Install with more 512 MB should run fine, if you skip some checks, problem is first boot, for it you need limit max ram through himemX or system.ini .. you also need patch io.sys for more 512MB if you want to get into safe mode.

ruthan wrote on 2021-09-21, 02:07:

Install with more 512 MB should run fine, if you skip some checks, problem is first boot, for it you need limit max ram through himemX or system.ini .. you also need patch io.sys for more 512MB if you want to get into safe mode.

I remember that in Safe Mode Win98 uses the SYSTEM.CB file instead of SYSTEM.INI, so that would be the place to put parameters you want to use exclusively in Safe Mode.

Also, you don't have to use the default Safe Mode. You can simply make your own boot configuration (to load your own drivers and set your own memory limits) and start Safe Mode with "WIN /D:M".

Though generally speaking, running Win98 in Safe Mode with too much memory can be problematic if some basic drivers are not designed to be aware of such.

Does Windows ME have the same memory issue as Windows 98 with more than 512MB of memory?

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-09-23, 04:23:

Does Windows ME have the same memory issue as Windows 98 with more than 512MB of memory?

I think 98 and ME don't differ too much.

Just that it won't be as trivial as with Win98 to control the amount of memory available to it, as you'll need to patch WinME to enable Real Mode DOS to be able to load your own TSRs.

If my memory serves, WinME can handle a bit more memory 1.7 GB, so something like it, but there is not Dos, so its inferior os.

Otherwise i found some install hints from rLoew himself:
1. Partition and format harddie with at least one FAT32 target main Partition.
2. If you are using Sata storage, setup it in Bios to IDE mode.
3. Boot Win98 installer - some enhanced installed could boot directly from CD, otherwise you need to setup Win98 boot floppy and start from it.. and after start install.
4.start from cd Setup /p i
5. Do not partition or Format from CD.
5. Run installer until first crash.
6.Press reset.
7.Select command probpt only from boot menu.
8. Run Patchmem and PtchSata // Those rLoew now free utilities.
9. Add line trun Split8MB program to your autoexec.bat // Again rLoew utility
10. Copy Sata.inf file to Windows\inf folder
11. If you get a BSOD relationg to Disk drivers,run PurgeHDC and reboot. // Again rLoew utility

Of course you can make it without rLoews utilities, but those are good for much faster Sata HDD speed and they handle too much memory issues, SPLIT8MB can help with some boot issues depends on used hardware.
For handle only too much memory problem you need - just HimemX insted Himem.sys in config.sys and line like this:
DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\HIMEMX.EXE /MAX=1048576 /NUMHANDLES=64 /METHOD:FAST /VERBOSE
- This would limit memory to ~ 1GB and value is proven.. with rLoew patches you can have a bit more..
and you probably need also edit system.ini:
[vcache]
MaxFileCache=261120
MinFileCache=32768
ChunkSize=4096

[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=40000

Last save value is 1159 of RAM at least for someone:
MaxPhysPage=488FFh // and i found that /max parameter in himemX is maybe not needed.. im using:
DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\HIMEMX.EXE /MAX=1148576 /NUMHANDLES=64 /METHOD:FAST /VERBOSE

HimemX /max still make sense to use with pure Dos boot branch, depends on game.. anything more than 32/64 could be problem.

To make IO.sys working => safe mode working with more than 512 MB you need to patch (attached) it too from Dos.. Or download patched io.sys and rewrite it.

In other my thread is lots of info about Dos with sound on fast as possible machines:
X58/i865/V880 - Yamaha7x4/AurealV1/2 pure Dos7.1- compatibility list/research/ultim. drivers configs, WIP- gurus needed

You can also get the R.Loew patch for more than 512MB RAM.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator% … olph+R.+Loew%22

Big thanks @ruthan and @cyclone3d!
Your hints helped me a lot getting it right!

Things went partly well:
Windows 98 installed fine, after I did the following:
-instead of the German version which I bought back then, this time I used the MSDN 2001 Windows 98 SE version, as the rloew ram patch complained about "unknown" windows version
-by adding some lines to MSBATCH.INF in the WIN98 directory, the installer patched the SYSTEM.INI, SYSTEM.CB and MSDOS.SYS files according to my wishes, so there was no need to manually touch these files. This is very handy, as in case of reinstalls these edits do not need to be repeated.
-with BootGUI=0 it was easy to apply the Loew's RAM and SATA patches without firstboot hang/crash before continuing install by entering "win"

Windows 98 appears to run fine with 4GB RAM, in normal mode as well as in safe mode, with normal HIMEM.SYS and unpatched IO.SYS.
It is running blazing fast on that i5 Haswell, at least compared to the Athlon 64 X2 on an Asrock 939Dual-VSTA.

But: 😿
Using the awesome guide @elianda wrote, I then tried to configure the sound card.
CTCM finds the sound card, but DIAGNOSE complains, and in Windows the sound card has a yellow exclamation mark 🙁
Tomorrow I'll try playing with different IRQ/DMA settings, as, for example, three different PCI devices share IRQ 5, one of them the IT8892 bridge...

retardware wrote on 2021-09-28, 04:25:

But: :crying_cat_face: Using the awesome guide @elianda wrote, I then tried to configure the sound card. CTCM finds the sound ca […]
Show full quote

But: 😿
Using the awesome guide @elianda wrote, I then tried to configure the sound card.
CTCM finds the sound card, but DIAGNOSE complains, and in Windows the sound card has a yellow exclamation mark 🙁
Tomorrow I'll try playing with different IRQ/DMA settings, as, for example, three different PCI devices share IRQ 5, one of them the IT8892 bridge...

Which step did DIAGNOSE complain? I suspect it's DMA as PCI-ISA bridges can't do DMA on chipsets past ICH6. That will certainly fail and you'll only be able to use the FM synth. Windows will give you a yellow exclamation mark since it also can't properly initialize the card.

IT8892/IT8893E are PCIe-PCI bridges. The IT8888 is the real deal (PCI-ISA bridge). As CPUs/chipsets nowadays don't expose native PCI bus anymore, one would need a PCIe-PCI bridge to make usable PCI slots, as well as connecting the IT8888 PCI-ISA bridge for ISA slots.

@LSS10999
I do not know, to be honest, what internal check DIAGNOSE failed.
It said it could not verify the I/O address. Maybe it tried to do DMA and this failed?

Regarding the IT8892/3 and the IT8888, I did some more research and from what I read in the technical details (manuals, whitepapers) of some dedicated industrial mobo makers (Advansys, Kontron) it is necessary/mandatory to set up the positively-decoded addresses/ranges in these chips to set them up for actual working ISA DMA.
The user must set this up in their BIOSes, these have according menus for that.
This also is consistent with what I read in the IT8888 data sheet register descriptions.

However, the DFI BIOS lacks any such settings.
So I assume that DFI's intention was that this setup has to be done by the user, for example by writing some small setup program that sets the chips registers as needed by the ISA hardware present. Or, maybe they expect(ed) their customers to hire their engineering staff to do this?

Thus I have changed my project path a bit. Right now I am working on trying to modify MACHINE.INF and MACHINE2.INF for proper setup of Windows 98 with the Series 8/CS 220 chipset, so that Windows installs with PCI bridge, so that PCI hardware gets detected correctly.

For this I have deactivated all of the mobo onboard hardware that can be deactivated, in favor of using a PCI-E Nvidia GeForce PCX 5750 (which I hope still works quite good on DOS graphics games), an Adaptec AUA-4000 (NEC USB 2.0 chips), an Intel EtherExpress 1000GT (one of the last Intel cards with Win98 drivers).
Regarding the sound card, I'll have to try a bit. The DFI board allegedly supports DDMA, and thus there is a small variety of some potentially usable sound cards to try out. I guess I'll start testing with the Aureal 8820 chip.

If I manage to do this, I'll use the board with this PCI DOS and Windows 98 compatible hardware, leaving the IT8888 programming for ISA soundblaster for a possible later project.
Even without ISA, I'll be satisfied then, as the mobo cost me 70 euros only, it is of good professional quality, not like consumer boards, and 4 PCI slots is rare on relatively modern mobos.

retardware wrote on 2021-09-30, 03:25:

@LSS10999 I do not know, to be honest, what internal check DIAGNOSE failed. It said it could not verify the I/O address. Maybe i […]
Show full quote

@LSS10999
I do not know, to be honest, what internal check DIAGNOSE failed.
It said it could not verify the I/O address. Maybe it tried to do DMA and this failed?

Regarding the IT8892/3 and the IT8888, I did some more research and from what I read in the technical details (manuals, whitepapers) of some dedicated industrial mobo makers (Advansys, Kontron) it is necessary/mandatory to set up the positively-decoded addresses/ranges in these chips to set them up for actual working ISA DMA.
The user must set this up in their BIOSes, these have according menus for that.
This also is consistent with what I read in the IT8888 data sheet register descriptions.

However, the DFI BIOS lacks any such settings.
So I assume that DFI's intention was that this setup has to be done by the user, for example by writing some small setup program that sets the chips registers as needed by the ISA hardware present. Or, maybe they expect(ed) their customers to hire their engineering staff to do this?

Thus I have changed my project path a bit. Right now I am working on trying to modify MACHINE.INF and MACHINE2.INF for proper setup of Windows 98 with the Series 8/CS 220 chipset, so that Windows installs with PCI bridge, so that PCI hardware gets detected correctly.

For this I have deactivated all of the mobo onboard hardware that can be deactivated, in favor of using a PCI-E Nvidia GeForce PCX 5750 (which I hope still works quite good on DOS graphics games), an Adaptec AUA-4000 (NEC USB 2.0 chips), an Intel EtherExpress 1000GT (one of the last Intel cards with Win98 drivers).
Regarding the sound card, I'll have to try a bit. The DFI board allegedly supports DDMA, and thus there is a small variety of some potentially usable sound cards to try out. I guess I'll start testing with the Aureal 8820 chip.

If I manage to do this, I'll use the board with this PCI DOS and Windows 98 compatible hardware, leaving the IT8888 programming for ISA soundblaster for a possible later project.
Even without ISA, I'll be satisfied then, as the mobo cost me 70 euros only, it is of good professional quality, not like consumer boards, and 4 PCI slots is rare on relatively modern mobos.

PCI-ISA bridge requires the chipset to support PC-PCI. This feature was removed since ICH6 so ISA DMA will surely fail.

However, unless the bridges are not programmed correctly, you should be able to pass I/O and IRQ configurations. At least that was the case when I tried my Sound Blaster cards on an IEI IMBA-G412ISA, which also uses IT8888 and also without working ISA DMA.

I don't think setting up positively-decoded addresses/ranges is relevant for ISA DMA on post-ICH6 chipsets but maybe it's needed for working I/O and IRQ, though in my own experience PCI-ISA bridges don't seem to have issues with I/O ranges, just DMA (which is required by sound cards).

PS: DDMA was never supported since the first ICH. VIA/SiS chipsets supported DDMA for a longer while. AU8820 can be fully usable under DOS with a post-ICH6 chipset as I once got it working on a board with ICH7, but I wasn't able to get AU8830 cards working with my current environments (that might be due to some other reasons). Still, I don't know if it's possible to use the Sound Blaster card's FM along with AU8820's DOS audio, as AU8820's own FM synth is inaccurate.

Hello,

I am a little bit off topic, but this is the only place where I noticed that this board is discussed for hobbyist purposes. I was wondering if a floppy disk controller will work with the DFI CS620-H310 board (or MS-98L9 V2.0)?
I am planning to buy this controller: DeluxeFloppy - 8-bit ISA Bootable HD Floppy + Serial
https://monotech.fwscart.com/DeluxeFloppy_-_8 … 4_19478745.aspx

Thank you!

wondow wrote on 2021-10-11, 18:37:

Hello, […]
Show full quote

Hello,

I am a little bit off topic, but this is the only place where I noticed that this board is discussed for hobbyist purposes. I was wondering if a floppy disk controller will work with the DFI CS620-H310 board (or MS-98L9 V2.0)?
I am planning to buy this controller: DeluxeFloppy - 8-bit ISA Bootable HD Floppy + Serial
https://monotech.fwscart.com/DeluxeFloppy_-_8 … 4_19478745.aspx

Thank you!

Floppy disk controllers need DMA. Usually for motherboards with onboard controller this is hardwired to DMA2.

The motherboards apparently don't seem to support ISA DMA so I don't think it'll work unless DMA2 is not mandatory for floppy disk controllers to work.

So I asked the seller of the DeluxeFloppy controller, and here is his answer:

"DeluxeFloppy houses a floppy controller connected to an ISA bus in the standard way every other floppy controller is. [...] My floppy controller is standard, so it uses DMA. You'd need a special custom controller that doesn't use DMA, and it won't work in DOS/BIOS and may need a custom OS driver I believe."

I also asked the question to DFI, the manufacturer of the modern motherboard with ISA slots, but no answers (not surprising...).

I tried to read a little bit about floppy controllers, and it seems that there is a non-dma mode:
"The FDC also supported an alternative method of data transfer without DMA, using only the data port. However, the non-DMA method was very rarely used.": https://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-floppy-contr … ller-evolution/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy-disk_controller
"The floppy typically uses ISA DMA (which is not the same thing as PCI BusMastering DMA) to do data transfers. The floppy is hardwired to DMA channel 2. The only other way of doing data transfers is called "PIO Mode" (see below). ": https://wiki.osdev.org/Floppy_Disk_Controller … B_Floppy_Drives

So... could it work after all?

Such a board is more than twice the price of a similar board without legacy ports I would buy it if I knew that a floppy controller would work... otherwise it would be an expensive experiment!

Isn't it possible to have some software handle the DMA transfers. The chipsets in their pdfs state they actually support dma transfers and it's not like the pcs are too slow to handle it since the dma used to run on an... 8MHz bus.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-10-17, 08:16:

Isn't it possible to have some software handle the DMA transfers. The chipsets in their pdfs state they actually support dma transfers and it's not like the pcs are too slow to handle it since the dma used to run on an... 8MHz bus.

The bus in question (LPC) has been superseded by a new one: eSPI.

This one doesn't support ISA-style DMA that standard floppy disk controllers expect.

LSS10999 wrote on 2021-10-17, 15:30:

weedeewee wrote on 2021-10-17, 08:16:

Isn't it possible to have some software handle the DMA transfers. The chipsets in their pdfs state they actually support dma transfers and it's not like the pcs are too slow to handle it since the dma used to run on an... 8MHz bus.

The bus in question (LPC) has been superseded by a new one: eSPI.

This one doesn't support ISA-style DMA that standard floppy disk controllers expect.

The chip in question, fintek f85226 is LPC to ISA Bridge.
LPC seems to support DMA transfers

maybe I should rephrase my question...

Can software be written that listens to/controls these LPC to ISA or PCI to ISA bridges for the handling of, the outdated and no longer directly in hardware supported due to the too many different layers of busses the data needs to go through, DMA transfers ?

weedeewee wrote on 2021-10-17, 16:08:

Can software be written that listens to/controls these LPC to ISA or PCI to ISA bridges for the handling of, the outdated and no longer directly in hardware supported due to the too many different layers of busses the data needs to go through, DMA transfers ?

I read in an article from Kontron about one of their industrial mobos using IT8888 etc, the same chips like the DFI board already mentioned, that successfully implementing ISA DMA and bus master DMA was one of the biggest challenges in writing their BIOS.
For this reason I think it is possible, as it has apparently been done.
But it is more work than just take a generic OEM BIOS and tailor it, so I suppose this is the reason why mass producers like MSI and DFI apparently haven't implemented that.

wondow wrote:

... otherwise it would be an expensive experiment!

It depends if they have some local reseller and contry local laws.. here at end of world, we have 14 days i dont like it, dont ask return policy law.

I suppose if DFI is not aswering that you can ask local seller for some testing and return period.. because any good seller should you give it.

retardware wrote on 2021-10-17, 17:29:

I read in an article from Kontron about one of their industrial mobos using IT8888 etc, the same chips like the DFI board alread […]
Show full quote

weedeewee wrote on 2021-10-17, 16:08:

Can software be written that listens to/controls these LPC to ISA or PCI to ISA bridges for the handling of, the outdated and no longer directly in hardware supported due to the too many different layers of busses the data needs to go through, DMA transfers ?

I read in an article from Kontron about one of their industrial mobos using IT8888 etc, the same chips like the DFI board already mentioned, that successfully implementing ISA DMA and bus master DMA was one of the biggest challenges in writing their BIOS.
For this reason I think it is possible, as it has apparently been done.
But it is more work than just take a generic OEM BIOS and tailor it, so I suppose this is the reason why mass producers like MSI and DFI apparently haven't implemented that.

thanks !
any chance to a link of that article or a link to a mainboard that was referenced in the article ?

Since the IT8888 is a PCI to ISA bridge I think it has an easier chance of supporting dma than the LPC device which seems to needs some signals to the LPC chipset which might not be present...

I do not find it anymore in my history, and Kontron seems to have redone their site.
It was mentioned in an article about a particular board, with BIOS screens etc how ISA stuff gets set up, including IRQs and DMA.

The only thing I still found is this whitepaper: https://www.kontron.com/resources/collateral/ … paper_pc104.pdf