Question Graphics issue when booting Windows 98 SE

[bobasrty]

Specs:
CPU: Pentium III 500 Mhz
RAM: 512 MB
GPU: Geforce4 MX 440
Motherboard: Intel SE440BX-2
Sound Card: AOpen AW744L II PCI (Yamaha YMF744)
PSU: Rosewill ARC450
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 series 40 GB
Optical Drive: Lite-On SHD-16P1S
Floppy: Sony MPF920-Z/131 (most likely broken, cant read correctly)
OS: Windows 98 SE

So recently I have built a computer for 90s gaming and I have been able to get everything to work (with some replacements) except for graphics over 640x480x16. When I use nvidia drivers, during the time it usually displays a cursor and background during bootup, no more signal, no sounds, no HDD access, and no input does anything. When I press the reset button instead of turning it off and on, it gives me a beep code (which I believe means video issue (1 long beep 2 short Phoenix BIOS)) and doesn't display until I restart it. With several video drivers it has not worked (81.98, 45.23, and 28.32) including general unofficial SVGA drivers (divide overflow while booting over 640x480x16 apparently). I have not seen the same instance online after much research. I hope someone might have a solution or might provide assistance.

Edit: Uninstalled not working nvidia drivers, turned it on and left it for the night. When I booted it up and it asked to reboot (left it alone while it booted), I didn't know what it was about but i rebooted and it took me a min or 2 to realize there were more colors than usual. Surprisingly, it suddenly allowed me to go to 32-bit color and high resolution. It seems the SVGA drivers only like to work when it is used after the display adapter is reinstalled (as in drivers) on boot. I would like to still use Nvidia drivers so I hope to receive feedback.

Also recently was able to install XP on another drive and the default graphics drivers that come with it for my graphics card doesn't work in the same way as stated above.

 

[TerryLaze]

Could be your GPU isn't working that well anymore or it isn't getting enough power for better resolutions.

I would reboot into DOS since w98 allows for that,or boot straight into pure DOS, and try to run a DOS game at higher than 480p to rule out any driver/windows issues.

 

[bobasrty]

Could be your GPU isn't working that well anymore or it isn't getting enough power for better resolutions.

I would reboot into DOS since w98 allows for that,or boot straight into pure DOS, and try to run a DOS game at higher than 480p to rule out any driver/windows issues.

thanks for the advice but what DOS games run above 480p?

 

[TerryLaze]

thanks for the advice but what DOS games run above 480p?

Duke nukem for one
But 800x600 should be possible with pretty much any newer DOS game.

 

[bobasrty]

So it seems the card can use above 640x480. when I was trying the Nvidia drivers and they didn't work, I uninstalled them and rebooted. It detected the card without drivers on boot and asked to reboot. I rebooted and I was able to go to 1200 x 1600 (I think) and 32 bit color (1024p). It seemed to use the general SVGA drivers that weren't working. It was still on my system since they apparently still worked for 640x480x16. Although Direct3D didn't work the best and OpenGL didn't work at all, I was able to play most of my games. Also when I downloaded a Nvidia demo (Bugs), It asked me to turn on anti-aliasing in the Nvidia panel. So it might not work perfectly but it seems to work.

 

[bobasrty]

Any ideas on why those Nvidia drivers don't work?