Graphic problems in Windows 98 SE

[Ouguiya]

Hello everyone!

The new problem is this: Installing a graphics driver on Windows 98 SE.

I have tried both the driver from the tutorial section (geocities is by now offline, but I found another website hosting the files), as well as Scitech display doctor.

In both cases, the system recognises the driver, and I can change the resolution and colors. However, the system requires a restart, and after the restart, I am greeted by the message that "There is a problem with your display settings.", forcing me to reconfigure. If I again change to a higher resolution than 640x480 or a higher color than 16, the system again restarts, and the cycle repeats.

Both drivers produce this error (with the added benefit of Scitech leading to a lot of bluescreens and crashes, but that's another story), and I am quite at a loss at what to do.

Since the virtual system is to play old games, I need the higher colors and resolution desperately.

I hope someone can help me out there.

Thanks.

Yours,

Ouguiya

[stefan.becker]

I think its better try starting games under XP in compat mode. Win 98 is not supported.

[Ouguiya]

That's the first logical thing to do, and I tried that already, naturally. (Why go through all the trouble associated with getting Windows 98 started in Virtualbox?)


Unfortunately, the Compatibility mode only very very rarely leads to success in starting old games under Windows XP. (If you wish to do some research, the game is Pharaoh). I found many posts in the internet concerning my game. The first advice given is always that of compatibility mode. With some people it seemed to work, with many it didn't. None of the posts I looked at had a definite solution, and many recommended installing Windows 98 on a spare computer.

Since I do not have that luxury, and do not want to go through the trouble of making a dual-boot system, I am stuck with this final option.

I hope someone out there has another idea.

Thanks

[stefan.becker]

VMWARE supports Win98 Guest with VMWARE Tools. Have a look at VMWARE Player.

For DOS Games is DosBox the best solution.

[mpack]

In both cases, the system recognises the driver, and I can change the resolution and colors. However, the system requires a restart, and after the restart, I am greeted by the message that "There is a problem with your display settings.", forcing me to reconfigure.

I assume "the driver" is the VBE VESA driver. Did you install the VirtualBox version of that driver? If so then you should install the universal version instead (the VBox version is buggy).

[Ouguiya]

Hello! Thanks to all the replies!

@Stefan.Becker: I know of Dosbox, in fact I absolutely love it. Unfortunately, this game falls into the category "Too new to be dos, too old to run in XP and further up", I will maybe have a look at VMWARE Player.

@mpack Yes, I read that in the tutorial from this forum already and used the Universal driver...

After reading somewhere however, that DirectX-Support is still impossible, even if the graphics get a bit better with these drivers, I had to abandon this alltogether.

I am leaving this "solution" to all who may be looking for an answer:
I used VirtualPC, by Microsoft. (I think it's even free, at least it was not hard to find a download for it). They have an internal pre-made profile for Windows 98, and it works perfectly. No need to install drivers, I just had to install Windows 98 SE, and the game, and everything works just fine.

I suppose Windows 98 is so old, that only Microsoft deemed it significant enough to include support for it. I will have to save Virtualbox for times when I need to emulate a newer system.

Thanks again for all the help, and good bye.

Yours,

Ouguiya

[Ramzee]

Ouguiya: I know this is a week late.

Install Windows 98SE's Standard PCI Graphics Adaptor (VGA) and update it's driver with vbe9x/uni via Device Manager.

If you Run the Add New Hardware Wizard to detect non plug and play devices an even number of times the display adaptor settings are preserved. If you run it an uneven number of times the display adaptor settings are changed to/from 16 colour mode. The changes are applied at the next reboot.

As mentioned, by the vbe9x developers, DOS full screen works, but in a window causes screen corruption (fixed using ALT+Enter).

With this setup I can choose from 320 x 200 256 Color to 1600 x 1200 True Color (32 bit) and everything in between.
DirectX 8.0 can be installed and will successfully complete 2D and 3D tests using software rendering.
A demo of Sid Mere's Alpha Centuri ran successfuly on a Windows 95B VM using vbe9x/uni and DX8.

The speed of the VM can be adjusted by enabling/disabling IO APIC, VT-x and/or Nested Paging if available. Conservative settings are best when first setting up the VM (due to timing issues) but can be opimized later.