Download Directx 9 Windows 7 64 Bit Offline

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Narkis Eatman

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Aug 3, 2024, 1:43:17 PM8/3/24

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Whenever I open a 3d-accelerated game my computer will freeze and require a reset. Games include Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, Heavy Gear 2, and Half Life. Opening 2d games appears fine such as Putt Putt Enters the Race or Doom 95. What would be the cause of this? I've tried swapping out my gpu to a FX 5200 PCI, installing different nvidia drivers (45.23), and both removed and reinstalled my audio drivers, none of which worked. What would be causing these crashes? I've purpose built this pc to play old games, but most of the ones I want to play won't run. Could it be something to do with directx? All the problematic games use directx, but they all use different versions from 3 up to 7/8.1.

Have you run the tests in DxDiag? Assuming that you're running Win98 SE, I would do a clean install without any unofficial service packs, they seems to hurt more than they help. KT7AGuy put together a guide for Windows 98 installation: Generic Win98SE Installation & Setup Guide

DirectDraw test passes for my display in dxdiag, but Direct3D crashes dxdiag.exe. The program shows my display supports acceleration for both DirectDraw and Direct3D, but also shows some files out of date.

I can try a fresh install as a last resort, but directx seems the most likely culprit. How would I address the outdated directx files error message? I've already installed directx 8.1 from the files included with my gpu cd.

As Repo Man11 said, stay away from unofficial service packs which tend to do more harm than good with those third-party "patches". If you want to update Windows 98 SE, either check the Windows Update Restored website or get the Windows Security CD from February 2004.

That isn't normal and I would consider reinstalling Windows without any unofficial stuff at this point. Updating the DirectX runtime libraries usually don't cause troubles (which is a pet peeve of mine, each version since 8 has separate DLLs) unless you have crappy drivers installed around.

Dxdiag reported old files because I wasn't running my host's version of dxdiag (oops). Running the proper executable shows a successful 3d test with no outdated files. However, directx games still freeze my system.

Am I going through the steps in correct order? Motherboard drivers -> directx -> gpu drivers -> sound card drivers? My gpu manual instructs me to install directx before my gpu drivers, and a video on windows 98 from PhilsComputerLab shows sound card drivers being installed last. This is why I have gone through these steps in this order.

Are you sure your copy of Win98 SE is good?
Try another reinstall, but this time check dxdiag for those warnings before installing any drivers. I think SE comes with 6.1 out of the box. Then install just the video drivers and test.

My copy of windows is fine. I've burned multiple cds from different sources to no effect. I can install the same iso in a VM and am able to play some directx games that way without issue.
The problem persists without any sound card installed. Using integrated audio, which was disabled before with both jumper and bios settings, and only a video card installed still results in the same freezing.
Freezing occurs regardless of directx version. 9, 8.1, 8, 7, and 6.1. It doesn't make a difference.
I've tried a pci FX 5200 gpu and different ram. Same result.

This is driving me insane. I must have reinstalled windows a dozen times by now. Perhaps there is some hardware issue like with my chipset or motherboard? I've also read that newer power supplies, which I'm using, may not provide enough current on the 5V rail. The 600W Corsair unit I'm using is rated for 20A for its 5V rail. Is that sufficient? Assuming it's not shared somehow and is actually providing even less current. I'm at the end of my rope and ready to give up.

Maybe try setting the BIOS options to defaults if you haven't already, could be something there that's interfering. I've had weird issues with corruption, crashes, and freezes with my system that resulted from one particular option being enabled, "Write Cache Pipeline". Looking at a manual for your board, your BIOS has an option called "Pipelined Function" that's enabled by default, but I don't know if that is doing the same thing as mine or not. You could always play around with different options in there as well and see if the freezes happen to stop.

Disabling Pipelined Function in the bios had no effect, unfortunately. I originally started this journey with default bios settings. I have since adjusted ram timings and disabled unused peripherals like on-board parallel and serial ports.

I've finally found the issue! The culprit? My chipset's AGP driver. A fresh install without installing my chipset drivers has yielded a system finally free of this freezing issue. I had previously tried an FX 5200 PCI GPU, but only after installing the AGP driver. Even without an AGP card installed the driver would still somehow cause an issue. I had read some forum posts stating that this ALi ALADDIN V chipset has AGP issues with K6-2 CPUs, so I decided to try running the system without it. Re-enabling the pipelined function setting in my bios doesn't cause any issues either. I'm so happy to finally figure out the cause especially since this means my hardware is okay.