VOGONS


First post, by Viserion

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Been fidling with my PIII - 1400MHz Tulatin system, and have come across a problem I have never encountered before.

It consists of a:

PIII 1400MHz Tulatin
Soltek 65KV2 motherboard
512mb ram
Geforce 4 4200 TI
D-Link 528 network card (Not connected to anything at the moment)
2x Voodoo2 SLI
Promise Sata 150 TX4 card with a 120GB SSD
AWE64 Gold soundcard

There is a Pci Multimedia audio device that I haven't installed any drivers as I can't remember what it is.
Have to open it and look, but for now not bothered, as it is a bit cumbersome to do.

The problem I have is that Direct3D is not working.
Mostly tried with SW: Jedi Knight and I got an error that there is not enough graphics ram.
After upgrading from version 6 to 7 and finally to 8.1 the problems are a bit different, but will come back to that later.

I started running dxdiag, and direct3d would always fail, but DirectDraw would pass without issues.
I then noticed that Approx memory is only 2mb ?

Nvidia drivers(81.98) says 128mb, so what on earth is going on.

When upgrading to DirectX 7 it changed to 2048mb, but still would not work.
This too is an odd value.
However my 2 Voodoo2 cards now worked in Direct 3d(FastVoodoo2 4.6), but would really like the 4200 card to work as well.

I then upgraded to 8.1. and I'm back to 2mb ram on the 4200 in dxdiag.
Another oddity is that the Voodoo cards only have 16mb ram.
As far as I remember these are the 12mb ram versions of the card. Will need to confirm that.

Any idea for a solution.

Reply 2 of 15, by Horun

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The readme and .inf for Windows 9x/ME, ForceWare Release 80, Version: 81.98
both list: "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200" and "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X" so the driver should work but think it is really designed for DX9, from Nvidia.com: Microsoft DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0 support . Have you tried DX9c ?
You can get the original Win98/98se 2004 version here: https://www.3dfxarchive.com/directx.htm

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 15, by Repo Man11

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I would try an earlier driver. The 29.42 is the first one that lists the Ti4200, so I would start there. https://www.philscomputerlab.com/nvidia-9x-gr … cs-drivers.html

"I'd rather be rich than stupid" - Jack Handey

Reply 4 of 15, by Viserion

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I did upgrade Win98 with everything some time ago, with a package I found online.
There I did update to DX9c with the same problem.
I did have the same problem, but did not notice if there was only 2mb ram or not.
This is why I reinstalled the OS.

I did start with an older driver, can't recall which one.

I will look into it tomorrow, as it is very late, and I need to go to bed.

Reply 5 of 15, by swaaye

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Yeah try older drivers.

Another tip - with Win9X you might want to stick to DirectX 7 or older. Once you go beyond that you can run into problems with crashing/BSODs with games, especially if you are using VXD-based sound drivers. You really only need newer DirectX if the game needs it. You can change to an older version by getting "DirectX Buster" to uninstall the current DX.

Reply 6 of 15, by The Serpent Rider

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The 29.42 is the first one that lists the Ti4200

You can use any old driver with strings that mention GeForce 4 Ti. Correct model is irrelevant.

Another tip - with Win9X you might want to stick to DirectX 7 or older

You can't. Nvidia drivers for GeForce 4 or newer have problems with DirectX versions lower than 7.0a.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 7 of 15, by Repo Man11

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-08-03, 00:56:
You can use any old driver with strings that mention GeForce 4 Ti. Correct model is irrelevant. […]
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The 29.42 is the first one that lists the Ti4200

You can use any old driver with strings that mention GeForce 4 Ti. Correct model is irrelevant.

Another tip - with Win9X you might want to stick to DirectX 7 or older

You can't. Nvidia drivers for GeForce 4 or newer have problems with DirectX versions lower than 7.0a.

Okay, in that case he can also try the 28.32.

"I'd rather be rich than stupid" - Jack Handey

Reply 8 of 15, by Horun

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If it were me I would pull the Voodoo's and get the main GF4200 card working proper first. Trying some later version drivers that are well documented to be stable and use the "suggested" DirectX version they were designed for. The 4200 could have problems and is why things are screwy 🤣. Side note: recently found an issue with a 6200, SMT caps started going bad giving me all sorts of problems that one would not think were cap related but they were. Just a thought...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 9 of 15, by Kumix

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As Horun says, you have to install only the 4200 Ti card first. With for example the 41.09 drivers and directx 8.1
Verify that everything works well. sound is also important. Run a benchmark.
Then shut down the PC and install a single Voodoo 2 card. When the system recognizes it and run well, turn off the PC again and install the second one in SLi.

Reply 10 of 15, by Viserion

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I tried directX 9 from 2004, and now the Geforce card has 2079mb ram according to dxdiag.
It fails all tests from Direct3D 7,8 and 9.

I tried to uninstall the drivers using Add/Remove programs, but get an error saying program has preformed an illegal operation, and will be shut down.

Looks like I need to reinstall Win98 yet again.

I will then remove the voodoo2 cards, and try older drivers first, as others have suggested.

Reply 11 of 15, by NyLan

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Hope you'll find a solution, I will receive a FX5500 soon, I expect to have same kind of issues 😀

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Reply 13 of 15, by swaaye

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-08-03, 00:56:

Another tip - with Win9X you might want to stick to DirectX 7 or older

You can't. Nvidia drivers for GeForce 4 or newer have problems with DirectX versions lower than 7.0a.

Yeah I install 7.0a. I should have been more specific. That will definitely work for a GF4. I have not found anything it doesn't work with.

I haven't played much with anything below 7.0a in ages but should sometime. 7.1 and later is when you can start to get kernel/DirectX crashes with VXD sound drivers.

Reply 14 of 15, by Viserion

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I got it to work.

I installed Win98Se again, and installed first DX7, and then DX8.1.
Used drivers 40.71 as this was the earliest I didn't get an error when installing(earlier versions complained there was no Nvidia chip detected).

I have not installed the Voodoos back in again, as indeed one of them was a 8mb version.
Have to think on it, as these cards are rather expensive now.