Games that won't run or conflict with Nvidia GeForce, but not with ATI Radeon or Matrox \ VOGONS

Games that won't run or conflict with Nvidia GeForce, but not with ATI Radeon or Matrox

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First post, by andre_6

Posted on 2022-06-04, 16:41

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Through building my Win98SE (GeForce 4 MX440), Win95 (Millennium II) and WinME PC (Radeon 9600 Pro) builds I eventually found out that some games just won't run through the Nvidia card in Win98SE, but have no problems with ATI or Matrox. I imagine the OS is probably not the culprit here, but you may disagree, the main examples:

FIFA 98/99 - through the Nvidia card in Win98 they both refuse to even run, a quick flicker after running the .exe and back to the desktop it goes. They work fine in my Win95 system with a Millennium II and in WinME with the 9600 Pro.

The Sims 1 - the most curious of all with the same MX440 in Win98SE, it runs and displays graphics and sound and the game is operational, but the graphics seem highly glitched more like some sort of an high interference or something conflicting with the correct display. Runs fine in WinME with the 9600 Pro.

I researched pcgameswiki and forums for someone having these kinds of issue on each game but found nothing. Does anyone have any idea why this is happening with my MX440 in Win98SE? Is it DirectX related (although both Win98SE and WinME have Directx 9.0), or is it an Nvidia issue maybe? As I distribute and overlap some games between builds this is not that big of a pain, I'm just curious that maybe there is some obvious solution that I may be missing. Thanks everyone

Reply 1 of 6, by TehGuy

Posted on 2022-06-04, 17:08

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FYI (and IIRC) the MX440/460 is limited to DX7, being spruced up GF2 cards; not that this is an issue with the listed games since they use 7 or lower. Figured I'd mention it since you say you've got DX9 installed on the 98SE machine.

What version of the Nvidia driver are you running, and have you already tried reinstalling Win98? I would also try the MX 440 in another machine, if possible, with the same games to see if it continues to throw a fit.

Win98+DOS: C3 Ezra-T 1.0AGHz / P3-S 1.26GHz, 128MB RAM, AWE64 + Orpheus + Audigy 2 ZS, Ti 4200, 128GB SD card
Win XP SP3: C2Q 9650, 4GB RAM, X-Fi Titanium, GTX 750
PowerMac G4 QS 800MHz + GeForce4 Ti4200, OS 9
PowerMac G5 DP 1.8Ghz + ATi x800 XT, Leopard

Reply 2 of 6, by Gmlb256

Posted on 2022-06-04, 17:49

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It is more likely caused by the currently installed nVidia drivers rather than the DX9 runtime libraries.

Reply 3 of 6, by andre_6

Posted on 2022-06-04, 22:30

andre_6 Offline

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TehGuy wrote on 2022-06-04, 17:08:

FYI (and IIRC) the MX440/460 is limited to DX7, being spruced up GF2 cards; not that this is an issue with the listed games since they use 7 or lower. Figured I'd mention it since you say you've got DX9 installed on the 98SE machine.

What version of the Nvidia driver are you running, and have you already tried reinstalling Win98? I would also try the MX 440 in another machine, if possible, with the same games to see if it continues to throw a fit.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-06-04, 17:49:

It is more likely caused by the currently installed nVidia drivers rather than the DX9 runtime libraries.

This exact problem happened on the many iterations of Win98SE I had installed since I built the computer. I think it probably went up to DX9 as I installed more recent games than those, I'm running nvidia_9x_81.98 drivers. I'll downgrade to another version to check, didn't cross my mind, thanks

Reply 4 of 6, by TehGuy

Posted on 2022-06-05, 11:57

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andre_6 wrote on 2022-06-04, 22:30:

This exact problem happened on the many iterations of Win98SE I had installed since I built the computer. I think it probably went up to DX9 as I installed more recent games than those, I'm running nvidia_9x_81.98 drivers. I'll downgrade to another version to check, didn't cross my mind, thanks

v45.23 is a forum favorite and I can say it works rather well (or at least doesnt cause issues) with my MX 460

Reply 5 of 6, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 2022-06-05, 13:02

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Thief 2 suffers from a strange graphical issue on Nvidia GeForce cards. The stars in the night sky are missing. That doesn't occur on 3DFX, ATi, Matrox and S3 Savage cards. It also doesn't happen on Nvidia TNT2 cards.

file.php?id=117956&mode=view

Also, as others have mentioned, stick with 45.23 drivers or lower if you want proper game compatibility under Win9x.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 6 of 6, by andre_6

Posted on 2022-06-06, 13:20

andre_6 Offline

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-06-04, 17:49:

It is more likely caused by the currently installed nVidia drivers rather than the DX9 runtime libraries.

TehGuy wrote on 2022-06-05, 11:57:

v45.23 is a forum favorite and I can say it works rather well (or at least doesnt cause issues) with my MX 460

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-06-05, 13:02:

Also, as others have mentioned, stick with 45.23 drivers or lower if you want proper game compatibility under Win9x.

I downgraded to another version and The Sims, FIFA 98 and 99 ran without any issues. After that followed your advice and installed v45.23, will keep an eye on it but I already installed a lot of games and it's a 100% success rate so far. Feels good to be able to fully complete the game catalog I intended for this build, thanks a lot everyone

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