Looking at the Requirements and Patch sections on the old Codemasters page, the game was written for DirectX 6. The Patch page indicates that DirectPlay Version 6.1a is included with the official Version 4.1 patch. When you install the game, do you completely bypass DirectX 6 installation, or do you let it run and install any needed components? It might pay to let the DirectX 6 installer run during game installation.

Also, you don't mention what graphics driver you are using with the NVIDIA card. There might be a sweet spot for compatibility with regard to the NVIDIA driver version, so you might do some experimentation there.

I skip DX6 installation but I let it install DirectPlay which it asks for separately, and that seems to install fine. When I tell it to install DX6 from the installer, it says I don't have enough hard drive space for that (of course I have oceans of hard drive space, I assume it's just poor "onerror" coding in the installer; when I try to install DX6 separately from the game CD it just says that I have a higher version already.) Anyway, when the game did work in the past, I was also running DX7 or higher.

For the Ti4200 I use the V81.98 drivers. The reason for going with these recent drivers is that my PC really did not like the older, "safer" ones causing me to have to do a full Windows reinstall more times than I can count. With 81.98 I finally had no crashes/errors (if I'm not confused with other issues, I think it were nasty VxD errors upon booting W98) and a nice 3DMark score. I can try to roll back to a recommended V40.something (don't know by heart) but I'm afraid it will brick my system *again*. But it might be the cause of the issues, as the Ti4200 is the only truly relevant change in my config compared to when it did work. The only other thing I think about is that in the past I did not have the proper chipset drivers and maybe the game doesn't like AGP 2x or something like that?

I installed the 43.45 drivers, and that didn't help. Luckily the pc still works. Setting AGP at 1x also didn't help. Disabling the sound card didn't help.

Would it be worthwhile to do a full reinstall of the pc once more and try toca 2 with only the chipset drivers installed, so before even installing graphics card drivers or voodoos? Just as a way of finding the issue.

You mentioned that your original configuration only had 256MB of RAM. Did you try to go back to 256MB, or are you still using 512MB? That would be an easy thing to try before you take drastic measures.

I can try that, but it was my understanding that up to 512 W98 was happy?

I haven't experimented on the hardware side yet, but I'm now in doubt whether my previous successful install of TOCA 2 was on this PC in its previous configuration, or on a different W98 PC altogether. In any case, TOCA 2 *should* be able to run on this config as it's all quite period correct hardware so the mystery remains.

I've checked my chat history: TOCA2 ran on this pc with 512mb and the Rage Pro, but using the voodoos.

So the only difference now is the Ti4200 instead of the Rage Pro, and chipset drivers so some influence on things like AGP.

I just tried TOCA2 on my Win98 PC. No voodoos, just a Geforce Ti 4600. It seems to work fine. Though when I first tried the menu was crazy fast and the physics in game was broken, and very high input lag. Enabling vsync seemed to resolve that

Thanks for trying! Hmmm so weird that mine suddenly doesn't want to launch at all. Having the correct chipset drivers should only make it more likely to work...

I'll try with vsync on for the heck of it, but no high hopes there.

Vsync did not help, I also only found a vsync setting in the ti4200 software, not separately for the voodoos.

Removed all of directx: now dx6 does install from the cd. No difference though.

Booted in safe mode: now it does open the setup screen! To no avail, as safe mode knows no graphics cards.

So it is something that is loaded in normal boit and not in safe mode causing the issue.

Could anybody share the setup file that is made after saving setup? Maybe that way it will skip setup and just load the game. I do not have that file as I've not been able to save a setup.

I am not sure what you mean by setup file?

It is my understanding that a config file is created in the main TOCA2 folder that stores the games's config as saved from the TOCA settings program. And I assume that when this file exists, Launcher.exe goes straight to the game instead of the settings program.

From my (limited) understanding, the 512MB “limit” in 98 includes all addressable RAM, including the Video memory.

The Rage would have had a lot less VRAM than the Geforce 4? That coupled with the error message that the installer throws would suggest a memory problem.

Have you tried 256MB of system RAM with the GF4?

Or the R.Lowe patch?

I have not tried it with 256 ram yet, but it did work with 512 + 2 voodoo 12mb + rage before. Also, the installer does not throw any error when installing on a pc that is not yet beyond DX6.

I will try the Loew patches.