You will be missing table fog. This will break most notably several LucasArts 97-99 games.

http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/ATI 😉

Thanks for the replies!

I think I'll tough it out with my NVIDIA issues.

What issues were you having with nVidia? Maybe someone here can help you fix them or at least work around them.

sliderider wrote:

What issues were you having with nVidia? Maybe someone here can help you fix them or at least work around them.

This is the configuration as I originally had it planned:

Abit KT7A-RAID v1.0
Athlon 1400
768MB RAM
Gainward FX 5900 Ultra AGP
Dual Voodoo 2 cards in SLI (Creative)
AWE64 Value
Running Win98SE

I couldn't even get this system to boot with the 5900U. Half the time it wouldn't even successfully POST. I pulled the 5900U and tried replacing it with either a GF4 Ti4600-8X (aka Ti4800) or a GF3 Ti500. With the Ti4600, I used detonators v45.23. With the GF3 Ti500, I used v30.82. Either way, using either of the GeForce cards causes lots of BSODs and other fatal exceptions. This results in a totally unusable system that won't even complete booting into normal mode unless I drop resolution to 640x480 with only 256 colors. However, what's odd is that it only happens after modifying the system.ini vcache "min/maxfilecache" entry to overcome Win98SE memory issues. I can even leave the system.ini untouched, but as soon as Unofficial SP v2.1a modifies the vcache, it bombs again.

I found a 9800XT and tested the system with that. It appeared to work flawlessly with the Radeon card. However, I really want to stick with a GF card.

I consulted the old GeForce FAQ, but none of the suggestions there were of any help. I've spent about 24 hours of time troubleshooting anything/everything to get this system going with an nvidia card. I have other v1.2 and v1.3 KT7A boards that work great with GF3 and GF4 cards. I can only assume that this v1.0 board has some sort of 1st-gen incompatibility issue. I'm about ready to give up and start looking for a v1.2 board or a Tualatin-compatible board.

This may seem like a stupid question, but have you tried just running with less ram? Surely you'd manage just as well with 512MB in Win98se. Just thinking it's Win98SE and the memory limit mods that are causing the problems rather than the board.

Set the 512 MB RAM limit (MaxPhysPage=1FFFF in the [386ench] section of system.ini.
Disable HyperThreading in BIOS.
99% of reboots and crashes are gone after this.

Thanks LunarG and Gamecollector for your most helpful replies!

LunarG:
I had not considered removing some of the RAM. Sure enough, removing one stick of 256mb results in a fully functioning Win98SE PC! So, this begs the question, why do my other v1.2 and v1.3 KT7A boards work just fine with 768mb of ram while this v1.0 board does not? Strange...

Gamecollector:
Adding the MaxPhysPage entry did not help. However, your post got me to messing around with the vcache settings and I was able to determine that the problem was definitely related to vcache and memory size. It was only after removing one of my sticks of RAM that I was able to get the system working.
If I remember correctly, "MaxPhysPage=20000" or "MaxPhysPage=1FFFF" would perform the same function as physically removing a 256mb stick and dropping to a 512mb ram system. Am I wrong about this? Is there an advantage to keeping 768mb of physical ram and using the MaxPhysPage entry?

Again, thanks very much to both of you! I'm back on track to getting this system running again, albeit with 256mb less ram. Still, like LunarG said, it probably will not have much of an impact on performance if at all.

512MB is still extreme luxury in 9x terms. It certainly won't be a limiter with any 90s games. I think I first got to 512MB in 2002 on XP.

I usually do run 512MB so browsing modern web pages with Opera is tolerable.

512MB is an anachronism to me, so I just 256mb it 😀