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Win98 + Nvidia 6600GT Drivers = MS-DOS Prompt Won't Launch?

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First post, by Smalltalk

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I've got some hardware that's way too new for Windows 98, but, I've been adamant trying to get everything working. I'm running out of an Optiplex 780, with a Yamaha YMF724 sound card and an Nvidia 6600 GT PCIe card.

I've installed every driver available for the graphics card and have, currently, settled on 77.72 as the best driver for now. The issue I have is that, with the driver, I receive a Windows Protection Error when launching ms-dos from Windows. I also receive this error when choosing to "Restart into MS-DOS" from the start menu. When using the standard Win98 VGA driver, the problem does not exist.

I'm able to get around the error by booting the ms-dos prompt directly into fullscreen. After which, it will also launch in windowed just fine, until I reboot. But, I'm not sure why this is the case...

Are there any tools for debugging this sort of issue? Any thoughts on what I can try?

Reply 1 of 7, by dominusprog

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Try this one

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/win9x-6694/

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Reply 2 of 7, by Smalltalk

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None of the links on that page work for me, but, if it's the same as 66.94 listed here: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/nvidia-9x-gr … cs-drivers.html I've already tried it. Funnily enough, the one in the link I posted seems to actually have my device id (0140) listed as compatible. Every following driver I've had to add it myself to NVAML.INF

Reply 4 of 7, by Smalltalk

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Update after re-installing a fresh Windows 98 and Nvidia 77.72 driver: I still have the same issue, but, now there is a series of loud system beeps prior to opening the error prompt...

Reply 5 of 7, by Smalltalk

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Just another update: It looks like the issue doesn't occur when I'm using 16 colors. 256, 16-bit, and 32-bit all seem to cause the error to be raised when opening MS-DOS.

Reply 6 of 7, by Smalltalk

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Solved it. The card needed a bios update. I found a bios that correspond to my board's id, which can be retrieved using nvflash --version. Then I flashed the bios while booted into DOS, and, like magic, my general protection error disappeared, and I've been able to open windowed MS-DOS again.

Hope this helps someone in the future!

Reply 7 of 7, by nputnam

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I've been having the same issue and I'm trying to replicate your success. I've updated my card to the latest bios and am not having any luck. Could you share some more details if you have them? make/model and bios version could be helpful.

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