numeriK wrote:

As soon as I can scrounge-up an AT keyboard this is the exact setup I plan on running. I should know in the coming weeks. […]
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As soon as I can scrounge-up an AT keyboard this is the exact setup I plan on running. I should know in the coming weeks.

For what it's worth, I'll be testing with:
PC Chips M919 v1.5
128MB FPM EDO RAM (2x64MB)
AMD-5x86-P75 @ 133MHz
Diamond V550 RIVA TNT 32MB PCI

Are you sure it is 32 MB? I thought the V550 was also 16 MB.

At any rate, you'll also want to try the old drivers. Swaaye found a boat load of old drivers for the original TNT, found here,
ftp://84.205.160.1/drivers/vga/rivaTnT/

Are you sure it is 32 MB? I thought the V550 was also 16 MB.

My apologies, I stand corrected - it is 16MB.

i doubt if tnt would ever work properly on any 486 rig(in windows), whether its pci compatibility issue or the drivers requiring a 586 cpu.

I just wanted to reply to the correct thread and *CONFIRM* that I have a Diamond Multimedia V550 16MB PCI video card working in Windows 98SE on a PC Chips M919 v1.5.

However, I used Diamond's driver package, not nVidia's, so you may want to explore your particular manufacturers options if nVidia's are not working correctly (I haven't even tried nVidia's, however I could if you need to know if a particular package is working for anyone else).

I wanted to update this thread (again). I've successfully installed the NVidia Detonator Driver package as well (no issues in Device Manager).

I included the drivers I used as a zip file below.

Where did you find those Detonator drivers? They are a few months older than the v21.81 which are on the NVIDIA FTP site (note that v12.41 does not include drivers for NV4).

Thank you for sharing these drivers. I'll probably try my TNT on a UMC before retrying on a SiS, just to ensure there is nothing wrong with the card.

Where did you find those Detonator drivers? They are a few months older than the v21.81 which are on the NVIDIA FTP site (note that v12.41 does not include drivers for NV4).

Thank you for sharing these drivers. I'll probably try my TNT on a UMC before retrying on a SiS, just to ensure there is nothing wrong with the card.

You're welcome! You can find anything on the good ole' world-wide-interweb! 😉

Please do test, I'm finding that my older tweaking programs and overclocking tools play MUCH nicer with these drivers than the proprietary Diamond drivers - however I'm now having issues completing 3DMark99 (hard freeze).

Overall (so far) I like the Detonators better.

Best of luck!

Has anyone been able to run a TNT card with their UMC chipset yet?

After further testing I actually found that the proprietary Diamond drivers are compatible with 100% of the games/benchmarks I throw at it - whereas the Detonators were working when they wanted. These results only happened for Windows apps/games, as MS-DOS wasn't affected.

Did the TNT work in Win98SE using...
3DMark99max - Diamond, yes - Detonators, no; but yes once(EXTREMELY slow load times)
Baldur's Gate - Diamond, yes - Detonators, no
Rollercoaster Tycoon - Diamond, yes - Detonators, no
Unreal - Diamond, yes - Detonators, yes (although slower FPS)... the game is still unplayable regardless
RivaTuner - Diamond, no - Detonators, yes
Powerstrip - Diamond, no - Detonators, yes
TNTCLK - Diamond, no - Detonators, yes

Anyone else noticing problems with the Detonator drivers in Windows? I tried a few versions between 5.x and 8.x, all with the same results (8.x gave me the one workable, albeit slow, 3DMark99 run).

The tweaking apps love the Detonators; but if I can't run anything after tweaking, what's the point?

I'm not sure what to make of your results. 3DMark99max sometimes doen't finish on the 486's I've tested with it. It does sound like you have found some working combination though.

I have not been able to get back to this work yet; I found myself trying to do too many things at once. Spare time has been re-dedicated to the Ultimate 686 Benchmark Comparison. I have just a few CPUs left for data collection.

@numeriK
What is the latest version of the NVIDIA drivers which work with your Diamond RIVA TNT in Win98SE and the UMC 486 motherboard?

I tried all the NVIDIA provided and Creative provided drivers on my SiS 486 board and the Creative TNT, but neither would work. I also tried the Diamond drivers you mentioned. Either Windows is overly confused with all this driver tinkering, or the TNT is possibly not SiS compatible. Thinking my Creative card was defective, I tried it with an AMD Athlon board in Win98SE and it worked fine with the Creative v44 drivers.

The next step is to try it on a UMC motherboard with 1) Creative drivers, 2) NVIDIA drivers.

The latest version I tried is 8.05, the earliest I tried is 5.22. It isn't stable though, IMO, not even enough to run some benchmarks. However, the driver properties themselves are fantastic.

I don't have a SiS board to test on, so I can't comment on that.

One thing I did notice, after dusting off my 8433-UUD, the system will not post any image with the TNT card, however it will with my older PCI Matrox Millenium card. Both the 8433-UUD and M919 are UMC-based; so why one works with the TNT and not the other is beyond me at this point.

for a 486 rig, i would really recommend the earliest 1.xx~3.xx drivers. the newer driver, the more likely it would use 586 and mmx instructions.

I was able to get the Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT card working on my Biostar MB8433-UUD, UMC-based motherboard. I tried 9 sets of drivers from NVIDIA and Creative, but only the one dated 8-24-1998 seems to work. For all other driver revisions, I get Windows Protection error at boot or the system reboots when booting into Windows.

I have attached the working Creative TNT 486 drivers for anyone who runs into this problem. If your Dallas RTC is bad, I think the Biostar doesn't post.

The Creative ensuite even comes with a memory overclocking feature as part of the driver.

I have a tri-boot Win98/NT4/W2K system, so I tried the NT4 drivers from Creative, although the date is much later than 1998. After installing them, I get a BSOD with "page fault in nonpaged area".

I then tried to boot into W2K and install the Windows-default drivers. After installing the drivers, I get a BSOD with "KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED"

I may now need to go on a hunt for older NT4 drivers and W2K drivers. I did see some from '99 and '00 but those years didn't work for Win98SE, so it is likely that they struck 486 code out of all drivers after a certain date. The earliest NVIDIA released drivers I can find are from 1-27-99, which didn't work in Win98SE.

To what extent are the Creative drivers hacked versions of the NVIDIA releases?

@numerik
Does your Diamond card's drivers work in NT4 and W2K? I am surprised you could even boot with the NVIDIA drivers. It sounds like your graphics card is supperior to the Creative one in that it would even run with NVIDIA drivers from 1999. This tells me that NVIDIA might not have required Pentium code at this time.

noshutdown wrote:

for a 486 rig, i would really recommend the earliest 1.xx~3.xx drivers. the newer driver, the more likely it would use 586 and mmx instructions.

I tried what I beleive was detonator v1.09. It still has a 1999 date. After that didn't work, I did not bother with v3.x. Do you have detonator drivers with a release date in 1998?

I haven't tried drivers older than the 5.22's, so I'll try to give those a shot this week sometime.

I don't have any WinNT or 2k distributions installed, and didn't plan to as this box is just going to be a retro gaming rig (that I obviously want to test the limits of first 😁 )

I can sift through my install discs and get 2k installed at some point (I'm not even sure I have NT!)... been a long time!

@numeriK
Are you able to run Quake 2 using the Default OpenGL setting (in Win98SE)? I get illegal operation, but software mode works.

I tried various versions of the NV OpenGL system file in Win98SE, but could not get Quake II running in OpenGL mode. I tried v4.11, 4.12, 4.13, 4.14. One of these versions worked, but it ran 100x slower than software mode.

For anyone else looking to get OpenGL working on a UMC 486 with Quake II, you can use a Matrox Millennium G200 and driver version 5.06 in Windows NT 4.0. The fps of Quake II in OpenGL mode is almost double that of software mode. Unfortunately, I could not get OpenGL working with the G200 in Win98.

I also tried 11 different drivers to get the Creative TNT card working in NT4, but I kept getting BSOD on nv4_mini.sys. I'm closing the chapter on the TNT and the UMC 486. In conclusion, the Creative TNT will work in Win98, but only with Direct3D. The Creative TNT will not work in NT4 or W2K. The G200 works in all 3 OS's with D3D and OpenGL in NT4. I did not try more than the Windows-default G200 driver, but perhaps OpenGL could be used with some Matrox supplied drivers.

I would be very intersted if the Diamond version of the TNT worked in NT4, W2K, and with Win98 OpenGL.

for me the best os to run on a pci 486 rig is win95(osr2), and why not try a voodoo or riva128 or rendition? a tnt may indeed be so new that its driver gets too complicated too run a 486 rig.

noshutdown wrote:

for me the best os to run on a pci 486 rig is win95(osr2), and why not try a voodoo or riva128 or rendition? a tnt may indeed be so new that its driver gets too complicated too run a 486 rig.

I like to setup a system which can test multiple options. I like the tri-boot setup with Win98/NT4/W2K because I can use the default NT boot loader. I suppose I could use a third party boot loader and get Win95 added.

A Riva128 might work, but it is not any better than a Matrox G200. The goal is the setup a fully (over-) maximised 486 system. The Voodoo 1/2 should work, but I cannot give up a PCI slot for 2 graphic cards. I will eventually setup a Voodoo3 in a SiS 486 running a Cyrix 5x86-133/4x, but for UMC, I think I'm sticking with the G200.

Are there any other PCI graphic cards which will work in a 486 with OpenGL in Quake 2?

feipoa wrote:

I like to setup a system which can test multiple options. I like the tri-boot setup with Win98/NT4/W2K because I can use the default NT boot loader. I suppose I could use a third party boot loader and get Win95 added.
A Riva128 might work, but it is not any better than a Matrox G200. The goal is the setup a fully (over-) maximised 486 system. The Voodoo 1/2 should work, but I cannot give up a PCI slot for 2 graphic cards. I will eventually setup a Voodoo3 in a SiS 486 running a Cyrix 5x86-133/4x, but for UMC, I think I'm sticking with the G200.
Are there any other PCI graphic cards which will work in a 486 with OpenGL in Quake 2?

i would only use win95osr2+winnt4 if i were you.
and while riva128 is not faster than g200, its driver stability and 3d compatibility seems far better than the g200 for me(can't guarantee the same on a 486 but you can give a shot). the rendition is slow but that shouldn't make any difference on a 486, it also has good compatibility and is very retro aswell.

feipoa wrote:

I like to setup a system which can test multiple options. I like the tri-boot setup with Win98/NT4/W2K because I can use the de […]
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noshutdown wrote:

for me the best os to run on a pci 486 rig is win95(osr2), and why not try a voodoo or riva128 or rendition? a tnt may indeed be so new that its driver gets too complicated too run a 486 rig.

I like to setup a system which can test multiple options. I like the tri-boot setup with Win98/NT4/W2K because I can use the default NT boot loader. I suppose I could use a third party boot loader and get Win95 added.

A Riva128 might work, but it is not any better than a Matrox G200. The goal is the setup a fully (over-) maximised 486 system. The Voodoo 1/2 should work, but I cannot give up a PCI slot for 2 graphic cards. I will eventually setup a Voodoo3 in a SiS 486 running a Cyrix 5x86-133/4x, but for UMC, I think I'm sticking with the G200.

Are there any other PCI graphic cards which will work in a 486 with OpenGL in Quake 2?

You can count on a V3 pci working but I strongly suggest a sgram version. Keep an eye on that one mosfet near the bracket as it gets hot but beyond that it is a solid card and those Amiga users often go for that one card as it is. The other uses that lame 7ns sdram and looks terrible but should still work.

nforce4max wrote:

I strongly suggest a sgram version.... uses that lame 7ns sdram and looks terrible but should still work.

I beleive my Voodoo3 3000 PCI has SDRAM as it has 8 memory chips as opposed to 4. What is wrong with the SDRAM version? What looks terrible? The image quality?