Any updates?

I would like to share some extensive use of v0.2 adapter since my prev post.
The impressions are for Asrock Z87M-Pro4, ESS1868F + wp32. SC55mkII SF2, Arachno and Chorium SF's are okay for Doom/Duke3d and has unpleasant instruments volume balance in other titles.
I made sata to atx24 "connector" and get rid off one more PSU in the case (three of four required voltages: 3.3,12,5). -12V - direct wire from mobo ATX connector.

DOS support - excellent. Dune2/LOL/DOOM "the system" still requires SFX proper init, like fastdoom or duke3d. Without - no sfx. Also Quake dos will run with channels reversed if not initialized "proper way".
LandsOfLore/Dune2 - smooth, requires first 16M of ext mem free. Mean getxms 16384, smartdrv, freexms - okay.

Latest BIOS for Z87m-Pro4 brings 1920x1200 support for IGP, titles with support of custom resolutions runs great - qdos, q2dos, 100'ish FPS.

The issue I'm fighting now with is - win98 and/or Me (via 98quickinstall github) refused to load drivers for any graphics adapter: I have X850 PCIe, bunch of 7900 (GT/GS/Quadro), 6800GT-ish quadro 3400 - no luck. Device manager told me there's resource conflict where graphics card conflicting with 00-7F ports (!), conflicting with keyboard and something else (nvidia case) and 00-FF ports in ATI case. Spent two days trying different variants, no luck at all. Graphics adapter "from the start" even without drivers shows "?" and resource conflict . Vogons has thread for that with solution I cannot afford - disable ACPI in BIOS (no such option) and disable ACPI in windows (easy).
I have some more motherboards waiting for tests (Z87m-D3H Giga and Z97M-Plus Asus). Can't figure out what purpose for 98 setup here though, as all of titles of interest runs great with patches on w11, including Unreal Gold which by Rivatuner didn't considered as a game, so low resources rqrd.

Next steps I'll focus on - GRUB and "incorporating" sapphisa default ports init to the GRUB. For multiOS boot.

vsharun wrote on Yesterday, 09:09:

Next steps I'll focus on - GRUB and "incorporating" sapphisa default ports init to the GRUB. For multiOS boot.

Don't know if there's any boot loader that can touch PCI configuration registers directly.

Personally I use GRUB4DOS to perform such multi-booting, particularly for WinNT family (up to XP/2003).

- First boot to DOS (directly if possible, or use GRUB4DOS).
- Set up the ports with the utilities.
- Optionally init the sound card with UNISOUND (for PnP sound cards).
- Go back to GRUB4DOS and choose to boot to the OS of choice.

Note that PnP cards initialized with UNISOUND will work with non-PnP drivers afterwards. This is especially useful for PnP Sound Blaster 16 when using Windows 3.1's default Sound Blaster drivers (NT 3.51 also).

LSS10999 wrote on Yesterday, 13:40:

Don't know if there's any boot loader that can touch PCI configuration registers directly.
Personally I use GRUB4DOS to perform such multi-booting, particularly for WinNT family (up to XP/2003).

boot.S (dense space, coz should fit MBR) and diskboot.S (should be enough) both in real mode stage of GRUB, therefore no restrictions.
Also converting sapphisa.c to the GRUB module quite possible.

>vsharun
For Win98 you need R.Loew's memory patch and PCIe vram patch if your VGA has more that 256MB. I successfully ran nvidia 7600 and 7900 PCIe but I had 256MB versions that didn't need patch. I then replaced it by GTX970 - no way for win98 just generic 2D VBEMP driver ( I could put some older VGA to second PCIe if needed)

RayeR wrote on Yesterday, 16:24:

>vsharun
For Win98 you need R.Loew's memory patch and PCIe vram patch if your VGA has more that 256MB. I successfully ran nvidia 7600 and 7900 PCIe but I had 256MB versions that didn't need patch. I then replaced it by GTX970 - no way for win98 just generic 2D VBEMP driver ( I could put some older VGA to second PCIe if needed)

All of my PCIe's graphics for win98 are 256M.
Just put PCI S3 Virge, clean setup and voila - no issues, even AHCI SATA SSD are ok, 3.2Gb RAM available.
Once I put 6800/7900 PCIe adapters there's PCI-to-PCI bridge new devices found and after that - question mark on PCI VGA graphics card with conflicting resources range 00-7F as usual.
PS: after inserting PCIe 6800 system freezes in seconds after start. the situation exactly like in this case:
Re: NVIDIA 6800 PCIe (6-Series) works on Windows XP but not recognized on Windows 98SE ( PCIe to PCI Bridge)

I wonder why there's conflict in 00-7Fh IO range as VGA should not use such low addresses. Normally it uses something like 3B0-3DFh. Isn't it rather IRQ conflict? What PCIe slot did you used for your W98 card? The primary x16 one or second x4? I always used my PCIe cards in x16 primary slot but AFAIK e.g. Ruthan used setup with 2 PCIe VGAs (x4 for W98) and it worked for him. No idea what's going on there. Did you tried some minimal setup with all USB disabled, SATA in IDE compatible mode (no AHCI, no native)? On my P67 board I had some IRQ conflict of too many USB ports so I had to disable some of them in devmgr otherwise I got BSOD but still I have at least 2 USB2.0 ports working...
Ok, it's a bit offtopic here...

RayeR wrote on Yesterday, 20:20:

I wonder why there's conflict in 00-7Fh IO range as VGA should not use such low addresses. Normally it uses something like 3B0-3DFh. Isn't it rather IRQ conflict? What PCIe slot did you used for your W98 card? The primary x16 one or second x4? I always used my PCIe cards in x16 primary slot but AFAIK e.g. Ruthan used setup with 2 PCIe VGAs (x4 for W98) and it worked for him. No idea what's going on there. Did you tried some minimal setup with all USB disabled, SATA in IDE compatible mode (no AHCI, no native)? On my P67 board I had some IRQ conflict of too many USB ports so I had to disable some of them in devmgr otherwise I got BSOD but still I have at least 2 USB2.0 ports working...
Ok, it's a bit offtopic here...

Mind that PCI classic S3 Virge are ok despite working thru the bridge, with 3.2Gigs of RAM available fro w98. smooth 800x600 16bit. i5's IGP - also okay, no conflicts, but no driver.
Both PCIe slots conflicting. Ati X850 claims all first ports 0000-00FF BTW. Unsupported ATI some 3580 & 5770 - the same conflict without any drivers.
No IRQ conflicts, no memory space conflicts. I have tried himemx max=256M, the same: windows sees 256M and the same issue.
USB disabled globally - the same. IDE compatible mode - no w98 boot at all, GPF IIRC, only AHCI are bootable.
I think there's something inside Asrock's BIOS which prevents PCIe graphics in 98.
I have also Asrocks B75M-Pro4 to test, Gigabyte B75M-D3H, and (in "LDRQ works"-soldering/TPM cable production - Asus Z97m-plus. Plus two H61's. I'm interested mostly in z-series, because easy overclocking.

I have seen Omores videos for with Intel mobo and there's Asus boards everywhere:
Asus Pro H610-C D4 https://youtu.be/i_7yCmXm2wQ?si=sfO5MDX8KdfplGZw&t=112
ASUS Prime Z790-P WiFi DDR5

wait a moment........
Next, we patch the WINDOWS/SYSTEM/PCI.VXD file with ptchopt.exe.
Can't find this patch anywhere. ChatGPT said this patch is something which look like remedy for me. Part of RLoew's nvidia patch package, does nothing, mean the same issue with 00-7F conflict. Also I have tried four versions of PCI.vxd - vanilla and patched from 98SE original installation and vanilla/patched from 98lite installation - the same effect.

UPD: clean install of clean 98SE without any patches - the same
setup without /p i - clean device manager and refuses to accept nvidia drivers, adding PCI bus leads to the same issue - resource conflict.

UPD2: Gigabyte B85M-D3H - Quadro 3400 (6800GT/Ultra) - easy, 1920x1200 32bit color desktop without any w98 patches - clean 98se install with himemx /max=256M. The same w98 installation back to the Z87M-Pro4 - no way,resource conflict