Windows 98 1681

Author: Kugee

Memphis build 1681, another instance of Windows 98 Beta 3.

(PNG)

(PNG)

When upgrading from a version of Windows, Setup plays certain sounds during the installation procedure. Build 1400 also had sounds for the same events (going to the next Setup dialog and what not), but they were different from this build. These sounds are used in the final release.

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

Yeah, not much is different in Setup.

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

(PNG)

The refresh rate briefly changed to 120Hz for some reason.

(PNG)

(PNG)

The welcome screen can now be prevented from loading on login using a simple check box.

(PNG)

Still using my custom RIVA 128 driver, but...

(PNG)

...Memphis 1681 does come with its own.

(PNG)

Ah, yes... can't forget this window.

(PNG)

At the last minute, I ended up switching the card out for a TNT2 Model 64, which has better OpenGL support and therefore can demonstrate AGP support in Memphis more effectively.

(PNG)

(PNG)

No, I do not want to say "no 'thanks'", I want to say "no, and how about you fix your software and stop lacing it with officially supported malware", there is no reason to express any gratitude for the recent atrocities Microsoft is insisting its customers use. (In many ways, what Microsoft is doing now is comparable to what they did with forced IE4 integration in Windows 98.)

(PNG)

But hey, perhaps I'd take IE4 over Edge, considering how much worse everything has become today.

(PNG)

The Start menu banner now has a colored background with a dithered gradient, similarly to Windows NT 4.0.

(PNG)

So, Memphis 1681 supports the AGP bus and OpenGL, and it can work with later video cards. There's really no differences I can point out on how it runs; if you can do something in Windows 95B (with the USB supplement if necessary), there's a good chance you can do it in Memphis. This isn't like Chicago, where early builds had a Win32 API and driver model that weren't fully developed, and DirectX wasn't even a thing around that time.

(PNG)

Side note, I did try to use the 640x480 resolution, which surely would've improved the frame rate, but I couldn't figure out how to make Unreal run full screen at 60Hz, which prevented my capture card from receiving stable video output.

(PNG)

I passed by this build very quickly, ignoring a lot of the parts of the software.

(PNG)

That's all of the builds covered in Hardcore Memphis! Whenever anyone else gets around to covering the other builds, do add more screenshots for the builds I've covered if necessary. A lot of my hardware recordings tend to have the screen out of perfect center, color inaccuracies, and graininess in some instances, and virtual machines have the benefit of avoiding this problem at every point. However, there's a lot of cool things that can be done on Windows betas with real hardware, and I intend to cover some Chicago builds on real hardware in the future. In the meantime, I must continue work on a couple of other large projects.

(PNG)

Back to hub