Installation

Back up first. A failed install leaves Windows 98 unable to display. Restoring a cold backup is the only recovery that restores all registry and device state. Do not install on a machine you cannot recover.

Windows 98 Second Edition is the main target. Each package’s zip carries its own FIRSTBOOT.TXT, INSTALL.TXT and RECOVER.TXT: read them before you install anything. Never install from the source tree’s packaging/win98se folder; that is the INF source, not a package.

Install

1. Download the zip for your card’s family from the downloads page and copy its contents to the machine (CD, USB or network; the floppy build is no longer maintained from 0.34.0).
2. Exit every game and full-screen DirectDraw program. A dialog behind a full-screen game can take the Win16 lock and wedge the machine mid-install.
3. Open Control Panel → System → Device Manager, expand Display adapters and open your adapter.
4. Driver → Update Driver, choose to pick a specific driver, then Have Disk, and browse to the unzipped package folder.
5. Select the Velocity9x entry for your chip and let Windows copy the files.
6. When prompted, shut down fully. Do not warm-restart the first boot. Then cold-start the machine once.

Do not uninstall the existing display driver first, and do not remove the adapter in Device Manager. Windows re-detects it and installs Microsoft’s in-box driver instead of this one. Install over the top.

Intel graphics show up twice

The GMA 900, GMA 950 and later Intel chips are two PCI devices. Windows may list both under Display adapters, as “Standard PCI Graphics Adapter” and “Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA)”. Install on the one ending “(VGA)”. Leave the other alone: forced onto it, the driver stops before it can use the card and Windows stays at 16 colours.

Cards with no native package

Use the vbe package through Have Disk and pick Velocity9x VBE-generic display (any VESA VBE 2.0+ adapter), accepting the “not intended for this hardware” warning. The CPU does all the drawing.

Verify the first boot

• A good first boot comes up in 256 colours. Still at 16 colours means the driver did not start: C:\V9XDIAG\V9XBOOT.INI records how far it got.
• Display Properties gains two tabs. Velocity9x shows the adapter, PCI ID, video memory, the active mode and which acceleration paths are live, and has Check for updates. Velocity9x Advanced holds the Direct3D, DDI 6, vertical sync and 16-bit colour selectors and Send report.
• Installed copies from 0.15.0 on update themselves through Check for updates, which checks an Ed25519 signature before installing.

If the desktop does not appear, stop after one boot attempt. Do not reboot repeatedly.

Recovery

1. Preferred: restore the cold backup.
2. Otherwise power off, start up and press F8 before Windows starts, and choose Safe Mode.
3. Control Panel → System → Device Manager → Display adapters, and remove the Velocity9x adapter entry.
4. Reboot, and choose Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) when it is detected.
5. Only once standard VGA works, and only if Windows no longer references them, delete V9XDISP.DRV and V9XMINI.VXD from C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.

After a garbled live mode switch that did not crash, a plain reboot is usually enough.

Known install-time gotchas

• Games set to 320x200, 320x240 or 640x400 may crash. Set them to 640x480.
• 24 bpp is not offered anywhere. No measured BIOS has a packed 24-bpp mode. 32 bpp is offered where the card supports it.
• A 2 MB S3 card refuses the largest modes. 1024x768x32 needs 3 MB.
• The cursor is drawn in software. No card has a hardware cursor.