Few GLinfo regmon differences Working XP - not working Win 2000:
Not working:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\ENUM\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E48&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00\4&9fd38ef&0&0008\HardwareID BUFFER TOO SMALL

Working:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\ENUM\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E48&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00\4&9fd38ef&0&0008\HardwareID BUFFER OVERFLOW

Not working:
QueryValue HKLM\Hardware\DeviceMap\Video\\Device\Video0 SUCCESS "\REGISTRY\Machine\System\ControlSet001\Services\ati2mtag\Device0"
// Why is not searching or find something in CurrentControlSet only in ControlSet001? What is exactly this DeviceMap? Why there is not some Device id as bellow in XP?

Working:
QueryValue HKLM\Hardware\DeviceMap\Video\\Device\Video0 SUCCESS "\Registry\Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{B1392BC3-5441-48FF-B974-E4683EA60ED4}\0000"

I did small test, remove OpenGL32 and run GLXinfo and its complains that file is not exists.. OpenGL device is still pointing to wrong driver.. or needs to be some hook for OpenGL32 to call ATI OpenGL driver, which is not working.
Update: When do same things in XP its still working fine..

Installed VIA AGP driver, but as expected nothing changed.

I was just checking some oem.inf files inside C:\Windows\inf .. which sometime are making some mess. Do you know what in ATI files means line?
atim2mtag.OGL=10;Windows
There are similar lines it seems as directory, because other values are drivers and System32.. so it would means that this driver should be directly in Windows root folder? Later in this files are is tag and under them are
atiogl.xml
atiogl.xml
It wonder that some xml files do with drivers? There are some per game specific hooks..

ruthan wrote on 2021-05-16, 18:13:

OpenGL device is still pointing to wrong driver.. or needs to be some hook for OpenGL32 to call ATI OpenGL driver, which is not working.

OpenGL32.DLL should call LoadLibraryW to load atioglxx.dll. Maybe you can find it with a debugger and check the error code.

Its too level thing for me, i would need some tutorial.

Here Glinfo filemons for XP and 2k...
You can see that XP is my right atioglxx.dll + ATIADLXX.DLL opengl file, but 2k not.. ok at least not so often at the start.

In both is some strange code end is not searching for atioglxx.dll.dll it seems to be some programing error, quite typical, that file extension is used twice.. just for fun i renamed file to doube dll.. and Glinfo 2k.. is showing ATI GL version of driver.. all others information are still wrong.

I would really like to have to simple utility for Windows just to select- force - right OpenGL driver and write it to registry - if would know where in registry it should be and in which format.. - because it seems that we only thing that we know.. but my registry keys are now exactly the same for that address:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\OpenGLDrivers\
but its still not working..

Otherwise i bellow wrote about 3dfx entries, but there in not CurrentControl set but in 001 so we can probably ignore that.

ruthan wrote on 2021-05-16, 22:16:

In both is some strange code end is not searching for atioglxx.dll.dll

Did you try to change atioglxx.dll to atioglxx in the registry? Under OpenGLDrivers\ati2dvag\Dll ?

Because mine doesn't have the .dll extension:

I tried even with reboot, not solution, but thanks for tip, it could be something that stupid.

In same parent key.. Is hat strange (Default) string which has not value? Could be here forced used OpenGL driver? It what is sense of this string? Maybe its just some needed element it seems to be in every other parent key folder and never understood registry to this detail..

But let say that you have more OpenGL cards.. for example Voodoo and TNT Riva/Geforce.. or some professional card for rendering.. where you select which one should be used for Direct3D / Opengl ?
I never know that.. i only know that Voodoo could work for GLide with Nvidia/ATI.. Because he need exactly same thing somewhere force right OpenGL driver..

Other interesting thing is that DriverVersion, Flags for you system seems to have some values..

This not source of problem, but its some error after some Blackwingcat updates install..

msvcrt.dll error
I check C:\WinNT\System32.. i installed quite a lot C++,.Net framework packages.. but problem preveil.. which package suppose contain this file?

Second problem is similar some Visual Basic script, again i installed lots of VB packages, but it still there, lots of programs, when are executed complains about it..

One interesting thing i wanted to make my machine quiter, so it replaced noisy BeNoisy(BeQuiet) 300W PSU, to modern Corsair RX550 - because its claims to be fanless until 200W usage.. PIII is 35W, chipset lets say 10W, SSD + 2x optimal driver lets say -25W and regarding techpower Radeon 9800 Pro is 48W - https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-9800-pro.c1818 and yew watts for NIC and Soundcard.
So 200W is enough.. but i discovered that this modern PSU is unable to give enough juice to Radeon 9800 addional molex, so its not started, as videocard is not connected.. i saw in some Phils Athlon video that for these old machine you need right PSU - i dunno if it was 12V or 5V or -5V, -12V thing.. but something like that.. but i saw suprised that is thing for GPU too.

So had to used this PSU for more modern Ryzen machine and use my precious old Fanless 400W blue fortron - its nice 3 kg brick.. and electronic is maybe not very good, but works fine with couple of my machines for years.. similar to Yessico fanless PSU.. new passive PSUs, are more about less waste heat and honeycomb desing than big heatsinks.. I have good experience with Silverstone Nightjars, which still have quite big heatsinks and very bad experience with Season fanless PSUs, which are using really small heatsinks and are very light..

I checked OpenGL key for Windows 98, where its working too..

What is equivalent for atio9xxx.dll from Win98 for Windows 2000 - atioglxx.dll or ati2dvag.dll? I want to try add same string to Windows 2000, maybe this would be solution..

I was using Radeon 9800 PRO because i was curious about its performance and hoped that it would be good, but with problems above and even some glitches in GLQuake, GLHexen 2 in WinXP i lost my patience and tried Nvidia card - slowest Geforce 4 - 4200 TI model, i dont have anything faster and Geforce 5/6 line is too new and less compatible.

I expected that performance would be much slower, i knew that Radeon 9800 could gain a lot with faster CPU, but still i expected better result in comparison with Geforce 4200 TI, but see result bellow. I used same binaries for OSes so if it. You crashes, its not because of testing program. You can also see comparison of Win98/Win2000/XP performance. With Nvidia card my installation Windows 2000 worked fine, so it was ATI card problem, not OS problem. Framerates values are for AVG. I had to disable Vsynch for OpenGL in Nvidia drivers, through normal setting or thanks to coolbits reg hack for drivers settings.

1) Quake 3 demo - \timedemo 1 ; remove 90 FPS cap - /Com_maxFPS 0 , inbuild demo (Demo001) in menu
1024x768x16bit.. otherwise max details..
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - WinXP - 10.2 Drivers - 112; 32bit same results - 112.
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win2000 - 6.14 Drivers - Openg is not working
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win98SE - 4.15 Drivers - 95
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - WinXP - 93.xx Drivers - 115
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win2000 - 93.xx Drivers - 117
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win98 - 43.55 Drivers - 85

2) Quake 2 demo - OpenGL \timedemo 1 \map Q2demo1.dm2
1024x768x16bit.. max details..
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - WinXP - 10.2 Drivers - 197
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win2000 - 6.14 Drivers - OpenGL is not working
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win98SE - 4.15 Drivers - 178 ; I had it to disable Vertical synch in ATI drivers OpenGL settings.
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - WinXP - 93.xx Drivers - 222
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win2000 - 93.xx Drivers - 217
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win98 - 43.55 Drivers - 150

3) MDK2 demo - Texture Quality slider max, filtering - trilinear, 1024x768x16 - First 2 checkboxes. Test setting button starts benchmark.
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - WinXP - 10.2 Drivers - 109
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win2000 - 6.14 Drivers - generic OpenGL - slideshow
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win98SE - 4.15 Drivers - 140
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - WinXP - 93.xx Drivers - 134
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win2000 - 93.xx Drivers - 133
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win98 - 43.55 Drivers - sideshow as would be generic OpenGL driver is used..

4) GLQuake - batch: -width 1024 -height 768 -bpp 16 -window ; after that in console: timedemo demo1
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - WinXP - 10.2 Drivers - 243
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win2000 - 6.14 Drivers - Openg is not working, only generic driver Slideshow
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win98SE - 4.15 Drivers - 245
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - WinXP - 93.xx Drivers - 233
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win2000 - 93.xx Drivers - 305
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win98 - 43.55 Drivers - 209

5) Expendable demo (batch file: go- timedemo) - Direct3D
1024x768, In setup no Checkbox used; Results are in timedemo.txt file..
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - WinXP - 10.2 Drivers - 89
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win2000 - 6.14 Drivers -76
PIII 1.4 + Radeon 9800 PRO - Win98SE - 4.15 Drivers - crash
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - WinXP - 93.xx Drivers - 66
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win2000 - 93.xx Drivers - 67
PIII 1.4 + Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - Win98 - 43.55 Drivers - crash

As you can see Geforce 4200 TI is actually faster in OpenGL and only significantly slower in Direct3D - Expandable. I was not running synthetic benchmarks, because their results are often misleading and you can play them. For Win98 i used old drivers 43.55 for Nvidia, newer driver could be maybe faster for some titles - especially Quake 3, but its also known that they are slower for other titles.

But its not so great as it could seems, because..
1) Even Win98 + Nvidia met same generic driver slideshow problem as with Win2000 and ATI card.. Even when Glinfo - showed all good Nvidia values - you really cant believe in this utility. Fortunately, i fixed it, but installing older drivers, i dunno maybe only reinstaling same driver version once more would help.. I had not patience for that.

2) Win98 -1 OpenGL game did not working, even when all other games were ok.. MDK 2 demo, it was slideshow and very,very slow loading, which here for usage Generic OpenGL driver.
MDK 2 demo has own setup utility, which can print OpenGL info.. that is really strange that that driver name is ended by "/ForceSW" .. what is very suspicious, but why this mode is executed.. its not explained, there is really something what we need to understand.

3) At low resolutions a card like 9800 cannot show its muscle.

Did you make sure that your desktop color mode matches the game color mode? If the game runs in 16 bit color, then set your desktop to 16 bit color.

Did you make sure that your desktop color mode matches the game color mode? If the game runs in 16 bit color, then set your desktop to 16 bit color.

Yeah is not such simple and these sort of games usually complain when color depth mode is not right for them.

I had one case where Myst Riven game bob up and down by few pixels on item that runs when clicked on. It was the color depth set in windows too high.

Cheers,