery than a windows 9x recovery, you may be right, it might just crash outright on 9x.

Yeah, I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that when the GPU in Win9X crashes, it does so far more catastrophically. I have a list of things to test out, but since it's so intermittent, it can take DAYS for the issue to reappear, gonna start with the GPU since that's an upgrade anyway. Though I'm for sure partially suspecting the monitor, one thing I noticed was if I turned it off and on again, it'd be 'fine' for the first second every time when it's doing it. And that Samsung 204B is a thrift store find. It's a nice 4:3 TFT at 1600x1200 though, it'd be a shame if that was the cause.

Also thought the final card was the 9800. Maybe the fact the newer cards only have beta support means its buggy as hell or doesn't like been pushed. Maybe it'll play nice at 1024x768

Nice build though, Sometime you just need a stupidly overpowered PC for the hell of it! and even though I'm not a fan of WinME I agree it's a better fit for this build.

chinny22 wrote on 2020-01-14, 17:45:

Also thought the final card was the 9800. Maybe the fact the newer cards only have beta support means its buggy as hell or doesn't like been pushed. Maybe it'll play nice at 1024x768

Nice build though, Sometime you just need a stupidly overpowered PC for the hell of it! and even though I'm not a fan of WinME I agree it's a better fit for this build.

Well, the good news is, I think I found the cause of the graphical issue. It happened today and I tried an experiment; I smacked the monitor. It stopped doing it. I'm now 95% sure the problem is the monitor. Will update after successive monitor smackings if necessary. 😳

I also was just reading old posts on this forum, swaaye, in 2012, reported using an E5800 on the 775i65G, with 'R2.03' silkscreened on the board. That's not on Asrock's offical CPU supported list but it's the same mobo. That's a 3.2ghz CPU and being Wolfdale it's a bit newer than a Conroe. So I may upgrade this from 2.6ghz to 3.2ghz, with an architecture that would run circles around any Pentium 4. ...And it only cost USD$5 on eBay so no big deal if it doesn't work. 😀

Never doubt percussive maintenance.

I do have an ATI X700 PCI-e running on one of those oddball Asrock boards, the 4CoreDX90-VSTA (Core2Quad compatible, PCI-e, but DDR1 and works with Win9x? Gotta love VIA chipsets) in Windows ME, actually.

I wouldn't say I stress it terribly (it's in my in-law's retro-lan setup, primarily running LucasArts' Outlaws), but it does work for at least a few other games as well.

LHN91 wrote on 2020-01-15, 02:40:

I do have an ATI X700 PCI-e running on one of those oddball Asrock boards, the 4CoreDX90-VSTA (Core2Quad compatible, PCI-e, but DDR1 and works with Win9x? Gotta love VIA chipsets) in Windows ME, actually.

I wouldn't say I stress it terribly (it's in my in-law's retro-lan setup, primarily running LucasArts' Outlaws), but it does work for at least a few other games as well.

I was researching that on old Vogon's threads, after seeing some say the simple view of 'PCIE Doesn't work on Win9X isn't purely true'. This includes someone saying they got it runnong on a Bulldozer system even.
So, I'm getting that some PCIE cards will work, but the overlap of when PCIE cards rolled out, vs when 9X drivers were discontinued, is very slim. But if you have the parts, it can work.

What confused me is storage. I know SATA drives can operate as IDE no problem, but you also need the whole IDE primary/secondary channel stuff going on, don't you? While boards like mine have that as a compatibility mode, that should be entirely abandoned in newer boards, shouldn't it? I didn't understand how someone with a more modern system even got Windows 98 to even WORK with a SATA drive, even in IDE mode, on a modern system.

I have to admit, the idea of being able to do an ITX system with PCIE graphics for Win9X would be super neat? I know there are Via boards with PCI and some super expensive industrial oddballs with AGP in ITX, but you couldn't say, just do it with a z77 board?

Fujoshi-hime wrote on 2020-01-14, 06:24:

As the 4.3 drivers predate the release of the X800 by half a year, and make no mention of X800, I'm pretty sure they don't support the X800 series. 😀

Doh! Sorry, I just saw they supported the 8xxx cards and thought yours fitted in!

Can anyone else see what's wrong with my new X800 XT PE? Yeah it's an X800 Pro. FASTER than my X800GT, yes, but also NOT what I paid for.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/GRAPHICS-CARD-SAPPHIR … 872.m2749.l2649

You can see their full listing here, where it says 'X800 XT PE' multiple times.

*smashes refund button* Grrrr.

This is stock photos, not actual card so you should be certain they are same thing, if not, no buy. I do not like looking without seeing real pictures of the video card before buying.

XT PE is rather rare now.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-01-15, 23:55:

This is stock photos, not actual card so you should be certain they are same thing, if not, no buy. I do not like looking without seeing real pictures of the video card before buying.

XT PE is rather rare now.

Cheers,

They are stock photos, they are ACTUALLY stock photos of the Pro model. The listing, after looking now, is a grab bag. It says 'X800 XT PE' all over it but lists the model number as D33A27m which again matches the X800 Pro. The Part Number is wrong though, not 100% what it's from, but it doesn't match the label on the card, then it says "gpu: ATI RADEON X800 XT"

I'm not really sure if this is seller carelessness or malice, but someones gonna owe me money or an X800 XT PE. The same seller still has multiple units like this listed one Bay too. 😒

Fujoshi-hime wrote on 2020-01-15, 15:41:

I was researching that on old Vogon's threads, after seeing some say the simple view of 'PCIE Doesn't work on Win9X isn't purely […]
Show full quote

LHN91 wrote on 2020-01-15, 02:40:

I do have an ATI X700 PCI-e running on one of those oddball Asrock boards, the 4CoreDX90-VSTA (Core2Quad compatible, PCI-e, but DDR1 and works with Win9x? Gotta love VIA chipsets) in Windows ME, actually.

I wouldn't say I stress it terribly (it's in my in-law's retro-lan setup, primarily running LucasArts' Outlaws), but it does work for at least a few other games as well.

I was researching that on old Vogon's threads, after seeing some say the simple view of 'PCIE Doesn't work on Win9X isn't purely true'. This includes someone saying they got it runnong on a Bulldozer system even.
So, I'm getting that some PCIE cards will work, but the overlap of when PCIE cards rolled out, vs when 9X drivers were discontinued, is very slim. But if you have the parts, it can work.

What confused me is storage. I know SATA drives can operate as IDE no problem, but you also need the whole IDE primary/secondary channel stuff going on, don't you? While boards like mine have that as a compatibility mode, that should be entirely abandoned in newer boards, shouldn't it? I didn't understand how someone with a more modern system even got Windows 98 to even WORK with a SATA drive, even in IDE mode, on a modern system.

I have to admit, the idea of being able to do an ITX system with PCIE graphics for Win9X would be super neat? I know there are Via boards with PCI and some super expensive industrial oddballs with AGP in ITX, but you couldn't say, just do it with a z77 board?

Might be possible to get a newer board without IDE (and without a compat mode), and add a 9x compatible (and bootable) PCI IDE card, use that for storage. I haven't tried to see if that's possible though.

I awoke to a full refund from the seller, £93 (USD$122, CAD$160 CAD) for the card and shipping refunded. I am out the CAD$31 I paid in duty's and brokerage fees to DHL, but $31 to upgrade from an X800GT to X800Pro is pretty good. I'm still going to casually keep an eye out for an XL or XT card however, but the Pro puts this machine well into 'Stupid Fast', I just know it could get stupider. 😀

Despite the seller presumably getting hosed by giving me a full refund, including shipping which from Poland to Canada was not cheap, they continue to list their remaining units on eBay as X800 XT PEs. You'd think they'd want to not have a repeat experience? I wonder if they marked it as an XT PE intentionally to boost the price, thinking most folks wouldn't notice?

Fujoshi-hime wrote on 2020-01-18, 15:42:

Despite the seller presumably getting hosed by giving me a full refund, including shipping which from Poland to Canada was not cheap, they continue to list their remaining units on eBay as X800 XT PEs. You'd think they'd want to not have a repeat experience? I wonder if they marked it as an XT PE intentionally to boost the price, thinking most folks wouldn't notice?

Maybe, or maybe the person who posted them just looked at pictures online.. which is very confusing from the pictures I could find.

I did see a review that says that the RAM is faster than the normal X800 Pro cards and that you possibly could mod the card to the XT PE.
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php … 1422&cid=3&pg=9

The GeCube and Gigabyte cards in that review, though sold as X800 Pro cards, have all 16 pipelines active like the XT PE.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-01-18, 18:46:

Maybe, or maybe the person who posted them just looked at pictures online.. which is very confusing from the pictures I could fi […]
Show full quote

Fujoshi-hime wrote on 2020-01-18, 15:42:

Despite the seller presumably getting hosed by giving me a full refund, including shipping which from Poland to Canada was not cheap, they continue to list their remaining units on eBay as X800 XT PEs. You'd think they'd want to not have a repeat experience? I wonder if they marked it as an XT PE intentionally to boost the price, thinking most folks wouldn't notice?

Maybe, or maybe the person who posted them just looked at pictures online.. which is very confusing from the pictures I could find.

I did see a review that says that the RAM is faster than the normal X800 Pro cards and that you possibly could mod the card to the XT PE.
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php … 1422&cid=3&pg=9

The GeCube and Gigabyte cards in that review, though sold as X800 Pro cards, have all 16 pipelines active like the XT PE.

But surely if it was a mistake and you just refunded £59+£34 in shipping, while letting the buyer keep the item, you'd hurry to update your listing selling the remaining units? If I had made a mistake like that while selling eBay, it'd be a priority to correct the listing before I got hit that hard again.

After reading that the R2.0 version of this board has undocumented support for the Pentium E5800 3.2ghz CPU, I ordered one up off eBay for all of USD$5. It finally arrived last night and I dropped it in. Obviously I'm seeing diminishing returns and WinME was never built around this kind of speed but it works great so far. 😀

I'm pretty sure that I'm near as 'fast' as I can possibly get on a native WinME machine. The X800 Pro is a bit short vs an X800 XT or X850XT, but this is still pretty great.

Fujoshi-hime wrote on 2020-01-02, 04:03:

Audio: Sound Blaster Live 5.1

Since you're going for top of the line of hardware that still works on Win98, you might want to swap out that SB Live for an Audigy 2 ZS.

Not that it will make much difference, but I think there are a couple of EAX3 games that work on Win98 and could theoretically take advantage of it.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-02-02, 19:02:

Fujoshi-hime wrote on 2020-01-02, 04:03:

Audio: Sound Blaster Live 5.1

Since you're going for top of the line of hardware that still works on Win98, you might want to swap out that SB Live for an Audigy 2 ZS.

Not that it will make much difference, but I think there are a couple of EAX3 games that work on Win98 and could theoretically take advantage of it.

Looking at the list, any of the EAX3 supported games are in the Windows XP era, so they'd be more suitable to run on my WinXP machine which has an Audigy SE in it. You're not wrong however that an Audigy 2 would be closer to 'the extreme edge', but I'll also admit that part of the reason I kept upgrading the CPU is because they CPUs were about the price of the sandwich. It's hard to argue in favour of an upgrade of 600mhz from 2.6 to 3.2... Unless that upgrade was only $5. This is also why I'm not going to rush to upgrade beyond the X800 Pro. Getting it nearly for free was an accidental windfall and the price of an X800 XT or X850 XT would cheap and for Windows 98 gaming, really offer diminishing returns. Cheap diminishing returns are a lot easier to justify over expensive ones. 😀

Fujoshi-hime wrote on 2020-02-03, 00:10:

Looking at the list, any of the EAX3 supported games are in the Windows XP era

Bioware's Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the old Republic work on Win98 SE and the original Splinter Cell does as well.

Not that you'd need to run any of those on that OS, but you could, if you really wanted to.