Are there really compatibility problems with modern USB mice compared to old ones? I haven't seen that before, but maybe current production Logitech mice are even more broken than they appear on modern computers (even compared to a 10-year-old mouse of the same model).

You really should just use the onboard USB 1.0/1.1 ports for a USB mouse. On the VIA USB card that I have, even plugging in a mouse causes a huge performance drop and extremely high CPU usage on my socket 7 board. I don't have that problem with onboard USB.

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-10-13, 22:29:

ibm5155 wrote on 2023-08-29, 09:08:

I would avoid usb mouses as much as I can

All my systems use m590 with logi dongle as standard issue via nec 2.0. otherwise it's recommended sticking to intellimouse optical usb 1.1A for compatibility

USB Mouses are nice and convenient but they tend to have a higher performance impact on old systems compared to PS2 Mouses, I even have a G703 that hangs any games that I try to use it and only returns to normality once I stop moving it (Also have another usb mouse that is playable but the performance impact of it is still noticeable compared to a ps2 mouse)

ibm5155 wrote on 2023-10-19, 12:36:

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-10-13, 22:29:

ibm5155 wrote on 2023-08-29, 09:08:

I would avoid usb mouses as much as I can

All my systems use m590 with logi dongle as standard issue via nec 2.0. otherwise it's recommended sticking to intellimouse optical usb 1.1A for compatibility

USB Mouses are nice and convenient but they tend to have a higher performance impact on old systems compared to PS2 Mouses, I even have a G703 that hangs any games that I try to use it and only returns to normality once I stop moving it (Also have another usb mouse that is playable but the performance impact of it is still noticeable compared to a ps2 mouse)

haven't had any issue with my logi m590, very smooth on the screen because of high polling rate. ps/2 looks sluggish when tracking across screen

VIA and NEC chips both works well. (VIA is UHCI and NEC is OHCI).

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-10-19, 12:41:

ibm5155 wrote on 2023-10-19, 12:36:

gmaverick2k wrote on 2023-10-13, 22:29:

All my systems use m590 with logi dongle as standard issue via nec 2.0. otherwise it's recommended sticking to intellimouse optical usb 1.1A for compatibility

USB Mouses are nice and convenient but they tend to have a higher performance impact on old systems compared to PS2 Mouses, I even have a G703 that hangs any games that I try to use it and only returns to normality once I stop moving it (Also have another usb mouse that is playable but the performance impact of it is still noticeable compared to a ps2 mouse)

haven't had any issue with my logi m590, very smooth on the screen because of high polling rate. ps/2 looks sluggish when tracking across screen

I used my modern USB KB/M on my W98 SE machine and I could tell that system performance was impacted. Mouse movement was smooth with the high polling rate but window and interface response was sluggish at best. The Microsoft Basic ps/2 mouse I use appears to be more sluggish in cursor movement only but overall system performance is more consistently good.

Windows 9x polls PS/2 mice fairly slow (40hz?) compared to NT based OSes out of the box. There was a tool called "PS2Rate" to adjust this higher for a smoother cursor.

NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-11-07, 02:10:

Windows 9x polls PS/2 mice fairly slow (40hz?) compared to NT based OSes out of the box. There was a tool called "PS2Rate" to adjust this higher for a smoother cursor.

That worked great on my basic 2 button ps/2 mouse, thank you.

I have a couple of Belkin cards, that have a NEC chip on them, havent used them yet, so im hoping when i get round to building my 98 machines that these will work without to many issues.

Not to hijack this thread but does anyone know of a compatible pci card with a usb header on it too for front panel usb??

Machine is an Athlon 800/win98

WarhammerDarkOmen wrote on 2023-12-08, 15:04:

Not to hijack this thread but does anyone know of a compatible pci card with a usb header on it too for front panel usb??

Machine is an Athlon 800/win98

Check eBay for part number KU-204IN.

If you have one with an internal port you can adapt it to pin header

Perfect thank you guys

Yo guys, I’ve recently got a kvm by dlink ( dkvm-4u) which has 4 vga and usb inputs. It works great on my windows 98 p3 rig and a windows xp barton rig which have native USB support.
I have another rig i would love to join and it’s a pentium 133 dos/win95 dual os and under windows 95 “should work “ and I’ll keep the fourth as the dos rig (486dx) but outside of the kvm

I have a motherboard that works well but the onboard USB ports are totally wrecked so I am thinking of adding a USB PCI card to work with Windows 98 SE.

I've never had any luck with getting USB to work under WIN95. I have always wondered why you can't get an IDE to USB adapter because then you could essentially use USB drives on any old Windows OS.

USB Mass Storage was not yet a thing when Win95 was around, even just USB really wasn't. WinME is the first one to have USB Mass Storage support and it has been backported to 98(SE) via the NUSB3.x package.
I think there's something for Win95 from R.Loew but I don't know any details.
If you can boot off the USB device depends on the BIOS of the mobo in question, not all of them can and not all will emulate INT13 interface for USB devices either, which is a requirement to get DOS running and by extension Win9x to run too.

I'm not aware of any USB add-on cards being bootable. Also, even if the motherboard ports were bootable, I think that the experience would be very poor for Windows 9x. Is DMA disk access even possible like this?

Plop boot loader can boot usb

What good is it though without DMA? Concurrent disk access without DMA causes the mouse cursor to lag and performance to degrade significantly.

Had some trouble with VIA, none with NEC. Ironically, VIA USB 2.0 with VIA chipsets.

I have always wondered if VIA USB chips would work better on VIA boards. I'm sure that the problems stem from the age of the chipset more than anything else.