cyclone3d wrote on 2021-03-09, 05:59:

Anybody else remember the video card driver file mixing that was done back in the day to get the best possible performance from the cards?

Oh man... I had totally forgotten about that until you mentioned it. 🤣

I don't remember the details, but I remember reading about it and dabbling in it in my early days with nvidia. Most likely it led to me reinstalling Windows out of desperation after hours of dealing with blue-screens, while shouting "We've tampered in God's domain!"

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-03-09, 03:27:

What kind of problems were you seeing with the Quadro FX 1300?

I'm wondering if the same problems would be seen with the Geforce PCX cards (official PCIe FX cards)

What specific games have issues with the newer drivers?

Here are some of my test notes. Quadro FX1300, Asus A8V-XE, A64 4000, Win 98, DX9, no audio.

* With 61.76 driver:
Blood2 demo - black screen on launch. Missing UI after blindly starting new game.
Tomb Raider 2 demo - no text in game save/load/exit menu.
Serious Sam demo - black screen on launch, texture corruption after you blindly start a new game.
NFS 3 demo - most graphics are missing during gameplay.
GLQuake - menu text missing, texture corruption.
Quake 2 - texture corruption, menu text not visible.
NFS 5 - most graphics are missing.
Descent 3 demo - blurry text in DX mode. OpenGL mode results in graphic corruption and LCD out of range on launch.
Half Life, Unreal, NOLF - ok, but BSOD if AA + AF forced in the driver.
Populous The Beginning demo - distorted or blurry text. This affects all NV cards after GF4 that don't have texel center alignment, with all driver I tested.
Midtown Madness demo - screen corruption from pedestrians. Affects all Geforce cards, with all driver I tested.

* With inf modded 82.69 driver:
TR2 - same as before.
Blood 2 demo - same as before, but in game UI now flickers.
Serious Sam demo - menu ok, but severe lag if changing resolution. In game some textures are black.
Quake2 - ok, but severe lag if changing video resolution.
Unreal - severe lag in 32bit color.
NFS3 demo - lockup on launch.
NFS 5 - crash to desktop.
NOLF - texture corruption.
Half Life, GLQuake - ok.

* With inf modded 56.64 driver
Half Life - severe lag and artifacts.
GLQuake - severe lag and missing textures.
Windows explorer was also generally unresponsive and crashed often, so didn't test further.

* Inf modded 77.72 driver:
Blood 2 demo - same as before.
Unreal - lagging badly in 32bit color.
Descent 3 - same problems as before.
NFS 3 demo - text and graphics not rendered.
NFS 5 - text and graphics not rendered.
NOLF - corrupt textures.
Half Life, Serious Sam, GLQuake, Quake 2 - ok.

* With 66.94 driver:
Blood 2 demo, TR2 demo - same problems as before.
NFS 3 demo - no graphics or text rendered.
NFS 5 - no graphics or text rendered.
Unreal - occasional texture corruption. Rebooting seems to fix the problem.
Half Life - sometimes black screen on launch. Ok after reboot.
Descent 3 demo - same problem as before.
NOLF, GLQuake, Quake 2, Serious Sam demo - ok.

Now for comparison, here's my results with a Radeon X600 Pro on the same system, using latest 6.2 Win98 driver:
Populous demo - blurry text, but can be fixed by alternate pixel center in the driver.
GLQuake, Quake 2 - forcing AA not working.
Unreal - forcing AF causes some blending errors on smoke/fog, dispersion pistol flares.
Otherwise, all the games I mentioned for the FX1300 work without problems. Really puts into question the whole mantra of praising Nvidia drivers while bashing Ati drivers.

I haven't read about any complaints with ATI drivers around here. The reason they don't get recommended that often is that don't support 8 bit textures for table fog. Increasingly I am coming to believe that really doesn't matter that much.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2021-03-09, 16:56:

Really puts into question the whole mantra of praising Nvidia drivers while bashing Ati drivers.

Isn't the general consensus that any Nvidia drivers newer than 45.23 are suboptimal for Win98?

Which implies that graphics cards that are too new for those drivers probably suffer from some compatibility issues under Win98.

Well, balls. I started work on a build using a free LGA775 board I got and obtained an FX1300 to see if I could put it to use running 98 on modern-ish hardware, but it sounds like that works out somewhere between very sub-optimal and awful. At least the Quadro card was dirt cheap.

Sounds like I need to put together a test system for the PCIe FX cards.

I've got the PCX 5300 and 5750 and the Quadro FX 1300.

There really should be a way to make the cards work just fine in 98SE.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-03-09, 17:31:

I haven't read about any complaints with ATI drivers around here. The reason they don't get recommended that often is that don't support 8 bit textures for table fog. Increasingly I am coming to believe that really doesn't matter that much.

likewise. nvidia has issues running in built windows 98 screensavers like 3d flying objects...

pixel_workbench wrote:

Blood2 demo - black screen on launch. Missing UI after blindly starting new game.

I know this bug. It's easily fixable via RivaTuner. And most likely any other bug related to text or menus in D3D.

With a P3 1 Ghz for late 98-2001 games, should I go with (able to find only these atm):

- Quadro 2 Pro AGP - Performance should be around GeForce2 Ti. I have seen Phil's review, seems like a good card for Windows 98, but MX440 should have better compatibility and Pixel/Vertex shaders support.

- GeForce4 MX 440 128-bit AGP - Pixel/Vertex Shader 1.1 that isn't on the Quadro 2 Pro I guess, should be slightly faster than Quadro 2 Pro.

- Radeon 9550 256MB AGP 8x - it is cheap and easily found, prob too much for the CPU, not sure if Catalyst 6.2 is fine on Windows 98 since I have a 694T (VIA board), also lacks 8-bit palletized textures and fog table. Likely a better card for XP and Pentium 4 but since it's everywhere and more than enough for most older games.

Related bench: Windows 98 VGA roundup: 16 cards, 8 benchmarks, one system

Safest seems to be to stay away from GF2 series with a PIII rig, they seem to cause issues on both intel and via chipsets. Not sure what the odds are on it giving you problems, probably low chance, since it was a common combo. Just you don't want to spend too much on "probably" works, so if it's less than you spend eating out (Everyday style, not all out for the sweetheart on Valentines) , go for it.

svfn wrote on 2021-07-30, 16:33:

- GeForce4 MX 440 128-bit AGP - Pixel/Vertex Shader 1.1 that isn't on the Quadro 2 Pro I guess, should be slightly faster than Quadro 2 Pro.

The MX440 doesn't support pixel shaders.

Basically, don't think of it as a GeForce4. Instead, consider it a GeForce2 + Lightspeed Memory Architecture. More details can be found on the Vogons wiki.

MX440.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-03-09, 18:12:

Sounds like I need to put together a test system for the PCIe FX cards.

I've got the PCX 5300 and 5750 and the Quadro FX 1300.

There really should be a way to make the cards work just fine in 98SE.

Now that I have the PCX 5900 I think this is going to be one of my top projects.

Ok thanks, I'll keep in mind to look out for a 128-bit MX440. I had a MX 4000 back then and I remember it ran poorly, and the MX440, MX400 numberings/amount of versions are rather confusing haha.

Although am pretty tempted to try Quadro 2 Pro after seeing Phils video, the overclocking results are enticing haha, but that's on a Athlon XP 1600+. If it does as well as the GF2 Ultra on P3 1Ghz, I can stop looking for a MX440.

I guess a P3 1Ghz really limits Radeon 9550's performance, although not too bad FPS wise according to maximus's benches. Just realized it's 8x too, and the MSI 694T I'm on is only up to 4x.

I have a socket a 750mhz athlon system with an MX4000 PCI card (64MB) and kinda wondering if it's worth upgrading or if it's good enough for 90s-early 2000s games.

yes, of course its worth it.

The MX4000 is one of the worst GeForce Cards.
And PCI is even further Crippled.

Asus V7700 32Mb GeForce 2 was running Circles around my MX4000..

matze79 wrote on 2021-12-25, 22:13:

yes, of course its worth it. […]
Show full quote

yes, of course its worth it.

The MX4000 is one of the worst GeForce Cards.
And PCI is even further Crippled.

Asus V7700 32Mb GeForce 2 was running Circles around my MX4000..

Huh, I used to play Midtown Madness 2 all the time with the MX4000 and even had mods installed.

What is a card I can get with a $50 vanilla gift card?

Midtown Madness 2 runs on 8Mb video cards 😉
Not really demanding.

Do you have AGP slot ?

matze79 wrote on 2021-12-26, 00:24:

Midtown Madness 2 runs on 8Mb video cards 😉
Not really demanding.

Do you have AGP slot ?

yep, it has an AGP slot.

I found an MX440 AGP 8x card within my budget, but my motherboard has a 4x slot

EDIT: found another listing with one for a 4x slot.