[LLXX]

I was planning to upgrade my system hardware but still retain 98se OS.

I've been searching but I can't find any table on the Intel site that shows which chipsets have 98se drivers available. Are there any such tables been created? In particular, I'd like to see compatibility data for:

Intel® 975X, 955X, 925X/XE
Intel® 945G/P/PL/GT/GZ
Intel® 915G/GV/GL/PL/P
Intel® 910GL
Intel® 875P
Intel® 865G/GV/P/PE
Intel® 848P
Intel® 845/E/G/GE/GL/GV/PE

[rainyd]

I think, this is the right table: http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/...b/cs-008326.htm

This post has been edited by rainyd: 27 May 2006 - 11:58 PM

[LLXX]

That table is only for Intel-manufactured mobos (Intel® Desktop Boards), I was looking for information on whether or not e.g. an Asus mobo with a 975-based chipset is compatible with 98se.

It's still rather depressing that none of the Intel mobos with 900 series chipsets supports 98se

[randiroo76073]

Is it no go at the ASUS site? Intel is in MS's backpocket, has been for a long time! They want to kill 98 so we will all upgrade[more $] Thats why I started using AMD, most[if not all] of theirs are backwards compatable.

[Petr]

LLXX, on May 28 2006, 03:02 AM, said:

I was planning to upgrade my system hardware but still retain 98se OS.

I've been searching but I can't find any table on the Intel site that shows which chipsets have 98se drivers available. Are there any such tables been created? In particular, I'd like to see compatibility data for:

Intel® 975X, 955X, 925X/XE
Intel® 945G/P/PL/GT/GZ
Intel® 915G/GV/GL/PL/P
Intel® 910GL
Intel® 875P
Intel® 865G/GV/P/PE
Intel® 848P
Intel® 845/E/G/GE/GL/GV/PE

It depends what do you mean by compatibility.

The latest Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility that supports Win98SE and WinME is version 6.3.0.1007 and it supports:

ICH6 + Intel® 915G/P/GV
ICH6 + Intel® 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML
ICH5 + Intel® 82865G/PE/P/GV/82848P
ICH5 + Intel® 82875P/E7210
ICH4 + Intel® 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV/E

I have tried to modify the INF files for a board with 955X chipset and everything was fine, just Windows 98 SE was not able to swithch the computer off, but I have not tried it too long.

Where could be a problem - here is my experience from testing the following motherboards:
MSI 915GM Speedster-FA
Gigabyte GA-8I955X Pro
Gigabyte GA-8I915P Duo

PCI Express Graphics card
ATI X300SE with 128 MB RAM: always OK
ATI X550 with 256 MB RAM: small problems initially
Nvidia 6200 and 6200 Turbo Cache with 128 MB RAM: did not work in 915GM Speedster-FA (resources conflict), in Gigabyte boards OK
Nvidia 6600 with 256 MB RAM: Both in GA-8I955X Pro and GA-8I915P Duo it worked but some programs caused immediate absolute freezing of the system.
Always it is necessary to check if the selected graphics card is supported by the latest driver.
915GM chipset contains GMA900 graphics controller but there is no free Windows 98 Driver, just commercial from Scitech.

USB Controller
USB 2.0 Controllers are supported by Orangeware driver only:
Driver version 1.1.0.2: supports ICH4 and ICH5 southbridges
Driver version 2.4.2: supports ICH4 southbridges on certain motherboards
There is no Windows 98 support for USB 2.0 in ICH6 and ICH7 southbridges.
Since all southbridges are EHCI compliant and in Windows 2000 and XP use the same driver, I suppose it could be possible to modify it for ICH6/7, but I have not tried it.

PATA Controller
ICH5 contains 4 PATA channels, ICH6 and ICH7 2 PATA channels.
No Windows 98 driver is available from Intel (IAA is for ICH4 only) so ESDI_506.PDR has to be used.

SATA/RAID/AHCI Controller
There is no support for SATA/RAID/AHCI controllers in ICH5(-R), ICH6(-R) and ICH7(-R).
There are 4 modes of operation of PATA/SATA/RAID/AHCI controller in ICH6 and ICH7:
PATA only: SATA is disabled, just 2 PATA devices are visible to the OS.
SATA only: All four SATA channels are emulated as PATA, i.e. up to 4 devices are visible to the OS, but PATA port is disabled.
Enhanced: All ports works in native mode, 2 PATA are visible as PATA, 4 SATA are visible as SATA, but these SATA devices have no driver in Windows 98. Maybe it would not be a big problem to modify ESDI_506.PDR to work with SATA disks too?
Combined: In this mode the operating system sees 4 disks, 2 PATA and 2 SATA emulated as PATA. It can be selected whether what will be primary and what secondary controller. This mode seems to be the best because it enables to connect both PATA CD/DVD drive and SATA disk drive
BUT! BIOS in MSI 915GM Speedster does not support "Combined" mode! Both Gigabyte boards do. This kind of information is hard to find.
SATA emulated as PATA uses the standard ESDI_506.PDR driver and have the speed 150 MB/s (tested about 135 MB/s), i.e. the transfer speed is higher than highers speed that can be achieved by PATA interface.

Some boards have additional PATA and/or SATA controllers with Promise, Silicon Image, ITE and other chips, most of them have Windows 98 drivers but not all and it is necessary to check if they supports ATA devices (HDD) only or ATAPI (CDROMs) too. Most of them have RAID support.

Audio Controller
ICH5 southbridge supports AC97 codec, ICH6 and ICH7 both AC97 and Azalia (HDA) codecs.
There is no driver for HDA codecs for Windows 98. Scitech just made one for Windows NT 4.0 and would make the driver for Windows 98 if there will be commercial demand.
Some ICH6 motherboards have Azalia codec, some AC97 code, I have tested GA-8I915P Duo with Realtek AC97 codec but for unknown reason the installation always ended with Windows protection error and no boot, I had this board several hours only so I gave it up, maybe there is no problem in fact, I don't know.

Missed I anything?

Petr

This post has been edited by Petr: 28 May 2006 - 12:04 PM

[LLXX]

Petr, on May 28 2006, 01:00 PM, said:

It depends what do you mean by compatibility.

As in having working drivers available.

Quote

The latest Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility that supports Win98SE and WinME is version 6.3.0.1007 and it supports:

ICH6 + Intel® 915G/P/GV
ICH6 + Intel® 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML
ICH5 + Intel® 82865G/PE/P/GV/82848P
ICH5 + Intel® 82875P/E7210
ICH4 + Intel® 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV/E

I have tried to modify the INF files for a board with 955X chipset and everything was fine, just Windows 98 SE was not able to swithch the computer off, but I have not tried it too long.

I should probably avoid the 900 series chipsets then. Asus makes a good s775 mobo with an 865 chipset (P5P800SE)...

Quote

PCI Express Graphics card
ATI X300SE with 128 MB RAM: always OK
ATI X550 with 256 MB RAM: small problems initially
Nvidia 6200 and 6200 Turbo Cache with 128 MB RAM: did not work in 915GM Speedster-FA (resources conflict), in Gigabyte boards OK
Nvidia 6600 with 256 MB RAM: Both in GA-8I955X Pro and GA-8I915P Duo it worked but some programs caused immediate absolute freezing of the system.
Always it is necessary to check if the selected graphics card is supported by the latest driver.
915GM chipset contains GMA900 graphics controller but there is no free Windows 98 Driver, just commercial from Scitech.

Would the GMA900 exceed the performance of the AGP nVidia GeForce FX5200 I currently have? Regarding the driver for it, Scitech also has free non-commercial license, in fact the source code and binaries for their "universal" driver are available for download from their site. Here is a portion of the INF file of that universal driver:

%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7121; 810
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7123; 810
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7125; 810E
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1132; 815
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3577; ?
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2562; 845G/GL/GV
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3582; 852,855GM/GME <- not familiar with these chipsets
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2572; 865G/GL/GV
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2582; 915G/GV <- this is what you were looking for?
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2592; 915GM/GMS
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2782; ?
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2792; ?

Quote

USB Controller
USB 2.0 Controllers are supported by Orangeware driver only:
Driver version 1.1.0.2: supports ICH4 and ICH5 southbridges
Driver version 2.4.2: supports ICH4 southbridges on certain motherboards
There is no Windows 98 support for USB 2.0 in ICH6 and ICH7 southbridges.
Since all southbridges are EHCI compliant and in Windows 2000 and XP use the same driver, I suppose it could be possible to modify it for ICH6/7, but I have not tried it.

I'll probably go with the ICH5 and 865, given that the ICH6+ doesn't have drivers for 98se.

Quote

PATA Controller
ICH5 contains 4 PATA channels, ICH6 and ICH7 2 PATA channels.
No Windows 98 driver is available from Intel (IAA is for ICH4 only) so ESDI_506.PDR has to be used.

Once again, ICH5 seems to be the best choice as all my HDDs are PATA.

Quote

Audio Controller
ICH5 southbridge supports AC97 codec, ICH6 and ICH7 both AC97 and Azalia (HDA) codecs.
There is no driver for HDA codecs for Windows 98. Scitech just made one for Windows NT 4.0 and would make the driver for Windows 98 if there will be commercial demand.
Some ICH6 motherboards have Azalia codec, some AC97 code, I have tested GA-8I915P Duo with Realtek AC97 codec but for unknown reason the installation always ended with Windows protection error and no boot, I had this board several hours only so I gave it up, maybe there is no problem in fact, I don't know.

An AC97 is what I have in my current mobo, that should be fine...

My desired upgrade:
Pentium D 511 (2.8GHz), I've heard that this one overclocks well, 4GHz+.
Assu P5P800SE mobo

All the other components I can use from my existing machine.

This post has been edited by LLXX: 28 May 2006 - 08:07 PM

[Petr]

LLXX, on May 29 2006, 03:07 AM, said:

Would the GMA900 exceed the performance of the AGP nVidia GeForce FX5200 I currently have?

Probably not. The results are very similar, although the systems are not exactly the same:

3DMark03

Score: 1084
Date: 2006-02-02
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2412 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
250 MHz / 405 MHz
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit

Score: 1006
Date: 2006-01-31
CPU: Intel Pentium M 1862 MHz
GPU: Intel® Mobile 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Family
N/A / N/A
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit

And in 3DMark2001

Score: 4872
Date: 2006-02-02
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2412 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768 32bit

Score: 4972
Date: 2006-01-31
CPU: Unknown 1862 MHz
GPU: Intel® Mobile 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Family
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768 32bit

Or in PCMark05

Graphics Chipset NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Video Memory 127 MB
Core Clock 249 MHz
Memory Clock 405 MHz
Graphics Test Suite 680 PCMarks
Transparent Windows 226.56 Windows/s
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 245.18 FPS
Graphics Memory - 128 Lines 196.91 FPS
WMV Video Playback 26.16 FPS
3D - Fill Rate Multi Texturing 333.37 MTexels/s
3D - Polygon Throughput Multiple Lights 3.39 MTriangles/s
3D - Pixel Shader 4.58 FPS
3D - Vertex Shader 4.43 MVertices/s


Graphics Chipset Intel® Mobile 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Family
Video Memory 121 MB
Graphics Test Suite 801 PCMarks
Transparent Windows 186.63 Windows/s
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 376.41 FPS
Graphics Memory - 128 Lines 338.41 FPS
WMV Video Playback 32.26 FPS
3D - Fill Rate Multi Texturing 630.64 MTexels/s
3D - Polygon Throughput Multiple Lights 4.08 MTriangles/s
3D - Pixel Shader 5.22 FPS
3D - Vertex Shader 2.36 MVertices/s

Quote

Regarding the driver for it, Scitech also has free non-commercial license, in fact the source code and binaries for their "universal" driver are available for download from their site. Here is a portion of the INF file of that universal driver:

%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7121; 810
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7123; 810
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7125; 810E
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1132; 815
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3577; ?
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2562; 845G/GL/GV
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3582; 852,855GM/GME <- not familiar with these chipsets
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2572; 865G/GL/GV
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2582; 915G/GV <- this is what you were looking for?
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2592; 915GM/GMS
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2782; ?
%sdd.DeviceDesc%=sdd, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2792; ?

I'm looking for 915GM driver and this one is still not supported in SciTech SNAP Graphics PE driver on http://my.scitechsoft.com/ - there is 915G/GV support only because the online generated drivers are based on older code (3.0.1) and they still not upgraded it to the current version.

Petr

This post has been edited by Petr: 29 May 2006 - 12:27 AM

[modicr]

Hello!

Regarding Win98SE mobos I recommend ASRock (they have some really innovative products):
First, the following mobo seems to be the ultimate one for Win98SE when released:
ASRock 775i65G (865G+ICH5) Rev. 2
http://translate.google.com/translate?sour...F139455%2Eshtml
According to this post there will be also new revision of ASRock 775i65PE:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showth...?t=97399&page=2

Quote

Originally Posted by ASRock Support
In future we will have new revision of that mainboard [775i65PE that is]to support Conroe.

The existing versions did not support it, cause a hardware change is necessary.

Best regards,

ASRock Support

Alternative is to buy ULi chipset based ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 which can be upgraded to AM2:
http://www.nforcersh...rticle5942.html

Regards, Roman

[LLXX]

Petr, on May 29 2006, 01:26 AM, said:

I'm looking for 915GM driver and this one is still not supported in SciTech SNAP Graphics PE driver on http://my.scitechsoft.com/ - there is 915G/GV support only because the online generated drivers are based on older code (3.0.1) and they still not upgraded it to the current version.

Then why is the device ID for the 915GM in the INF file of the universal driver? From what I've seen so far, there should be no difference in the actual driver file itself no matter what model you choose to generate drivers for, as otherwise why would the INF file contain the other device IDs? I'm starting to think that it does *not* generate custom drivers as it claims to, but just gives a single universal driver for each OS choice.

Quote

Hello!

Regarding Win98SE mobos I recommend ASRock (they have some really innovative products):
First, the following mobo seems to be the ultimate one for Win98SE when released:
ASRock 775i65G (865G+ICH5) Rev. 2
http://translate.goo...F139455%2Eshtml
According to this post there will be also new revision of ASRock 775i65PE:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showth...?t=97399&page=2

I haven't had any good experiences with AsRock mobos... thanks, but I think I'll stick with Asus.

[Petr]

LLXX, on May 30 2006, 05:39 AM, said:

Petr, on May 29 2006, 01:26 AM, said:

I'm looking for 915GM driver and this one is still not supported in SciTech SNAP Graphics PE driver on http://my.scitechsoft.com/ - there is 915G/GV support only because the online generated drivers are based on older code (3.0.1) and they still not upgraded it to the current version.

Then why is the device ID for the 915GM in the INF file of the universal driver? From what I've seen so far, there should be no difference in the actual driver file itself no matter what model you choose to generate drivers for, as otherwise why would the INF file contain the other device IDs? I'm starting to think that it does *not* generate custom drivers as it claims to, but just gives a single universal driver for each OS choice.

AFAIK there are 2 driver types available:
1. Commercial universal driver. 915GM is supported but this driver is not free.
2. Custom built free non-commercial driver available at http://my.scitechsoft.com/ - but these builds are based on 3.0.1 source code and therefore 915GM is not supported.

This is from SciTech newsgroup:

stevew at scitechsoft.com, on 24 Jan 2006 21:03:24, said:

It is only supported on My.SciTechSoft.com, or via volume licensing. When the builds on the MySciTech site get updated, it should include i915GM support - but I cannot promise when that will happen.

Petr

This post has been edited by Petr: 30 May 2006 - 12:40 AM

[modicr]

Hello!

Quote

I haven't had any good experiences with AsRock mobos... thanks, but I think I'll stick with Asus.

This was maybe a couple of years ago, but now their mobos are of good quality!

Regards, Roman