ph4nt0m wrote:

This is 7900GS (G71) with 16 ROPs. NVIDIA said only 7800GS featured 8 ROPs. If it had 16 ROPs, pixel and texel fill rate could be about the same if memory bandwidth wasn't a limiting factor.

G71 is a die shrink, true. Nvidia said so ?
Well 7800 GS is based on G70, and not G73 chip (latter which only goes up to 12PS/5VS with 8 ROPs).
Based on that, you can't have a hacked G70 with full 256-bit memory bus, without 16 ROPs from standard one. It's simply not possible, because number of ROPs is tied/"fixed" to number of memory controllers available in this case.

To get 256-bit bus from 8 ROPed 7800 GS, you would need memory controllers that are double the width of the standard ones (redesign basicly), OR if NV thought about it, you could tie two controllers to one ROP. But that is dumb since it's basicly wasting memory bandwidth (efficiency), and getting nothing out of it (less ROPs = less pixel pushing power = lower demand for VRAM bandwidth).

agent_x007 wrote:

G71 is a die shrink, true. Nvidia said so ? Well 7800 GS is based on G70, and not G73 chip (latter which only goes up to 12PS/5V […]
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ph4nt0m wrote:

This is 7900GS (G71) with 16 ROPs. NVIDIA said only 7800GS featured 8 ROPs. If it had 16 ROPs, pixel and texel fill rate could be about the same if memory bandwidth wasn't a limiting factor.

G71 is a die shrink, true. Nvidia said so ?
Well 7800 GS is based on G70, and not G73 chip (latter which only goes up to 12PS/5VS with 8 ROPs).
Based on that, you can't have a hacked G70 with full 256-bit memory bus, without 16 ROPs from standard one. It's simply not possible, because number of ROPs is tied/"fixed" to number of memory controllers available in this case.

That was what they told to OEMs back in time. I'm not absolutely sure if it's true or marketing bullshit.

The number of ROPs in G70 isn't tied to either TMUs / pixel shaders which are behind a crossbar, or memory controllers which are also independent. If you remember the 6800 series, there was a wild mix of configurations with 8, 12 or 16 TMUs / ROPs, and 128-bit or 256-bit memory configurations. These were also software unlockable.

Forceware 77.72 was the first release to support G70 whether 7800GTX or 7800GT or 7800GS. It doesn't matter if you install your card as 7800GTX, FX 5800 or 4200 Ti. The driver gets the right settings for G70 automatically. Forceware 82.69 works with G71, but many people have reported bugs and other issues.

Tested this just now and it doesn't work. Gigabyte EP45-UD3R with Xeon E5450, win98se + winXP dualboot, on same platform I ran 7900 GS with 82.69 previously, that worked ok but game compatibility was bad. Today I did a clean re-install and swapped 7900 GS for 7800 GTX, and tried 77.72 driver. It seemed to work at first, but when I tried to run 3dmark99 found out AGP Texture Acceleration is unavailable so 3dmark wont run. GG. I could probably make it work with 82.69 like I did the 7900 GS, but already saw enough of that. geforce 7000 series are useless for win9x, going one step down to ati x850xt pe next 😀

Well 7800 GS is based on G70

Actually it could be both G70 and G71, depending on your luck. Driver doesn't care. Also, all 7800GS/7800GT/7900GS have active 16 ROPs.

God Of Gaming wrote on 2019-12-13, 19:11:

... geforce 7000 series are useless for win9x ...

Oh really? And why do you tell about all 7 series family at once? You forgot about one very important thing. Windows 98, 77.72 9X driver and G70 have together most acceptable working condition only if AGP. Yes, I told about 7800GS AGP. I don't know how GeForce7 PCI-E cards work in Windows 98. Probably bad.

can't see how the pcie-to-agp bridge chip can possibly help compatibility, quite the opposite, I can only see it making things worse. But if you can sell me a 7800GS AGP for a reasonable price, I'll give it a try

havli wrote on 2019-05-29, 15:33:

Btw - why all GPU databases show 8 ROPs for GF 7800 GS? I think it makes no sense at all, I would end up much slower than NV40.. […]
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Btw - why all GPU databases show 8 ROPs for GF 7800 GS?
I think it makes no sense at all, I would end up much slower than NV40... which it really isn't. And also fillrate tests suggest there are 16 ROPs, just like every other G70/71 card.

3dmark 03 -> fillrate single / fillrate multi

GF 6800 Ultra -> 3376 / 6053
GF 7800 GS -> 3048 / 5857
GF 7800 GT -> 3612 / 7784

It wouldn't be the first card to overshoot its theoretical max in the test. Single textured fillrate didn't mean much for the game performance of the time.

God Of Gaming, pcie-to-agp bridge can not "help compatibility" for sure and it can't make worse for sure, it's just transparent data channel. It doesn't matter. You forget what's really does matter: except pcie-to-agp bridge there is northbridge too and there is bus for video card too which can be PCI, PCI-X, AGP or PCI-E. Windows 9X drivers know nothing about PCI-E bus and may get crash when trying AGP texturing. And we can't predict if crash happens or not. Maybe ATI 9X driver for X800 series is more lucky with PCI-E than nVIDIA driver, I don't know.

I didn't see 7800GS for selling for a long time. It becomes rare today. And I will not sell my copy, especially for a reasonable price 😁 Nobody then will sell it to me for resonable price.

The whole "native support" thing is just silly anyway. Windows 9x drivers can use up to a 7900GTX for sure.

The only reason why there isn't "native support" is that nVidia didn't include the device ID in the .inf file.

That being said, there is also a 7800GS AGP card that really is a 7800GT. And on top of that there is also the AGP 7950GT.

I won't be selling any of mine.

But really, for 9x, the card you want for compatibility sake on the nVidia side is the FX5950 Ultra. No 9x game is really going to even tax it and the only reason for a faster card is for benchmarking purposes.

You run into being CPU limited even with the FX5950 Ultra up until about 3.2Ghz or so with an Intel X6800.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-11-30, 00:15:

But really, for 9x, the card you want for compatibility sake on the nVidia side is the FX5950 Ultra. No 9x game is really going to even tax it and the only reason for a faster card is for benchmarking purposes.

You run into being CPU limited even with the FX5950 Ultra up until about 3.2Ghz or so with an Intel X6800.

You say obvious thing. It's true. And when we're talking about GeForce 7 we do not deny this obvious fact about FX series. I don't understand why you recall FX, we all know about it.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-11-30, 00:15:

The whole "native support" thing is just silly anyway. Windows 9x drivers can use up to a 7900GTX for sure.
The only reason why there isn't "native support" is that nVidia didn't include the device ID in the .inf file.

No! Video card's bus does matter for driver too.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-11-30, 00:15:

That being said, there is also a 7800GS AGP card that really is a 7800GT. And on top of that there is also the AGP 7950GT.

Yes, it's correct technically. But we must remember that we use not simply driver+card+benchmark+aida+everest+etc... We use alive games. One more thing does much matter, it's driver version! And in Win9X environment nVIDIA 8X.XX series drivers are most unfriendly to games especially old games.

If we use your favorite FX cards we can use them with 53.03, other 5X.XX and get much more compatibility than a same FX and 8X.XX drivers for example.

I have found that 77.72 is good compromise for 9X games. Not best of course but much better than 81.98, 82.16 and 82.69.
77.72 does not support 7900/7950. Therefore the last compromise card for Win9X games (not for Windows9X at all, exactly for Win9X games as a whole) is AGP 7800GS with 77.72 driver.

"On top of that there is also the AGP 7950GT" as you said, yes. But... only 82.69, terrible games compatibility.

In total, if you use single Win98 OS never take GeForce 6 or 7 series. 6 or 7 series may be compromise for dual boot 98+XP as one card for both OSes, more or less compatible in 98, as fast as it possible in XP.

You guys mention 7900 GTX and 7950 GT, but those have 512mb vram... I thought win98 wouldn't like cards with this much vram so you would have to put the cutout point at 7800 GTX 256mb or 7900 GT 256mb?

God Of Gaming wrote on 2020-11-30, 08:06:

You guys mention 7900 GTX and 7950 GT, but those have 512mb vram... I thought win98 wouldn't like cards with this much vram so you would have to put the cutout point at 7800 GTX 256mb or 7900 GT 256mb?

I have a win9x setup with a 7900GTX in it. Seems to work ok. The modded drivers supposedly support the G80 series as well but I have always gotten a BSOD when trying an 8800 Ultra. I do have some G80 320MB cards but never got around trying them to see if it was a VRAM limitation of not.

There is also a patch by R.Loew that is supposed to take care of I think a 512MB VRAM limit but I haven't tried that either.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-11-30, 08:21:

God Of Gaming wrote on 2020-11-30, 08:06:

You guys mention 7900 GTX and 7950 GT, but those have 512mb vram... I thought win98 wouldn't like cards with this much vram so you would have to put the cutout point at 7800 GTX 256mb or 7900 GT 256mb?

I have a win9x setup with a 7900GTX in it. Seems to work ok. The modded drivers supposedly support the G80 series as well but I have always gotten a BSOD when trying an 8800 Ultra. I do have some G80 320MB cards but never got around trying them to see if it was a VRAM limitation of not.

There is also a patch by R.Loew that is supposed to take care of I think a 512MB VRAM limit but I haven't tried that either.

What drivers do you use for that 7900GTX?

ph4ntom, "the modded drivers" which were tasted with 8800 also - no choice. It's 82.69 only and no one other.

Yeah, pretty sure I was using the 82.69 for the 7900GTX. I haven't hooked up that system in a while so not 100% sure.

I suppose I'll give the 7800GS AGP a chance then, since I just acquired a rare industrial DFI G7S620-N motherboard, that with a modified bios should be able to take a core 2 duo, but has win98 drivers, AGP and ISA slots... I can do an ultimate win9x/dos build with this mobo, and with such overkill cpu I'd need an overkill gpu as well... I have an ati x850xt pe agp, that should do it for win9x, but I hear ati has bad dos support, so a 7800gs agp might be ideal card to use for this build, assuming it really works fine with 77.72 (7800 GTX did not)

God Of Gaming wrote on 2020-12-09, 10:56:

I suppose I'll give the 7800GS AGP a chance then, since I just acquired a rare industrial DFI G7S620-N motherboard, that with a modified bios should be able to take a core 2 duo, but has win98 drivers, AGP and ISA slots... I can do an ultimate win9x/dos build with this mobo, and with such overkill cpu I'd need an overkill gpu as well... I have an ati x850xt pe agp, that should do it for win9x, but I hear ati has bad dos support, so a 7800gs agp might be ideal card to use for this build, assuming it really works fine with 77.72 (7800 GTX did not)

Does that motherboard support ISA DMA? It doesn't look like it to me but I am unfamiliar with other than ITE PCI-ISA bridge chips.

God Of Gaming, by set of qualities X800/850 are better than 7800GS. "Bad dos support" applies to horizontal scrolling bugs in 2D sessions like Dangerous Dave. Not so bad as many people think.

DFI G7S620-N board is very capricious with Core 2 CPUs. I spent a few years, have made titanic work for proper tuning this mobo and can say the following:
- you will not get proper and stable work with 45nm 'wolfdale' gen at all
- you should flash a last not beta BIOS for proper 65nm 'conroe' gen work and optimal other components work
- you should disable C1E and necessarily make physical VID mod for CPU, voltage value must be constant and optimal, otherwise you'll get sudden freezes, power off and even impossible next system start

The best CPU for this mobo is X6800. I run it at FSB800 (with BSEL mod 200) and x13 multiplier in BIOS. 2600MHz frequency is very comfortable and ultra enough for most WinXP games. But can be stable up to 3200MHz (x16). I made triple boot Win98(+DOS7)/WinXP/Win7x64. When DOS starting the multiplier is setting to x8 and ODCM is setting to 1/8, the CPU frequency in DOS is 200MHz (in autoexec.bat). When Win98 starting the multiplier is setting to x10/11, the CPU frequency in Windows 98 is 2,0/2,2GHz (in autoexec.bat too, via menuitem). When starting WinXP or Win7 the multiplier is staying x13/x15 as in BIOS setup.

God Of Gaming wrote on 2020-12-09, 10:56:

so a 7800gs agp might be ideal card to use for this build

No. Optimal video set for this build consists of two video cards. First is PCI card (and Primary adapter in BIOS setup) GeForce FX5200/5500 which used in Win98+DOS. Second is AGP card Radeon HD3850 or HD4670 which used in WinXP (and may in Win7). Windows 98 and DOS can not switch Primary adapter but Windows XP and 7 can. Therefore Primary adapter in BIOS setup must be PCI. When starting Windows XP/7 you run it in dual-card mode and Primary video card with Windows Desktop is AGP always in Windows setup. In Windows 98 the DirectX7.0 is installed. All DX8.1+9.0 content can be run excellent and successful in Windows XP with AGP Radeon HD.

X800/850 and 7800GS are single-card designs. Both are good for Win98+WinXP but worse than dual-cards setup.

If you don't want to use dual boot 98+XP please forget about Core 2, X850XT, 7800GS etc. Just take one good single core Cedar Mill CPU and a top AGP FX5900/5950 card. Or even Ti4800. Believe me it will be much better! 😀

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-12-09, 19:38:

Does that motherboard support ISA DMA? It doesn't look like it to me but I am unfamiliar with other than ITE PCI-ISA bridge chips.

Yes, it does! Please don't doubt 😀 Winbond is a good proper chip. And ISA DMA support depends not only PCI-ISA bridge. It depends on SouthBridge and proper BIOS for each motherboard. There are two ISA sound cards which can not work on ICH5 SouthBridge (as I know, maybe more). They are Creative Goldfinch CT1920 and GUS PnP. All other cards (which I saw, tried and heard) can be run!

And one more thing: G7S620-N has -5V line direct from its own ATX power connector to ISA bus. I use five slots riser. Works!

Thanks PARUS, lots of useful info there, most of it I didn't know. Mobo has the top model cedar mill P4 HT 661 installed by previous owner. Which is nice because I didn't have one of those yet. I do happen to have a X6800 already, but I was thinking of using it for a pre-Vista build with like Abit AW9D-Max mobo, or perhaps Asus P5W DH Deluxe, and like a X1950 XTX, maybe even two in crossfire, if i can find the elusive X1950 Crossfire Edition. Possibly useless but will be fun to tinker with.

So, you're saying wolfdale is a no go. So the Pentium E5800 that's in my AsRock Conroe865PE won't do then. How about a C2D E4700? The fastest fsb800 conroe? Because afaik these i865 core 2 mobos like my old Conroe865PE and the popular 775i65g don't really like fsb1066 cpus? And this DFI is quite similar to them, ISA slots asside? So it probably has the same issues, with memory multipliers not working correctly with higher fsb cpus?

I wish to use a single agp graphics card, and win9x is main focus, XP not a priority for this build. And ideally I wouldn't want to add a secondary pci graphics card, because I can see myself using up all pci and isa slots for multiple different sound cards, probably with separate windows install for each sound card to try to avoid driver conflicts. I know FX 5000 series are supposed to be ideal for win9x game compatibility, and I already have one 5900 Ultra as well as one 5900 XT, but it feels like a bit of a waste to use such "weak" cards with such an overkill mobo, an Athlon XP build will probably run those just fine. So here I'm thinking something like the X850XT PE or 7800GS, or 6800 Ultra at worst (I don't have one and they're quite hard to find for reasonable price) and just go overkill in all ways. Probably not 7950GT AGP overkill tho, I've had enough of 82.69 driver, game compatibility is ass with that one.

Ok, cool. I should try the Goldfinch and Gun PnP on one of my industrial S478 setups with ISA and the ITE 8888 PCI-ISA bridge.

I would be somewhat surprised if they didn't work. Or is it known that they will not work with ICH5?