Many views but no response, this is indeed a tough game to get working 😀.
Apologies for replying my own post, but I wanted to share some other findings I had with the game.
It seems the Full Screen (SMOOTH) has some kind of bug that prevents it from syncing with the monitor properly so if you select this option it goes full speed in most systems, not to mention the ugly graphical artifacts (like the scrolling has different speed between vertical lines). Sadly if you disable the sync option the game gets jittery and still has the glitches if your CPU is fast (meaning anything above a P90).
The ONLY configuration that I could set in PCEM that can run this mode at around 60fps and with smooth scrolling was with a Pentium Overdrive 83mhz using a Cirrus Logic GD-5434 for video as having a fast video card also makes the game go bonkers. With this system, the game was able to run at 64 fps (you can see by typing "framerate" while playing), and if enabling the sync with monitor option, with smooth scrolling. The only issue are the glitches that despite being very faint, still are noticeable.
There might be an even better setup for running this game, but I couldn't find it yet.

i have not tested this game, but this actually might be the first win95 commercial game release so it's not surprising to hear it being troublesome. this game actually even predates directx. i have tested gex which is over a year newer, but still gave me trouble. made a topic about it once here: tearing in gex

auron wrote on 2023-05-26, 11:35:

i have not tested this game, but this actually might be the first win95 commercial game release so it's not surprising to hear it being troublesome. this game actually even predates directx. i have tested gex which is over a year newer, but still gave me trouble. made a topic about it once here: tearing in gex

Correct, the engine used by Pitfall predates DirectX, in fact, Microsoft used some of it as basis for creating DirectX. There were quite a few games released during that "GAP" between Windows 95 release and DirectX becoming standard, mostly console ports that were supposed to show how capable Windows 95 was as a gaming platform.
It did its job, but looking in retrospect It's clear that the console versions were usually superior at least for 2D games, PCs just could not compete with the way consoles handled tiles and sprites by hardware.
GEX is one of those in my opinion, the game runs at 30fps instead of 60fps like the PS1 and Saturn versions, not to mention the screen tearing issue. At least this game is available on GOG to play in modern hardware but I'm not sure if it works in period correct hardware.
I used to own both Pitfall and GEX (one of the first big box games I had) and loved both of them, lucky for me I didn't know anything about vsync or framerates.

i also had issues getting Pitfall: Mayan Adventure to work on one of my windows 98 SE builds, socket 478 pentium 4 2.8ghz, geforce 4 ti 4200 128-bit, Soundblaster Live! 5.1, 512mb ddr 400 ram, DX 8.1, playing them using daemon tools for virtual discs, the game will work fine at first but some times it freeze my computer and gets stuck on a music loop forces me to restart it (in windowed mode or full screen). i have no idea why it's such a problem, i have same problem with games like EWJ Special Edition and Toy Story. all of them are from 1996 very early win 95 titles that pre-dated DX, "Garfield: Caught in the Act" for PC however works perfectly fine in my P4 rig. that PC works perfectly fine with 90% i throw at it. at first i though it was soundcard problem, then a graphics card problem, then a DX 8 problem (since some games don't like DX 😎. however on my other win 98 rig, has socket 370 Pentium 3 1ghz with 3DFX Voodoo 3000, 256mb ram, turtle beach santa cruz sound card, all the games work on it perfectly fine, no freezes no black screen no audio loop. it might be that some eariler Windows games don't like alot of Ram, im still not sure

Sounds like an nvidia problem. nvidia drivers doesn't like palette changes (slows down immensely) or switching into low resolutions