VOGONS

Pros and cons of DX 7.0, 8.1, 9.0c on Win98SE with older 3D graphics cards (Rendition Verite 2200, Permedia 2, Savage 4)

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First post, by eliot_new

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Hello everybody

As I have 3 cheap and very old graphics cards, I m currently trying to install and test on Win 98SE.

Underlying hardware: P3-450, BX mainboard, 768 MB SDRAM, 32 GB SD-card on IDE adapter.

I wonder whether it has some consequences if I install DX 7.0, DX 8.1, DX 9.0c?

Currently I m testing the Diamond Stealth S540 Savage4 with 32MB, AGP on Win98SE and DX 7.0.

Installed Deus Ex 1 and Quake 2 so far, next games will be WoT, Unreal 1, Tomb Raider 1 & 2, Midtown Madness, Drakan, Wipeout XL and all the other games recommended on vogons...

What could happen if I install, let say, DX 8.1, will this affect DX 7.0 renderer i.e. in Deus Ex 1, WoT, Unreal 1, Rune etc?

Same question for DX 9.0c?

I have read that Microsoft programmed DX to separate the render paths and that every version is backward compatible with the older ones?

This means I could start and play every DX 5.0 or DX 6.0 game on Win98SE with installed DX 9.0c?

# w98SE . P3 450 . 768MB . QDI440BX . V3 AGP . 3dfx 6MB . AWE64 . GUS Pico 2.0 . 80GB HDD
# wXP . P3 1G . 512MB . ASUSCUSL2-C . MSI FX 5600 . 3dfx 6MB . Audigy 1 . 80GB HDD plan
# w8.1 . i7 4790K . 32GB . ASUSH97M-Plus . GTX 970 . AC97 . 1TB SSD . 6TB HDD

Reply 1 of 1, by Jasin Natael

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Firstly, are you running a patch for the 768MB ram size? 512MB is the max supported by vanilla 98SE. More can cause issues.
With that hardware there really is no point in running more that 128MB, maybe 256MB if you ever upgrade the CPU/GPU.
Secondly, do you intend on running any video cards that support later version of Direct X? Personally I run whatever the latest version my video card supports.
For 98SE DX7-8.1 is all I would bother with, unless I'm needing NGlide or something to work with DX9 hardware.

My main 98 retro PC for example has a Radeon 8500, and thusly uses DX 8.1
I think (could be wrong) that Savage 4 supports DX7. I would assume that the older cards will work fine with it installed.
If you are too concerned you can always use something like Direct X Buster to strip out the later version and reinstall and older version.
I've done this, don't really like doing it though, 98 can be temperamental.

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