Alexander3 on 6/3/2011 at 07:18
With all the issues getting Shock 2/Thief 1+2 on XP, I figured installing windows 98 on a backup system would be a good idea. It would be nice to play some classics without difficulty.
Got everything installed and working ok, except for the video card. It's not being seen in device manager. Double checked the BIOS, tried reinstalling chipset drivers, and tried another video card. Nvidia AGP by the way. Stuck with Standard VGA adapter with 16 colors and the smallest resolution possible.
Motherboard should be good as it was used recently. Likely a BIOS or Windows glitch somewhere.
I've done some googling, and this missing video card issue crops up for some folks with XP, and Windows 7 even. Though the newer the OS, probably the easier the fix.
Anyone run across something like this? Any ideas?
voodoo47 on 6/3/2011 at 11:21
this is not really recommended,unless you are really absolutely,absolutely unable to get the game going on the xp system.
anyway,the agp card should work fine-just make sure you download the correct driver set,and force it down the windows's throat.reboot,and it should work ok.
baeuchlein on 6/3/2011 at 13:59
Quote Posted by Alexander3
With all the issues getting Shock 2/Thief 1+2 on XP, I figured installing windows 98 on a backup system would be a good idea. It would be nice to play some classics without difficulty.
Got everything installed and working ok, except for the video card. It's not being seen in device manager. [...] Stuck with Standard VGA adapter with 16 colors and the smallest resolution possible.
Were any of these cards ever recognized
by Windows 98 before?
If the cards are newer than Win98 itself, Windows will "detect" only a "Standard VGA card" (or something similar). That's because it does not know anything about this card. In that case, you have to download video card drivers for the card you want to use and install them in Win98. This happens whenever I have to install my Radeon 7500 or Radeon 9550 card in Win98SE, for example.
It is possible that newer drivers do not support the graphics card(s) you wish to use. If that is the case, you have to find an older driver that still works with Win98.
Perhaps someone here can help you if you tell us which cards you wish to install, e.g., "ATI Radeon 7500" or "Nvidia TNT2" or something similar. Do you know the cards' "full names", so to speak?
Alexander3 on 15/3/2011 at 08:56
I resolved it. It was a simple driver issue.
I just revisited Bafford's Manor.
Thanks for the suggestions baeuchlein.
As for this not being recommended, why not? Windows 98 is out of date yes, but works great with old games. I can't tell you how nice it is just to load up an old game and have it work right off the bat for a change.
baeuchlein on 15/3/2011 at 14:08
Quote Posted by Alexander3
As for this not being recommended, why not? Windows 98 is out of date yes, but works great with old games.
I still use Win98SE on several older machines, although there are more and more problems. However, these aren't serious yet.
One problem is that this operating system is not updated any more, so
if there are still bugs left which compromise the security of the system against viruses, no one will fix them anymore. However, we have had viruses here on machines running Windows XP one year ago and then a few days ago, and these viruses only spread to other XP machines. Neither Win98SE nor Linux were affected. XP machines, however, were infected faster than the virus defense programs could react, and the virus could install itself even on a drive which was not shared in the internal network. So much for XP.
Another problem is keeping internet programs up to date. The last Firefox browser which can be run in Win98SE was published several years ago. During the last year, I noticed more and more re-designed internet pages which would not be displayed correctly any more. Win98SE's internet times may come to an end.
Furthermore, if some piece of hardware has to be replaced, it's not always easy to get a replacement with suitable drivers. We got a new printer about a year ago, and it did not have any Win98 drivers anymore. While a printer might not be of terrible importance for gaming, a sound or video card replacement would be difficult to obtain.
Last but not least, there are already some helper applications and other programs used to play fan missions which have problems when run under the Win9x operating systems. So far, I believe that you can still get the essentials to work, but one day things might be different.
However, I still play the Thief games and their FM's with Win98SE systems, for a complicated variety of reasons. One can still do it, and if it's done with a little bit of thinking, I don't think it's so bad (yet).
