I don't know Giants: Citizen Kabuto, the other two games should run well even on a PC half this fast with maxed out graphics in higher resolution than what your are using. This should be a triple-digit-frame-rate PC for those games.

thanks for the confirmation. i have a vague memory of playing half-life 2 with my 9600 xt (the card even came with a code for the game) back in 2004 with acceptable framerates so i was a bit confused by how this current computer is running. not sure what the problem could be. my first thought is the board but it's a stab in the dark

Virtua wrote on 2022-12-23, 12:26:

there are a couple of things i'm unsure of. firstly, agp fast write is disabled despite enabling this setting in the bios. secondly - and this may be related to the first issue - my board is not strictly an asus k8v-mx, but a k8v-mx/s by fujitsu siemens, aka the d1711. it was a bit difficult to track down updates for the board but i updated the bios to the latest.

Updating the BIOS to the latest version is likely what caused the performance drop. See this thread for more details. With that board, you want to stick with the earliest possible BIOS version, something like v0112.

i've been installing v2.1 of the unofficial service pack so i haven't tried a windows install without it yet but that will probably be my next attempt.

Don't use unofficial service packs. Apply this Microsoft Security Update CD instead. If you need USB flash stick access then install Nusb 3.3 as well. Don't use the newer Nusb 3.6 because that version messes with Win98 system files.

thank you for the help! will try everything suggested, but reading through the link you provided i see that you've personally experienced almost identical issues to me, including agp texture acceleration being disabled under dxdiag. that was something i noticed the other day but slipped my mind until i saw your post

There is another thread related to this issue - Not Another Ultimate Windows 98 Build

My MSI K8T Neo V has the same problem in Windows 98. Fortunately I never intended it being used as a Windows 98 machine. Solving this issue will need someone to fix VIA AGP driver to initialize correctly. Most likely it completely fails to initialize and AGP ends up functioning as a faster PCI.

i flashed the board's bios to the absolute earliest and it worked... somewhat. performance is definitely better in all games but still not as great as i expected. max payne still has performance issues even at 800 x 600 with anti-aliasing disabled. agp texture acceleration under dxdiag is now enabled but i still can't get agp fast write to work, though i can't imagine that would make a huge difference. i downloaded every bios release from the official site so i don't mind trying different versions but to avoid this headache altogether i may try a different board

Virtua wrote on 2022-12-24, 20:02:

i flashed the board's bios to the absolute earliest and it worked... somewhat. performance is definitely better in all games but still not as great as i expected. max payne still has performance issues even at 800 x 600 with anti-aliasing disabled. agp texture acceleration under dxdiag is now enabled but i still can't get agp fast write to work, though i can't imagine that would make a huge difference. i downloaded every bios release from the official site so i don't mind trying different versions but to avoid this headache altogether i may try a different board

I suppose these issues occur only in Windows 98? I just got an MaxData PC with the same board... K8V-MX/S, but I can't find any BIOS files for it anywhere, where did you manage to find them?

Shader_BiH wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:46:

K8V-MX/S, but I can't find any BIOS files for it anywhere, where did you manage to find them?

Officially, this motherboard is called Fujitsu Siemens Computers D1711 and should be installed in Scenico n (or p) 320.
https://webdownloads4.ts.fujitsu.com/download … _10_1081096.PDF
And Fujitsu didn't really release BIOS updates that often, especially if it didn't think there were any stability issues.

I would recommend creating a separate thread.
Upload your BIOS.
Other (happy) owners (if there are any) will share their versions of the file.

shevalier wrote on 2025-12-12, 18:18:

Officially, this motherboard is called Fujitsu Siemens Computers D1711 and should be installed in Scenico n (or p) 320. https:// […]
Show full quote

Shader_BiH wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:46:

K8V-MX/S, but I can't find any BIOS files for it anywhere, where did you manage to find them?

Officially, this motherboard is called Fujitsu Siemens Computers D1711 and should be installed in Scenico n (or p) 320.
https://webdownloads4.ts.fujitsu.com/download … _10_1081096.PDF
And Fujitsu didn't really release BIOS updates that often, especially if it didn't think there were any stability issues.

I would recommend creating a separate thread.
Upload your BIOS.
Other (happy) owners (if there are any) will share their versions of the file.

Thank you for the info shevalier. 😀 I was just trying to determine in what models was that board installed... even AI was confused with that. They seem to be SFF models of bigger SCENIC series with "less advanced" chipset. I also have a 1.06 revision board, but I plan to run XP SP1 on that machine, not Win 98, so maybe I won't even need to change it. For some reason Fujitsu Siemens global support site stoped providing these, or at least I can't find them. There are some microcode updates, but that's something else... I think... Nevertheless I'd like to have the files in my archive just in case I decide for different config later on. I will make a new thread once I set it up. Thanks again!

Max Payne also has an issue where movement is jerky when the framerate gets too high, see if forcing vsync helps

IIRC, some issues with ATI Radeon cards and VIA chipsets were solved by forcing AGP 4x in BIOS setup.