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PCIe devices on Windows 98 SE

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First post, by Kamerat

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Here is a little list of PCIe devices that that I've tested successfully on Windows 98 SE, no special PCIe driver used. I've included an updated NVAML.INF file for the NVIDIA cards with the 81.98 driver for autodetecting.

Testrig:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ 2,85GHz
RAM: DC 2x 512MB ECC @ 475MHz 5-5-5 2T
MB: ASRock 939Dual-SATA2

Graphic cards:

ATI Radeon X800 XT (R423) 256MB 256bit GDDR3
Device ID: 5d57
Driver: 6.2 (4.15.1.9165)
Driver autodetects: YES
3DMark 2001: 25188

ATI Radeon X800 XL (R430) 256MB 256bit GDDR3
Device ID: 554d
Driver: 6.2 (4.15.1.9165)
Driver autodetects: YES
3DMark 2001: 24351

NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM) (NV44) 256MB 64bit DDR2
Device ID: 0161
Driver: 81.98 (4.14.10.8198)
Driver autodetects: NO
3DMark 2001: 7720
3DMark 2001: 10216 505MHz/715MHz

NVIDIA GeForce 6200SE TurboCache(TM) (NV44) 64MB 32bit DDR
Device ID: 0162
Driver: 81.98 (4.14.10.8198)
Driver autodetects: NO
3DMark 2001: 4820

NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (NV43) 256MB 128bit DDR3
Device ID: 0140
Driver: 81.98 (4.14.10.8198)
Driver autodetects: NO
3DMark 2001: 21064

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS (NV42) 256MB 256bit GDDR3
Device ID: 00c0
Driver: 81.98 (4.14.10.8198)
Driver autodetects: NO
3DMark 2001: 24719

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX (NV47/G70) 256MB 256bit GDDR3
Device ID: 0091
Driver: 81.98 (4.14.10.8198)
Driver autodetects: NO
3DMark 2001: 28333
3DMark 2001: 29461 490MHz/1380MHz

Other devices:

JMicron JMB36X (SATAII controller)
Vendor ID: 197B
Device ID: 2360
Driver: 0.92
Comment: Using this for boot/Windows hard drive.

Attachments

  • Filename
    NVAML.zip
    File size
    6.2 KiB
    Downloads
    1200 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
Last edited by Kamerat on 2015-08-07, 14:06. Edited 1 time in total.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 1 of 107, by NJRoadfan

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Hmm, I wasn't able to get the X800XT drivers working under 98SE. OF course the system was running the very unsupported Intel 965G. The devices were found, just the driver refused to load (locked up on boot).

Reply 2 of 107, by Kamerat

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The ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 are using the ULi M1695 NB and ULi M1567 SB, so I can't talk for everybody. I will test some Intel chipsets soon. Attached a picture of the X800 XT run.

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  • 3dmark_25188.png
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DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 3 of 107, by Kamerat

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NJRoadfan wrote:

Hmm, I wasn't able to get the X800XT drivers working under 98SE. OF course the system was running the very unsupported Intel 965G. The devices were found, just the driver refused to load (locked up on boot).

I'm now successfully running a Radeon X800 XT PCIe on an Asus P5B Deluxe (Intel P965). 3DMark 2001 is about 29k with a C2D E6600 and 512MB DDR2 SC @ 266.7MHz.
I first tried the onboard JMicron JMB363 PCIe SATA/PATA controller. Both Windows and the driver installs, but the hard drive keeps running in MS-DOS compatibility mode.
Switched over to a ICH8R SATA port and now it's running great with the standard Windows driver (47.1MB/s avrage with an old 80GB SATA drive).

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 5 of 107, by Kamerat

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You're right, Catalyst 6.2 is the last one. Catalyst 6.2 for Windows 2000/XP supports the X1xxx series up to the X1900, wonder if there's some hidden support in the 98SE/ME driver. 😜

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 6 of 107, by Kamerat

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I've been testing some NVIDIA cards on the Asus P5B Deluxe (Intel P965) and found out that running 2GB of RAM and reducing it to 512MB in SYSTEM.INI caused a lot of problems (had no problem with this on ATI cards). Does NVIDIA AGP cards act the same doing this?

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 7 of 107, by sliderider

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I'm wondering how you're getting anything in a PCIe slot to work with Windows 98SE. PCIe wasn't released until 2004, so Windows 98SE had already been off the market a long time by then and Microsoft wouldn't have gone back and patched in support for it. It would have been too much work for a dead operating system, so it should be an unsupported technology. They would have made you upgrade to 2k/XP. Drivers should have nothing to do with it if the technology is unsupported.

Reply 8 of 107, by Kamerat

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I guess it's because PCIe are software compatible with PCI even they differs a lot in the mecanical and electrical part. The Catalyst 6.2 driver for Windows 98 SE/ME actually lists PCIe variants of the X300/X550/X600/X700/X800/X850 cards (they have different PCI ID than their AGP brothers).

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 9 of 107, by Marquzz

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Would be nice to see if a 7900GTX works as well, it should be able to work in theory. Then it would be the fastest 98 card, unless someone got X1950XTX to work 😀

Reply 10 of 107, by kithylin

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The problem with all of this is if you do not have a correct driver for the chipset to support pcie mode, you'll never get full screen 3D games to run on anything pcie in win98se. You can hack the video drivers all day long but without chipset drivers, nothing will ever run. So, it's pointless.

All of that, and the entire reason for anyone to run Win98se today is -compatibility-, so the old software and old games -work at all-. Using modified hacked drivers to get something not designed to be run in the first place working is for sure going to lead to serious compatibility issues. Just because "It Works" doesn't mean it actually will run anything or old games / old software correctly.

In general, anyone running Win98se should stick to older hardware that was designed for it if they want anything to work correctly.

Reply 11 of 107, by alexanrs

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kithylin wrote:

The problem with all of this is if you do not have a correct driver for the chipset to support pcie mode, you'll never get full screen 3D games to run on anything pcie in win98se. You can hack the video drivers all day long but without chipset drivers, nothing will ever run. So, it's pointless.

What? Why would this even happen? PCIe cards aren't really at home in Windows 98, but if the driver supports that card nothing prevents it from working. PCIe features like TurboCache are completly non-functional, but 3D acceleration should work.

Reply 12 of 107, by sliderider

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Marquzz wrote:

Would be nice to see if a 7900GTX works as well, it should be able to work in theory. Then it would be the fastest 98 card, unless someone got X1950XTX to work 😀

I don't see how that or the X1950 would work at all under Windows 98 since the last Windows 98 drivers were for the GeForce 6 and Radeon x850.

Reply 13 of 107, by alexanrs

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The GeForce 7000 cards are too similar to the 6000 family, to the point many of them can be made to work in Windows 9x using a modded driver (I believe what it does is to add 7000 cards' device ID to the INF files)

Reply 14 of 107, by retrofanatic

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I struggled with getting pci e cards to work right in win98 for a long time now while trying to build the ultimate win98 rig. I'm impressed that many have succeeded to get them to work with in file edits and such. I think its great but I still have not seen anything that works with a wide range of games and programs. As mentioned by some others compatibility is the most important thing for me when using win98 but it's nice to see all of this progress. I used to search msfn frequently hoping that someone over there figured it out but I haven't seen anything full proof yet.

Reply 15 of 107, by tgod

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Marquzz wrote:

Would be nice to see if a 7900GTX works as well, it should be able to work in theory. Then it would be the fastest 98 card, unless someone got X1950XTX to work 😀

I can confirm my 7800gs works with the modded drivers. It's the AGP version though.

Reply 16 of 107, by Kamerat

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Got the ATI Mobility Radeon X700 PCIe working with an external monitor on an Asus A6000 series laptop (Pentium M 740, 512MB DDR2) using modified drivers scoring 15262 in 3DMark2001.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 17 of 107, by kithylin

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tgod wrote:
Marquzz wrote:

Would be nice to see if a 7900GTX works as well, it should be able to work in theory. Then it would be the fastest 98 card, unless someone got X1950XTX to work 😀

I can confirm my 7800gs works with the modded drivers. It's the AGP version though.

Yes.. but by "Works" do you mean you have actually tried using it in multiple older games, and it actually runs them without crashing? Because just "works" and getting in to windows desktop is a big different story than actually working in games.

And not just 3dmark.. real games, and lots of em. That's the big problem, most people have claimed they can get these cards working but then when trying to play various older games, they crash to desktop or cause blue screens.

Reply 18 of 107, by dr.zeissler

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http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/101492-what-i … -e-video-cards/
What's that "UnofficialDriver) does it work or does it have (lots of) issues?
GeForce 7 --- AGP & PCIe (Requires UnOfficial Driver)
GeForce 8 --- AGP & PCIe (Requires UnOfficial Driver)

Currently I am thinking about building a very late Win98se machine. The machine will be a E620 FSC Desktop.
I'll downgrade the 2,8Ghz Celeron to the Celeron 420 because of the only 45Watt TDP.

It has onboard G915 but I think about using a PCIe X16 Card from either ATI or NVIDIA.

Is there a 6200 PCIe without TC, which means a same Card like my 6200 256MB DDR? for PCIe X16 passiv ?

***EDIT
I am checking out some further informations and now I am totally confused. There are several PCIe passiv
cooled 6200 versions out there. SE/LE/TC so what is the best card? In my other system I use a 6200
256MB DDR2 AGP card and performance is nice for my purpose. How about these PCIe Models, are they all slower?

Doc

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 19 of 107, by Reputator

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This is a subject that interests me, so it's funny to see someone that's already tried it on the same motherboard I have two years ago. I have no experience modifying drivers, but that could be an interesting wrinkle in this exercise. I just haven't figured out what, at this point, is something new I can add to the topic.

dr.zeissler wrote:
***EDIT I am checking out some further informations and now I am totally confused. There are several PCIe passiv cooled 6200 ver […]
Show full quote

***EDIT
I am checking out some further informations and now I am totally confused. There are several PCIe passiv
cooled 6200 versions out there. SE/LE/TC so what is the best card? In my other system I use a 6200
256MB DDR2 AGP card and performance is nice for my purpose. How about these PCIe Models, are they all slower?

Doc

SE or LE variants might have a 64-bit memory interface. Best to avoid those.

There are plain ol' 6200s, sans the suffix, which are decent little performers under the right workload. Shouldn't be any slower than your AGP model, and actually considering most AGP 6200s out in the wild are based on NV44A, and are thus limited to a 64-bit memory interface, you might find a PCIe variant that's faster.

https://www.youtube.com/c/PixelPipes
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