Win98/WinMe worse at games than W2k !!! - What am I doing wrong???

[RichardW]

P3-500
EPOX 6VBA (apollo pro/132) 132Mb
Dual Boot Windows Me/2000
AGP TNT2 32mb (with Det3 drivers under Me, 3.53 under Win2k)
SB live
Bt 848 TV tuner

Problem

Under Me, AOK-II Conq and Mech3 crash either starting or closing games or between cut scenes and the game.

VCACHE error or VMM errors. Total lockup and restart needed.

- Tried TNT2 drivers from Me CD-ROM and latest Det3 drivers
- Tried loading latest VIA 4in1 chipset drivers
- Tried a few combos of disabling 32bit drivers
- Turned off at BIOS all devices not really needed - onboard sound, spare com ports, LPT ports.
- Tried Mech3 patch 1.2


BTW - a similar prob was happening to Win98SE - thats why I loaded (clean) Win Me.

Also, Win2k does NOT have the same problem - AOKII is fine, Mech3 runs (but cannot see hardware graphics drivers - only s/w renderer)

My 4 year old thinks I need a new PC -

Can anyone help me put here please?

 

[Hawk]

Don't use the Detonator drivers, people say they aren't stable (for a lot, not all), especially for the TNT2, it doesn't really do anything for them I don't think.

 

[PG]

Dump winME, hehe
Win2000 is more stable and in general a better operating system than ME. Everyone will get different results, but most people get about the same results for gaming in win2k compared to winME/98 as long as you have an Nvidia card.

I also had problems running D3D games under win98. I bet my problem is that I have changed so much hardware my win98 registry is a mess. But my win2k install is fresh so it just works better. This could be your problem also. If it were me, I would just use win2000 for your games. But get the latest drivers from Nvidia. Those 3.53 drivers are too old. And all their drivers are Detonator someting, whether it's Detonator 1, 2, or 3.

 

[RichardW]

PG,

Alas my WinMe is a fresh install. I thought about the messy registry thing too

The errors are "presented" nicer under Me than 98 but still fatal nonetheless.

RE: W2k

Mech3 does not "see" any hardware display drivers under Win2k so it runs like a pig.

One reason I still want an Me partition is so I can trash it and rebuild from scratch without lossing all my more important stuff.

Do you know what VCACHE actually does?

Cheers,
RichardW