swaaye wrote:

Seeing about 5 threads about this in the past year or so has me experimenting again. […]
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Seeing about 5 threads about this in the past year or so has me experimenting again.

Thus far I've found one example of DirectX 8-9 being a problem in 98SE. If you run a Vortex 2 card and play Wheel of Time, WoT.exe will completely lock the PC the second time you try to run the game. If I uninstall the Vortex 2 driver (2041) or revert to DirectX 7.0A, this no longer occurs. I tried DirectX 8.0, 8.1, 9.0b and 9.0c and each exhibits this issue.

Lots of games seem to work fine. I recall this being a problem with Sin and Homeworld but I haven't gotten to those games yet. Homeworld Cataclysm works ok though.

So be wary of your old sound card drivers if you must run > DirectX 7.0a.

Yes, DirectX 9 (or even 8 for that matter) breaks certain games... MotoRacer is a good example.

mrau wrote:

http://www.falconfly.de/directx.htm

Great link, thanks Mrau.

swaaye wrote:

It's not. I know the ATI installer warns you about it but you can definitely run say Catalyst 6.2 with DirectX 7. I was doing this just a few days ago.

Yeah, except the ATi installer won't let you go any further without DirectX 9.0c.

mockingbird wrote:

Yes, DirectX 9 (or even 8 for that matter) breaks certain games... MotoRacer is a good example.

Moto Racer runs fine over here (Windows 98 SE, DirectX 9.0c, Forceware 45.23, GeForce4 MX440). Just needs a couple of command line switches:

-NoDuplicateSurfaces (fixes white bikes problem)
-ZBuffer (gets rid of Z-fighting artifacts)

You can also remove the 30 FPS cap with -FrameRateMax0, but this breaks the physics to some degree. Running with the -h switch will print a full list of command line switches.

Edit: This is with the 3.22 patch.

notsofossil wrote:

Yeah, except the ATi installer won't let you go any further without DirectX 9.0c.

I wasn't sure about this so I reinstalled 98SE from scratch and installed Catalyst 6.2 for a 9800 Pro. It doesn't even warn about DirectX version. It installed without issue on 7.0a.

Maybe some other Catalyst versions are a problem.

swaaye wrote:

notsofossil wrote:

Yeah, except the ATi installer won't let you go any further without DirectX 9.0c.

I wasn't sure about this so I reinstalled 98SE from scratch and installed Catalyst 6.2 for a 9800 Pro. It doesn't even warn about DirectX version. It installed without issue on 7.0a.

Maybe some other Catalyst versions are a problem.

True. I'm installing 6.2 right now on a clean windows 98SE install and no problems with DirectX.

I think the ATi Catalyst driver I'm using is different or newer than 6.2. Are you using standard Catalyst driver packages? I more frequently use those from OEM builders like Dell and IBM.

notsofossil wrote:

I think the ATi Catalyst driver I'm using is different or newer than 6.2. Are you using standard Catalyst driver packages? I more frequently use those from OEM builders like Dell and IBM.

It's the 6.2 direct from AMD/ATI.

I am positive I've seen their installer warn about having DirectX up to date but apparently that's not with 6.2.

swaaye wrote:

I typically run DirectX 7.0a because after lots of experimentation over the years I've found this version to be the last really stable choice. Anything beyond that and I see more frequent BSODs, especially with subsequent launches of 3D programs during a single session.

Did you have BSODs ecc... with DX8 or DX9 just when using an Aureal Vortex2 (driver newer than 2015) or in general?

I don't understand if the common DX7 reccomandation is valid only for Aureal cards or always.

colpoz wrote:

I don't understand if the common DX7 reccomandation is valid only for Aureal cards or always.

You can test special cases, but recommendation for hardware case is for any system using VxD drivers for things like Sound and Joystick, or old Video driver versions, like nVidia Detonator series (Detonator works better with Dx7). For systems using only WDM drivers (.sys drivers), is pretty safe to update to Dx9, taking in count it doesn't break any of your software or games.

Hope this is not too much of a necro, but wanted to share my experience. I stumbled upon this thread while researching an issue I was having with artifacts with my Voodoo2SLi and Forsaken. I first tried different Voodoo2 drivers, and found no resolution to issues I was seeing. In fact, I referenced Phil's SLi scaling documentation and confirmed the same driver versions. When I ran the game with my primary display device, I saw no graphical issues. I then began to suspect either some compatibility issue with DirectX9.0a version or a problem with Voodoo2 cards. I considered using a DirectX removal tool to roll back to earlier version, but opted to upgrade to DirectX9.0c first. I am happy to report this removed the artifacts I had seen in Forsaken. Not conclusive evidence of a compatibility issue, but it resolved the issue I was seeing.

Hope someone like me finds it some day who had to learn it the hard way.
(Specs: nVIDIA FX5700; Driver 52.16; P4 1.7GHZ; ASUS P4P800-VM; Windows 98 SE)

DirectiX9c is an interesting case and a double-edged sword. One the one hand - it gives GeForce FX cards 3Dfx Glide support on Windows 98, on the other hand - you will be forced to use that Glide API because D3D support will become buggy for certain games with DX9c. Having installed 200+ games from roughly 1990-2001, I would wholeheartedly recommend DirectX7a, unless you want games like: Crimson Skies; GTAIII; Soul Reaver 2, etc., that require DirectX8.1a. Using something like nGlide on Windows 98 might sound nice but it's absolutely unnecessary and not very performant. If you decide to experiment with lower DirectX versions, you can uninstall it cleanly using DirectX Buster program.

There is this nasty process DDHELP.EXE (version: 4.09.0000.0900), it has something to do with DirectDraw, switching rendering modes, resolutions, returning control to OS once the game process is over, etc. It does not play well with many older games.

The indication that you are having problems with the DDHELP.EXE:
• 3D Game crashes on 2nd launch during the same Windows session, after it was once successfully launched once and then exited.
• Windows refuses to Shut Down after a 3D game was played and closed.
• 3D application exit to desktop results in crash or error, especially, when 3D Application and Desktop have resolution mismatch.
• Changing Desktop resolution after you have played a full screen 3D game.
• 3D Game crashes after intro video when game attempts to launch main menu that is different resolution than the video 240p -> 480p.
• Crash on launch when Desktop and 3D Game have different resolutions and color depth.

How to alleviate the problems to an extent:
• Match Desktop and 3D Game resolutions and color bit depth, e.g., 640x480@16bpp.
• Use nGlide wrapper and select Glide API for the games that support it.
• Restart PC after you play a problematic game. May cause PC to hang on restart.

From the top of my head, some of the games affected: Carmageddon 2; Soul Reaver 1; Nightmare Creatures; G-Police; etc. Mostly 1997-1998 native Windows games, and Playstation or Saturn ports.

Thank you for your usefull opinions.