Suddenly, newer drivers were found out of nowhere.
http://www.nvworld.ru/drivers/old/WideWin9x.rar

Those drivers are marked Sept 11 2006 and are believed to provide widescreen support for all nVidia graphic cards up to 6800.
Series 7 entries are absent in the inf so you'll have to edit if file yourself.

My version is 81.98 and I thought this was the last Win98SE - compatible version.

This is quite interesting considering the last offical reliease was indeed 81.98! I'll give these a try and see how they go. Hoping these drivers can be tricked like the (really) old ones to unlock higher resolutions despite my monitor internally giving a max of 1024x768 (really supports a max of 1152x864).

EDIT:
From what it seems, I can't "trick" these either into using 1152x864. Can only do so by booting w/ monitor off but gets capped again at 1024x768 once I open a full-screen app that changes screen resolution. Additionally attempting to use the NVidia control panel under the advanced tab fails with an exception:



All-in-all though they seem to be working and the nvidia configuration icon in the system tray works +has extra options. I prefer to configure my card using riva-tuner v2.0[Final] anyway so I just removed it.

edit2: Aside from the widescreen-support I cannot quite find ANY reference to this driver version on the net. Perhaps it was a once silently-leaked beta version?

This post has been edited by Chozo4: Apr 29 2007, 10:51 PM

Doesn't the forceware drivers support higher resolutions than 1024x768 under Win9x

Posted modded NVidia video driver 82.69 for Windows 98/ME:

From README.TXT:Please test this modded INF with as many NVidia video cards as possible, to make sure it works ok.

I've tested 82.69 with a GeForce Ti 4600 AGP, worked perfect, including overclocking the card.
I'm also going to test it with a couple of 6xxxx + 7xxx series soon.

The only bug:
same as older 81.xx [81.85 + 81.98] series drivers, after I exit Windows GUI to native MS-DOS, and then want to go back into Windows [run WIN.COM from C:\ prompt], the computer locks up.

Enjoy.

P.S.:
All newer NVidia + ATI video drivers allow for resolutions much higher than 1024x768, but the trick is to customize the control panel to increase the vertical refresh frequency for all supported resolutions past the default 60/75/85 Hz, built into most drivers.
You also need a CRT monitor which supports higher frequencies [most do, i.e. 100/120 Hz].
But if using an LCD monitor, you're stuck with 60 Hz.
Newer LCDs I believe support 70/75 Hz. [?]

HTH

It would be interesting if you can run nvidia's 7-series cards with this driver. I have tried the 81.98 when I got my 6800GT but it was very bad, like a bad beta driver. I went back to an 7x.xx driver that also doesn't work 100% but at least it gives me proper performance.

I don't have widescreen so I guess these wouldn't add to what the 8198 gives me, however I have read that the last NVidia driver to contain certain (unknown) items in it that affect 9x compatibility with older games was the 6694 driver.

I've downloaded that from NVidia. The readme for it says it's the first to add support for my 6600GT card (well, it says the 6000 series). It also was the first for Direct X 9.0c I think, with previous ones using Direct X 9.0b support. I don't think it includes the Pixal Shader 2.0 for newer games though. These, from what I've read, are needed if you want older games to function that will not run with the newer drivers.

I'll be trying these shortly as I redo things from ATI to NVidia and include 98SE in my mix again. Perhaps you can look at the 6694's to see if the newer cards from the 7000 series can successfully work if adding them to the inf?

The only reason I'm switching to my NVidia card is for the superior Linux support. Darned shame I need to because I loved my ATI x850 in 98SE and had the known problems using the NVidia 6600GT on 98SE in the past. But I was using later drivers. Maybe this old thing actually will make the card work properly on 98SE? I don't care about newer games on 98SE as I have all older games. A couple of exceptions, yeah, but I'll have Vista for that (which also works better with ATI at this point, sheesh).

Gave the drivers a test run last night. They are working pretty solid with a decent framerate. Seems a bit more stable though as well.



Of course but it's hard to set a higher resolution than what your monitor internally reports even though the monitor can support higher. The driver itself hard-caps the max resolution to what the montor itself reports.

IE:My monitor internally reports a max of 1024x768 but can actually display up to 1152x864 and as such the driver limiting the max to 1024x768 and so not allowing you to set a custom resolution any higher. It was able to keep it set to 1152x768 using the older detonator drivers as long as I booted the system with the monitor off. However, now you can still do it but the driver resets the cap back to whatever the monitor internally reports after exiting out of a full-screen app using OGL or DX.



I would be interested in finding out about this myself as well actually. If they do work on the higher-series cards then NVidia will end up getting a little more funding from my pocket as I would be upgrading the card at that point.. ^.^

This post has been edited by Chozo4: Apr 30 2007, 02:29 PM

XFX 6200 graphics card with 512MB video RAM; 98SE2ME + most other upgrades:

With one proviso (last sentence below) it works fine @ 1024 x 768; 32 bit; 85 Hz on my 17 inch monitor (CRT).

As with previous 81.98 driver, am unable to get greater than 85 Hz, though when I boot (dual boot) to XP can get stable 100 HZ. Had hoped that this version would likewise give 100 Hz for win98SE.

Unfortunately I cannot get large font (Advanced tab) with 82.69. I could with 81.98. I can set large font but on reboot it still shows small font.

It has been reported that this driver *works* on some PCI Express GeForce [7600 GS] video adapters!

Which 1 did you mean, the original:
http://www.nvworld.ru/drivers/old/WideWin9x.rar
or the modded one:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/NV8269.EXE
or both, reported to work with PCI-X adapters?

BTW:
I've already added all available hardware IDs into the INF, including the PCI-X ones. The INF has all NVidia IDs up to the newest 7xxx series.
If it helps, I can also add the 8xxx series IDs.
Do you think I should?

Just to add, that for me at any rate (with 6200) the previous 81.98 driver is better, for the reason given. Have reverted to it.

I don't understand all your resolution and refresh rate problems. You install the card driver, you install the screen driver, that's it. I can choose all resolutions that are working with my 17" CRT (syncmaster 797mb), up to 2048x1536 and all refresh modes like 60, 70, 72, 75, 85, 100, and if I go down with the resolution (I use 1024x768) I can get 120 or 140 too.

I don't understand it either ;-) But it exists as a fact. Maybe it's graphics card (manufacture) related. This card is XFX6200.

Be careful to *never* select/use frequencies that were not on the list of your particular monitor (CRT) for a specific resolution.
If you do, your monitor may just die.
More info:
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip23.htm#OVRR

HTH

Man, I wish I had a nice little 7950gt to test this out !
Thanks for those babies!

By the way, about widescreen support... I have quite a few questions. Can those drivers diplay the desktop with a wide (but not stretched) resolution?
Or do the screen drivers take care of that too?