HugoBoss1985 wrote on 2026-07-10, 18:23:

So I build this very late Win98SE machine with an Nforce 3 250 board, 512mb ram, Audigy 2ZS and an AGP card. […]
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So I build this very late Win98SE machine with an Nforce 3 250 board, 512mb ram, Audigy 2ZS and an AGP card.

Several games work fine: Aliens Versus Predator Gold, Max Payne, Return To Castle Wolfenstein.

I read (and watched a lot of PhilsComputerlab videos) that the Geforce FXs would be a better choice for Win98SE, since I would not be playing DX9 games.

I started with an FX 5900 XT and everything worked fine, but I was limited to 85hz at 1280x1024. This card did do 1600x1200 but only 60hz.
Anyway, Project I.G.I (Im Going In) was working fine.
I knew my Radeon 9600 XT and 9800 Pro did 1280x1024 120hz, this is with the Catalyst 6.2 driver for Win98SE (4.3 will "only" go to 100 hz, still more than the Geforce FX cards).
The 9600 XT would be fine for my needs (except Max Payne could use a faster 9800 Pro).
Funny thing is that the 9600 XT will not do 1600x1200 regardless of refresh rate in my case. (DVI to HDMI adapter and HDMI cable) But I prefer the highest possible refresh rate, so 1280x1024 at 120hz is very smooth!

But now, with the 9600 XT instead of the 5900 XT, Project I.G.I. would not start anymore.

The game would give the normal black startup window but would immediately throw a "Fatal error: Couldn't create DirectDraw object Direct X error message: DDERR_CANT CREATEDC"
Not much to be found about this one through Google...

I tried fully removing and reïnstalling it but that did not help.

DXDiag did not show major problems... but I noticed that, only after trying to start Project IGI, Max Payne with also give an error about DX8 being needed.
When I then checked back in DXDiag, i saw that all DirectX features were suddenly "not available" !
Rebooted the system and everything (Except Project IGI) was working fine again...

Because DirectX 9.0a was installed with the Audigy 2ZS installation I tried "DXbuster" and removed DX completely.
I then installed DX7 which came with the Project IGI setup.
Project IGI still gave the same error.

But when checking DXDiag this time, I had 2 "display" tabs instead of one (with the DX9 DXDiag).
I presume this is due to the Ati Radeon 9600 XT having 2 entries in device manager.
The 2nd one being "Secondary".
Anyway I now noticed (Before launching IGI and after a fresh reboot) that the secondary display in DXdiag had "Direct3D Acceleration" set to "Not Available".
So I then disabled the secondary Ati Radeon 9600 XT entry in device manager.

After rebooting I could finally start and play Project IGI with the 9600 XT !

But here comes the challenge that I am not able to solve myself.
The game looks kind-of OK but there are some artifacts (the 9600 XT is 100% fine, also runs 3Dmark2001SE fine) and I can see through some of the buildings(especially the crew quarters, with beds in the first map) buildings.

Project IGI normally has 2 "Render Device" options in the "Graphics Configuration" menu.
The default is always "Primary Display Driver" and normally one is able to select another option, which is described as the graphics card that is present in the system.
I am guessing that, because I have to disable the 2nd Ati Radeon 9600 XT in device manager, I am unable to select/change my Render Device in Project IGI?

Does anyone know another (besides disabling the 2nd 9600 XT entry in device manager) workaround for this Project IGI startup issue on Win98SE with Radeon 9000 series cards (At least, 9600 XT and 9800 Pro)?
And/or perhaps a solution for the graphics/visual issues with Project IGI?
Other games still work fine when I disable the secondary 9600 XT entry in device manager.

Selecting Primary display driver as default is quite often occurrence in game settings, I don't believe there is any problem there. But the artifacting you describe definitely points to driver issues in your case. That line of Radeons work much better under Windows XP. Now I know your build is Win 98... but you should try XP just to see if it's driver related, and I bet it is. Or try different driver under Win 9X.

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-07-10, 19:58:

HugoBoss1985 wrote on 2026-07-10, 18:23:

So I build this very late Win98SE machine with an Nforce 3 250 board, 512mb ram, Audigy 2ZS and an AGP card. […]
Show full quote

So I build this very late Win98SE machine with an Nforce 3 250 board, 512mb ram, Audigy 2ZS and an AGP card.

Several games work fine: Aliens Versus Predator Gold, Max Payne, Return To Castle Wolfenstein.

I read (and watched a lot of PhilsComputerlab videos) that the Geforce FXs would be a better choice for Win98SE, since I would not be playing DX9 games.

I started with an FX 5900 XT and everything worked fine, but I was limited to 85hz at 1280x1024. This card did do 1600x1200 but only 60hz.
Anyway, Project I.G.I (Im Going In) was working fine.
I knew my Radeon 9600 XT and 9800 Pro did 1280x1024 120hz, this is with the Catalyst 6.2 driver for Win98SE (4.3 will "only" go to 100 hz, still more than the Geforce FX cards).
The 9600 XT would be fine for my needs (except Max Payne could use a faster 9800 Pro).
Funny thing is that the 9600 XT will not do 1600x1200 regardless of refresh rate in my case. (DVI to HDMI adapter and HDMI cable) But I prefer the highest possible refresh rate, so 1280x1024 at 120hz is very smooth!

But now, with the 9600 XT instead of the 5900 XT, Project I.G.I. would not start anymore.

The game would give the normal black startup window but would immediately throw a "Fatal error: Couldn't create DirectDraw object Direct X error message: DDERR_CANT CREATEDC"
Not much to be found about this one through Google...

I tried fully removing and reïnstalling it but that did not help.

DXDiag did not show major problems... but I noticed that, only after trying to start Project IGI, Max Payne with also give an error about DX8 being needed.
When I then checked back in DXDiag, i saw that all DirectX features were suddenly "not available" !
Rebooted the system and everything (Except Project IGI) was working fine again...

Because DirectX 9.0a was installed with the Audigy 2ZS installation I tried "DXbuster" and removed DX completely.
I then installed DX7 which came with the Project IGI setup.
Project IGI still gave the same error.

But when checking DXDiag this time, I had 2 "display" tabs instead of one (with the DX9 DXDiag).
I presume this is due to the Ati Radeon 9600 XT having 2 entries in device manager.
The 2nd one being "Secondary".
Anyway I now noticed (Before launching IGI and after a fresh reboot) that the secondary display in DXdiag had "Direct3D Acceleration" set to "Not Available".
So I then disabled the secondary Ati Radeon 9600 XT entry in device manager.

After rebooting I could finally start and play Project IGI with the 9600 XT !

But here comes the challenge that I am not able to solve myself.
The game looks kind-of OK but there are some artifacts (the 9600 XT is 100% fine, also runs 3Dmark2001SE fine) and I can see through some of the buildings(especially the crew quarters, with beds in the first map) buildings.

Project IGI normally has 2 "Render Device" options in the "Graphics Configuration" menu.
The default is always "Primary Display Driver" and normally one is able to select another option, which is described as the graphics card that is present in the system.
I am guessing that, because I have to disable the 2nd Ati Radeon 9600 XT in device manager, I am unable to select/change my Render Device in Project IGI?

Does anyone know another (besides disabling the 2nd 9600 XT entry in device manager) workaround for this Project IGI startup issue on Win98SE with Radeon 9000 series cards (At least, 9600 XT and 9800 Pro)?
And/or perhaps a solution for the graphics/visual issues with Project IGI?
Other games still work fine when I disable the secondary 9600 XT entry in device manager.

Selecting Primary display driver as default is quite often occurrence in game settings, I don't believe there is any problem there. But the artifacting you describe definitely points to driver issues in your case. That line of Radeons work much better under Windows XP. Now I know your build is Win 98... but you should try XP just to see if it's driver related, and I bet it is. Or try different driver under Win 9X.

Thanks for chiming in and your time.
I also think it might not be related.
With the fx 5900 xt I haven't noticed a difference between either option in Project IGI

You are correct about these cards and windows xp. But for a high refresh rate Win98se experience the ati 9000 series is nice.

I will try different drivers tomorrow and report back here.

No luck, tried different drivers between Catalyst 4.1 and 6.2, the issues persists. It seems that Ati Radeon 9000 (RV360 at least) and Project IGI in Win98SE don't play nice.

Hey what monitor you are using ? It seems strange that 5900xt cannot do 120hz.

ciornyi wrote on Yesterday, 16:07:

Hey what monitor you are using ? It seems strange that 5900xt cannot do 120hz.

Indeed! It would be great to have 1280x1024 120hz. Video Settings report 120hz available but it will always go to 75 (reported by monitor osd) even when setting 120hz. I have to check which monitor. It is a digital inputs only 1440p 180hz ips screen.
Hd7970 with WinXP does 144hz 1440p with it.

Geforce 2 gts gives me very low resolution on it. When connecting that to a monitor with analog (vga) outputs and hdmi, it works much better with higher resolution and refresh rate.
Max 1024x768 60hz and doom (dos) and doom 2 (dos) have garbled starting screen and crash.

Geforce 2 gts works 100% with duke nukem vesa modes and max payne.

So maybe it is because the monitor only has digital inputs.

I do everything i mentioned with the dvi outputs on the graphics cards, a dvi to hdmi adapter and hdmi cable. Cable standard is not the issue.

Only a dvi-d (D-L)to hdmi adapter works with this monitor, dvi-i (D-L)to hdmi gives black screen with monitor signal light sometimes changing.

Anyway 1280x1024 120hz is possible with 9600xt and 9800pro with catalyst 6.2 for win98. Under Winxp 120hz is not possible!

Have you considered dual booting with Windows XP? That would likely resolve issues with newer games and you could still jump back into Win98SE for earlier games from 1997-2000 that don't play nice with WinXP or maybe just feel more at home with Win98SE for you.

Garrett W wrote on 38 minutes ago:

Have you considered dual booting with Windows XP? That would likely resolve issues with newer games and you could still jump back into Win98SE for earlier games from 1997-2000 that don't play nice with WinXP or maybe just feel more at home with Win98SE for you.

Not really, I have a dedicated Winxp high refresh rate / eax 5.0 gaming machine. (3570k, z77, 7970, xfi) I would also rather use less valueable/rare parts for Winxp.

I am only having issues with Project IGI and Ati atm.

But maybe i should ditch this win98se system. ..Already have 2, 1 for dos and midi games with awe64 value)and 1 for 3dfx with voodoo 3.