Wait, Win98 supports 32Bit colours ? 😳

I thought 24Bits were the max it can do (no alpha channel).

It doesn't even have a 24-bit color option.

Here's the list:

16 Colors
256 Colors
High Color (16-bit)
True Color (32-bit)

Video driver is dated 12-10-2005

When I try to uninstall the driver using Add/Remove Programs, I get a Nvudisp dialog box that says it caused an invalid page fault in module NVUDISP.EXE

I also tried enabling Video BIOS shadowing since this only happened after I moved my build from the Company to this Asus motherboard. I figured it has to do with the motherboard or a BIOS setting.

http://imgur.com/a/ImSuu

EDIT: Just turned off Hardware Acceleration in the performance tab and no error. Of course moving windows around is now jerky. Moving the slider one step up (basic acceleration) fixes that, and also seem to keep it from crashing in Device Manager.

Still a weird problem to have. I'm pretty sure it may crash elsewhere if I gave it a chance, but for now I know I can recreate the problem reliably in Device Manager.

Run with only the video card and see if you are having PCI compatibility problems. Maybe run with only one RAM stick as well. It sounds like the system is unstable in some way and you need to break it down to figure out what's happening.

Oh and 24-bit color is an option you see with some video cards. 32-bit color is essentially the same, but more efficient for processing.

swaaye wrote:

Run with only the video card and see if you are having PCI compatibility problems. Maybe run with only one RAM stick as well.

Oh and 24-bit color is an option you see with some video cards. 32-bit color is essentially the same, but more efficient in operation for processing.

Yep - I tried it with just the video card only (removed all other boards). I only have the sound card and the NIC. I narrowed it down to the video card or the motherboard (or BIOS settings?).

I tested the RAM overnight and it passed (MEMTEST). I haven't tried reducing the number of sticks of memory. 128 MB sticks are all I have but for troubleshooting I can just have 1 stick to test.

It just occurred to me while driving that with GeForce cards on 440BX, you should not use drivers newer than 56.64 or you get instability. I suggest you use 45.23 because they have good game compatibility.

And yea the 81.98 drivers have a broken installer. You can try Driver Cleaner Professional to remove them.

swaaye wrote:

It just occurred to me while driving that with GeForce cards on 440BX, you should not use drivers newer than 56.64 or you get instability. I suggest you use 45.23 because they have good game compatibility.

And yea the 81.98 drivers have a broken installer. You can try Driver Cleaner Professional to remove them.

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to give that a go and report back.

Didn't know there was a driver cleaner for windows 98 😀 Any other driver cleaners for 98?

I found that it's very easy to install older drivers, you just installed them. You might get messages telling you existing files are newer, so here you got to overwrite them with the old ones.

In general a Slot 1 440BX chipset board is as stable as it gets.

Also when you said you moved from company to this Asus, did you swap motherboards without re-installing Windows? I didn't get that bit.

Success! It was the 45.23 driver worked! Actual driver is dated 2003, and I actually got it from Phil's site here:
http://www.philscomputerlab.com/nvidia-9x-dri … er-archive.html

Thanks for keeping it alive. 😀 nVidia's site doesn't seem to have it, and other sites were...questionable.

I couldn't uninstall the old Forceware still. If someone know where I can download a driver sweeper for Win98, please link it. I appreciate the help!

GuyTechie wrote:

nVidia's site doesn't seem to have it

Did you even try? 😁 http://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_archive.html

Anyway, does that mean GF 6 series aren't a good option for 440BX builds? Because this version doesn't support anything newer than GF FX 5900 or Quadro FX 3000.

See if the links actually work for you 😀

I never had much luck with the NV driver archives. I started my own, but of course got side tracked 🤣. Got to get back into it again...

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

See if the links actually work for you 😀

I have just downloaded the .exe from there. No need to worry about virus/malware this way.

The .aspx ("License" eula I guess?) popup doesn't work in opera here, but you can just copy paste the link to get the direct address (and it works).

archsan wrote:

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

See if the links actually work for you 😀

I have just downloaded the .exe from there. No need to worry about virus/malware this way.

The .aspx ("License" eula I guess?) popup doesn't work in opera here, but you can just copy paste the link to get the direct address (and it works).

They don't work for me.

Really? By "direct address" I mean this (strip out the javascript line):
http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/45.23/45.2 … n9x_english.exe

archsan wrote:

Really? By "direct address" I mean this (strip out the javascript line):
http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/45.23/45.2 … n9x_english.exe

That's what I'm telling you. That direct link to the EXE file just hangs there until I get a time out.

^^

Yup I also always had that issue. I got mine from Guru3D archive. I also hunted down the release notes and put them up next to the driver. I find this invaluable when I search for a suitable driver. Run a page search on Splinter Cell for example you get a good idea of the bugs and when they got fixed.

They also don't go far enough back for my liking.

EDIT: Bugger I only did this for Windows XP drivers. Got to start over I think 😁

archsan wrote:

Anyway, does that mean GF 6 series aren't a good option for 440BX builds? Because this version doesn't support anything newer than GF FX 5900 or Quadro FX 3000.

I remember that driver 56.64 worked for me with 440BX. It's just that anything newer was crashy. Though once you go beyond 45.23, some older games from 2000-2001 start having problems.

The way I see it, there are a lot of Nvidia cards that work under Windows 98, but, in terms of time-line, the more you move away from the year 1999 / 2000, the more issues you could encounter.

Incoming works up to TNT2, after that Nvidia changed something and the HUD elements are corrupt. Dege from the dgVoodoo2 project mentioned Nvidia colour keying, they changed it at some point. In Shogo you get screen flashing with V-Sync on newer cards, TNT2 works fine.

Most games will likely run fine, but the newer your card and drivers, the more likely you are going to run into issues.

GeForce3 and higher, at least to me, is DX8 and Windows XP land. But that's just me.

The latest card I'm happy to recommend for Windows 98 is the GeForce2. You can use pretty old drivers, 5.32 from June 2000 for example with a GeForce2 GTS. The TNT cards are still most compatible, but the GeForce2 should run most games just fine.

GuyTechie wrote:

That's what I'm telling you. That direct link to the EXE file just hangs there until I get a time out.

OK, sorry. I tried downloading on a couple machines and they all worked so maybe AV/firewall/ISP issue or I don't know what on your connection... Come to think of it, maybe they should provide the files compressed as zip to avoid these problems.

Hmm, well the direct address is indeed working.

Oh now I see what you did there. A simple workaround.

Just copy the download link (right click copy). It should like this:

www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_66.94_accep ... exe[/color]');

Then just copy the direct URL as highlighted into your browser. Then it works 😀

Looks like their scripts are a bit broken...