40.41 Drivers and 98se/Me

Now fair is fair. It was a scant couple of weeks ago that ATI was getting it's toes put to the fire as it was reported (erroneously) that they would not be supporting windows 98se/Me and now I find these much faster drivers being released for xp/2000 but no drivers for 98se/Me. I find this interesting in that many Ti4600/Ti4400 owners now find their very expensive cards being outdated by Ti4200 cards and there is little that can be done about it save for......buying an ATI 9700. This seems rather foolish to me as Nvidia has virtually insured that anyone that wants to run 98se (and there are many of them) will now be buying ATI cards as Nvidia has with this most rescent move made it very clear where they stand. This can only serve to further harm Nvidia but I too will be an ATI customer if Nvidia is in the game of choosing my OS (or aiding in filling Bill Gates coffers) for me. I find this to be a real shame and am more than a little irritated at this most rescent turn of events. I think I shall give Nvidia a tad more time and should they not respond to the 98se/Me owners then ATI will become the new game in town for me. One can not fight the hometown fight if the hometown wishes to handicap them. This is no longer a David and Goliath thing but rather a waste of money for the many who invested in the TI4600 ( the Ti 4200 appears to be the true $350 dollar card) as an ant can in no way harm Goliath.

Ok I just skimmed through that so forgive me if I restate anything...

The Ti4200 is an awesome card, and can be overclocked to and possibly over Ti4600 speeds. But what you don't realize is that most people don't overclock their video cards. Overclockers respresent about 10-30% (rough estimate). Comapnies like Gainward are trying to change that. But look at people that don't understand in overclocking. My dad for example. He doesn't understand why anybody would overclock and does it actually yield that much better results. Obviously he's been left in the dark, but he knows about computers just as much as I do. The ATI R9700 is for those people who always want to be on the state of the art with their Dell Dimension 8100 (yes you know who you are). Look at this way.

How many people play Quake 3? A damn lot. Half-Life? Counter-strike is one of the most populat games among the world.

The truth is, you don't need a Radeon 9700 to play this. So if this is what you play, what's the point of shelling about money to get a Radeon 9700? A Geforce 2 Ti with a 1 ghz CPU should be more than enough for those games. Who cares if you get 100 fps instead of 180 or 210 fps? Does anybody notice that when you play? OMG, I'm only doing 130 fps! This is too slow!

Deal with it.

I've learned to play with sub-40 fps with my MX200. Now I know I what I'm missing, but this card is liveable. It runs every game i throw at it with decent frame rates. Half-life? No problem. Quake 3? I don't have it. Serious Sam 2 and GTA3? SOme comproises have to be made, but the card itself its capable.

The problem is in the drivers. Drivers determine how card the good is. I don't care if you have Radeon 9700 or a vanta. If you have crappy drivers, kiss your framerates goodbye.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, I just played CS 6 hours staright and I'm so tired.

I'll try to explain this again tommorow, because I'm sure what I said makes so sense.

-PC

I think you may have missed the point. Let me restate it clearly. Nvidia does not appear to be supporting 98se/Me anymore while Ati is and has said they will continue to do so.

There, that is better. If one wishes to buy technology and runs one of these systems then the obvious choice would be....ATI.

As for the 'deal with it' comment, one might consider that the core subject here is oc'ing. www.overclockers.com .....and yes, I do enjoy being in the top ten or five at the Orb, probably as much as you do gaming. I am sorry that a stated defect (one for which ATI was crucified several weeks ago) in the driver support by Nvidia offends you so much.

I do agree with the general opinion that the radeon 9700 may be overkill for many, many users and not very cost effective. It will not always be so. The lack of driver support though will be an issue for many and when the card is cheaper those with 98se (in particular) will be left with no choice but to purchase the 9700 as Nvidia does not appear to be offering any more support for 98se while ATI is.

I agree with you Silver. Nvidia should be supporting the same OSs that ATI does. I can see not supporting Win3.1 but the installed userbase of win98se is huge and at least amongst home users is still ahead of XP (a guess but fairly educated).

I haven't switched to XP because of concerns that MS has integrated copyright management software directly into the OS that at some point could be activated and make my legally copied music and games unplayable. It sounds paranoid but there are a lot of people who won't switch for this very reason or use linux to avoid the issue altogether. I once had to rerip almost my entire cd collection after converting to wma and then saving to cd. After a fresh win98 install none of my wma files would work needless to say I never use WMP for anything.

If ATI supports my system and Nvidia does not then my future upgrade options have become a whole lot clearer. Thanks for the thread.

Silver, im sorry u feel that way bro... but i know 1 thing is forsure. U wont be using that OS forever, pretty soon nobody will support it anymore. It will get phased out like 3.1. Win98 cost more then XPhome just cuzz they want u to upgrade. BTW i dont see any computers at frys sold with a 98 OS.
just curious... can u still download updates for win98???

AZN

Silver said:

I think you may have missed the point. Let me restate it clearly. Nvidia does not appear to be supporting 98se/Me anymore while Ati is and has said they will continue to do so.

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Bear in mind these are beta drivers. They have many rough aspects to them. It is pretty obvious Nvidia realeased them a bit early to coincide with the onset of 9700. Chances are good by the time the rough edges are removed there will be a Win9X version. One thing you can say about Nvidia is there driver support and development is top notch, I really doubt they will abandon Win9X drivers at this stage in the game. But you never now, 98 is getting a bit long in the tooth.

My friend owns a Ti4200, but he is getting bored at it. He asked me which card he should play with next, he had 2 in mind. Ti4600 or 9700pro. He is also a diehard 98se user, and not planning to upgrade to XP anytime soon.

Now its easy for him to pick the card. I hope as the above post said these are only beta, and the support of 98se will come out soon. If not, then I seriously doubt the NV30 will have support for 98se. And if that is the case, My friend will no doubt change to ATI(he owned 3 generations of Nvidia). Its just too bad.

Are you somehow suggesting that NVIDIA has dropped Win9x support because they haven't made a simultaneous release? That's jumping to conclusions just a bit, don't you think?

Linux drivers haven't been updated. Does that mean NVIDIA has stopped supporting Linux? No it doesn't. It simply means they haven't finished the driver build. That is all!

Win9x, is legacy. Face it. Hardware as well as software companies are naturally going to support the most current OS(es) first. WinXP / 2000, being that OS. Win9x, will most likely get an updated driver build. Put it this way, I'd put more faith in NVIDIA updating their drivers than ATI updating theirs in a timely manner.

What's this talk about ATI being the graphics card manufacturer of choice for support? If you're suggesting that trading NVIDIA's driver support for ATI is somehow a good thing, you're in lala land. ATI, has improved quite a bit recently, but they still have a ways to go.

Take a gander at that thread mentioned on the front page, and you'll see that there are quite a few games that either hard lock or fail with the newly released 9700. It will likely be at least a couple weeks before those issues are resolved, and then who knows what other problems will crop up? Oh sure, these problems can be resolved by disabling hardware T&L, but what kind of solution is that?

Kato said:

My friend owns a Ti4200, but he is getting bored at it.

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Bored? Does he not use the card to play games? After all, that's about the only reason I can think of to have a graphics card. Other than development purposes of course. Honestly, how will purchasing a new graphics card resolve feelings of boredom?

He asked me which card he should play with next, he had 2 in mind. Ti4600 or 9700pro.

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Your friend is nuts if he thinks upgrading from a Ti4200 to a Ti4600 will in any way make a discernable difference in framerate or gaming satisfaction in general.

What games in particular does your friend play that would require a new card?

He is also a diehard 98se user, and not planning to upgrade to XP anytime soon.

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Friends don't let friends use Win98.

Now its easy for him to pick the card. I hope as the above post said these are only beta, and the support of 98se will come out soon. If not, then I seriously doubt the NV30 will have support for 98se. And if that is the case, My friend will no doubt change to ATI(he owned 3 generations of Nvidia). Its just too bad.

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Once again, the above mentioned lack of support is merely FUD. I realize a whole day or two has elapsed since these drivers were made public, but I would give NVIDIA the benefit of the doubt. If after a week there's still no Win9x support then go ahead and start worrying.

Richard said:

Friends don't let friends use Win98.

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LOL, I tried to talk him out of it.....I TRIED!!!

He is bored since he reached the limit of his card. When I say limit, I mean he couldn't push it to OC anymore, and he is into 3dmark. But he also play games(Redstorm's games mostly).

His card is enough for his gaming needs, but not getting him any higher over at Orb. Thats why he is selling his card so he can get a better one, one that will get him higher score while enough to play FPS games.

If that's the case, and he has enough expendible income. Then its obvious that he should go with the Radeon 9700. Since it appears to overclock very well, and he'll be able to get the highest 3dMark scores. (for now at least.)

Seriously though. The Ti4600 would purely be a waste of money for him.

Thats what I told him.....9700 supports DX9, Ti4600 supports DX8.1. Which card will last longer?

Friends don't let friends use Win98

How right you are, thus 98se. I have had absolutely no problems running it and thankfully it does not tie me to Mr. Gates which I am very much against. Now of course this does not leave out 2000 but the reasoning that it is getting long in the tooth is not a good response either, as it performs very well for me in application, lack of down time, performance and 3d benching. Now it has been noted by ATI that it is supporting 98se upon release. I am not the only one by far who is questioning the lack of support on these new drivers. I shall give it a week or so but in the event of it not being released then the use of a NV30 would also include the purchase of a new OS and thus push it into a rather high price range. Of course I am sure Mr. Gates would like to get all of the 98se users 'on board'. It is not that I object to xp, it is that I object to being attached for the term to Mr. Gates. 9700 or Linux would be the solution in the event it is not supported. Now all here know that I have run the whatever out of some Nvidia cards so it is not a lack of desire on my part. It is at this time rather disconserting though and in all honesty is rather unfair to ATI in that there is nothing in the way of articles on the net in regards to it yet when there was a hint of ATI not supporting 98se (however unjustified), it was all over the net in articles. It should occur to more than one that this is not playing on a level playing field.

Silver said:

that it is getting long in the tooth is not a good response either

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With its reliance on the dos underneath, large chunks of 16 bit code, primitive memory managment, system resources, lack of security, and constant and unpreventable degregation of performance and stability Win98 (SE or not) is very long in the tooth. This does not mean there are not some applications and machines for which it is not the best solution, but it is a hairy old beast. I myself have a 98se box right next to this one, but that doesn't change both the age and relative crudity of 98 as compared to Win2k or XP. A few years ago the compatibility issues with 2k where crippling, but now that the market has embraced it and developed for it the positives outweigh the negatives by a wide margin.

Richard said:

Friends don't let friends use Win98.

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lol, would you mind if i put that in my sig?

anyway, i'm glad that nvidia released XP/2000 drivers first. the 9X platform is outdated, unefficent, not stable and is no longer being supported by M$. you can still get the current updates but don't count on any new one's.

if you don't want to go to XP (for whatever reason) then give 2K a try. it played every game i tried on it and it does benchmark pretty well. infact, 2K benched better then XP for me.

as for nvidia not supporting 9X any more, why would they drop support for it? do they really want to give up that many customers? (i would say 70% of windows users are still running 9X) i would give them 2 weeks to release drivers before making such an assumption.

either way, i think my next video card is going to be the 9700 unless Nvidia makes a better card before i upgrade.

I must concur that in my opinion (such as it is) win2000 is the way to go. As for updates from Microsoft, I would not know as I do not ever go to the Microsoft site. I am leary of them installing whatever they like on whim and forget whatever I would like. Lest it be mistaken, I habrbor no feelings of love for Mr. Gates. I run windows only because I have little choice in most matters. Fortunately there are many others such as myself still using it. As for stability, I do not have any real issues with it. It does love to kill the registry when pushing on a new install but backing up the registry about ten times on a new install takes care of this. I find I can push the system and windows as hard as they can take it and still get no real problems. I simply do not have any stability issues with it. It must be stated though that due to the oc'ng system I use I do not leave the system unattended for extended periods with any regularity. As for new programs, no problem. As for support on drivers (till the latest from Nvidia), no problems. As for viruses, don't get them and therefore do not run any security. I did years ago on my BBS but that was always prone to attack from young enthusiastic little son of a guns. I pretty much follow the article on the front in regards to handling mail, etc. Now, oc'ing too hard has led to corrupted hard drive data on numerous occasions however this is not a virus issue but rather one of stupidity. As for resources, I just set the program priority. Can't change the code but in most testing it holds up rather well against XP and in 3d beats out the majority of xp systems and in fact is mainly beat out by high fsb on the Intels at around 2.9 Ghz. I am told on good authority that on win 2000 it would pick up about 600 points alone. However in everything but the top classes it beats out most if not all of the AMD systems on XP. Getting the newest may not always be the thing to do and when you have to hand your system over.....well, may not even be prudent. I really need to have someone hold my hand and load Linux to play with.

98SE isn't so bad. once i get my new harddrive tuesday im finally going to be upgrading to 2k for my own reasons. i sure would hate to be upgrading to 2k because i have to to use the latest drivers from a hardware company. nvidia hasn't said they are not going to release 9x./me drivers though right? so I'd say just give them a little more time. at least, thats what I would say, but based on how some people went nuts about ATI not giving 9x support and gave them no chance you would think there would be the same outcry about nvidia now. not so, ATI never gets the benefit of the doubt. every time they make a mistake, its "oh yeah thats ATI for you, always doing XXXX". when nvidia messes something up its "oh they'll probably fix it in the next driver release." i really hate that, im going to be glad when nvidia gets knocked down a peg or two before the end of this year. sorry nvidiots, i hope ATI will start bundling crow with all their cards you will be getting at christmas. get eatin'!

It may be long in the tooth, but face it...there are apps and games that just will not run under 2K/XP, and that's what I have 98SE installed for. I can't play Daikatana under XP, even in compatability mode. So, what are my choices presently? Buy an ATI card to play my game? Or stay with XP and throw the game in the trash? Point is, it is too early in the developement of XP for a major player like Nvidia to swear allegiance to XP, at the cost of forsaking all other OS's. Which do I like better, Daikatana or my Nvidia card? They've made their choice, now I have to make one, right? Why are they putting themselves in a position to lose such a large amount of their customer base? I agree Silver, this is a very unorthodox manuever on their part...let's hope it doesn't play out like that in the end...

As late as January of this year their were still major players selling systems with 98se. I will upgrade to XP eventually and in fact have talked about it in these forums just for benchmark gains. Of course sanity set in when I realized I'd be spending $100 to do what I am already doing.

Also XP is rig dependant. I build a new rig from scratch every nine months or so selling the old parts and filling my tower with new components starting with the mobo. XP would make me buy a new copy of the software for each rig I build. 98se simply requires that I only run it on one machine at a time.

When support for 98se withers away and I can't game or do what I want to do I'll upgrade, though I suspect that I'll be keeping at least one rig running 98se just so I can store and listen to music w/o MS/RIAA determining what is"fair use" (against the definition of the courts).

MicroSoft has played around with the idea of instead of selling the OS outright that perhaps it would be better to lease it which would make it another bill every month like a phone bill. In exchange they would provide updates and upgrades and the consuming public would not have to fret about these worrisome matters. I think it was more thinking out loud than it was actually being planned but "the future stretches out a long way in front"....

I think Nvidia would be making a mistake to drop support at this early stage for such a widely used OS. I hope they don't do this because with the competition ATI is giving them right now it would be an ontarget shot in the foot and 3dlabs is a perfect example of a highflyer who misjudged their market.

*COUGH* *COUGH*

Um, I hate to bring it up, but have you guys forgotten that nVidia is providing the Graphics on the XBox, and is therefore an intimate business partner with Microsoft?

It is a potentially extremely lucrative deal, and to get it they may have made a side deal to phase out drivers for Win98. If Microsoft stops supporting Win98 in the near future, I would think this would signal that the phase out by nVidia is at the prompting of Microsoft.

Otherwise, it probably means this: Win98 is a video pig and cannot amke use of certain Ring0 (read kernel-level) features that are available in Win2k.

I know that the OS for the XBox is Win2k but aliased a bit different. The nVidia drivers for the XBox made a nice little breakthrough: The memory for the video were stored in main memory. This means that the main program can essentially render itself without having to push millions of bits of data into video memory to tell it what geometry it needs to render. This makes it fast as hell.

If this technology gets transferred to the nForce mobos, the performance will increase dramatically. From a software developers standpoint, these drivers have essentially already been written for the XBox. Translating them into Win2k is trival at most. However, translating them into Win98 MAY, and I mean MAY because I havent decompiled the drivers to look at the implementation, may take a bit of time and effort, and may not be entirely possible.