Nice system. Hows it far with 1gb of ram?

Jade Falcon wrote:

Nice system. Hows it far with 1gb of ram?

Actually it was a pain, until tested and acquired this excellent software: http://rloew.x10host.com/Programs/Patchm.htm It works fabulously now, super stable. I had random lockups in windows 98se, shutdown issues as it hanged during shutdown of windows 98, random freezing of programs etc before the patch.
It's 21USD + Paypal and he actually delivered the software amazingly fast, I was not sure he was still in business so I was a bit worried. I did not need to worry though, It took 30min and then a e-mail with the patch arrived. Highly recommended 😀

Windows 98se did install fine with 1gb ram though but the real pain was how to actually get 98se installed without cd.rom and only USB sticks available. That was a real pain in the ass, until I just put the SSD into my laptop second bay, formatted it, copied the windows 98se installation files on it and booted it with a USB floppy image of DOS 6.22 and then carried on installing windows.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Nice system. Hows it far with 1gb of ram?

and thanks!! I quite like the setup. My main HP 2570p on DVI and my win98se on VGA and usb wireless mouse+keyb. It's just to switch the input selection on the OSD. Super duper easy 😀

You know there are free ways to get 1gb of ram working in 9x. I never tried payed patches, but I never had luck with the free ways. the free ways work, but not all that well. Good to see that you got it working for you.

And I can't say this enough, but that is one nicely put together system.

dottoss wrote:

Corsair HX620

and it seems I need to acquire a new PSU, as its having a little problem powering everything with the MOLEX connectors. Nvidia control panel sometimes complains that the card is downclocking as it is not getting enough power. The 6800 Ultra is powered by two molex connectors. I`ve learned that these kind of stuff needs not to be rushed. I find a suitable PSU when I find it 😀

Have you tried Molex's from another cable for your graphics card?

When building a new rig using a more powerful graphics card that requires one or more Molex's, I tend to spread the load of all Molex's used across all the cables as a way to prevent one bush of wires from becoming overloaded while other bushes of cables become underused. I don't know a lot about the technical details of PSUs but I do know the way manufacturers implemented the rails might be different with each other model PSU.

So even though it may not be the actual issue, I rather prevent it from becoming one and try to spread the load across as many available power lines as I can.

I don't know if the message about your graphics card not receiving enough power could be a software thingy or that your PSU is indeed defective in some way but it might be worth a try?

Jade Falcon wrote:

You know there are free ways t get 1gb of ram working in 9x. I never tried payed patches, but I never had luck with the free ways. the free ways work, but not all that well. Good to see that you go it working for you.

Yes, there is, like this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/1844 … tialize-windows but as you, I found it is somewhat a hit or miss solution. The patch is a keeper in my opinion, it will serve its purpose for a long time ahead 😀

and the obligatory DOOM 3 1.0 timedemo 😀

not bad! I did not know doom3 could be ran on 9x

Tetrium wrote:

Have you tried Molex's from another cable for your graphics card? […]
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Have you tried Molex's from another cable for your graphics card?

When building a new rig using a more powerful graphics card that requires one or more Molex's, I tend to spread the load of all Molex's used across all the cables as a way to prevent one bush of wires from becoming overloaded while other bushes of cables become underused. I don't know a lot about the technical details of PSUs but I do know the way manufacturers implemented the rails might be different with each other model PSU.

So even though it may not be the actual issue, I rather prevent it from becoming one and try to spread the load across as many available power lines as I can.

I don't know if the message about your graphics card not receiving enough power could be a software thingy or that your PSU is indeed defective in some way but it might be worth a try?

Yes, I've spread the 6800ultra over two different (rails?) molex (cables from the PSU). Still get the message, however, I got another idea from your post, so I removed the two 140mm fans from the SATA pwr cable and plugged them into the MB fan outputs and now the error message is gone! Thank you! The PSU might be defect though, as I believe it should be able to power a SSD, couple of fans and a 6800 Ultra without having too much fluctuations. I might be wrong though, I'm very not much of PSU expert.

Jade Falcon wrote:

not bad! I did not know doom3 could be ran on 9x

It really can't but the kernelEx allows it 😀 On another side note, one can actually hex edit the doom exe into being allowed to run on Windows 98 instead of using KernelEx. It seems it's a artificial limit put on by the developer.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/

Nice setup! I'm pretty sure I have the same HP laptop 😎

ultimate386 wrote:

Nice setup! I'm pretty sure I have the same HP laptop 😎

Good for you! I really like the Elitebooks. It's getting a bit old, its from 2013 with an i7 Ivy but it still fulfills my needs. I really love the docking capabilities, and the laptop is small enough to bring along on trips. It's shame HP discontinued the elitebook line. I would have wanted to buy newer products in that product line.

On another note, I'm having a blast, gaming away, but I seem to notice some performance hiccups of the 6800 ultra in DOS, especially at higher resolutions, like 1600x1200 and even in 1280x1024. The games ì'm talking about is not 3d accelerated, like Duke Nukem 3D. They are more than playable at more modest resolutions like 800x600/1024x768 though.

These AGP cards should be faster, is it just poor DOS compatibility? Someone knows or have some experience in the field of newer AGP cards and DOS performance?

dottoss wrote:

ultimate386 wrote:

Nice setup! I'm pretty sure I have the same HP laptop 😎

<snip>
These AGP cards should be faster, is it just poor DOS compatibility? Someone knows or have some experience in the field of newer AGP cards and DOS performance?

For DOS compatibility, it seems the king of the AGP cards is the 3dfx Voodoo3, though from all I've seen both nVidia and ATI cards should have decent compatibility, and most of their oddball cases crop up with quite old games. The same is broadly true of Matrox cards, though their issues are a bit more widespread.

For performance, the catch here is that in VESA modes - which are mostly what DOS games use - the faster acceleration features of the card don't matter at all, and it's pretty much a question of how fast you can write to the linear framebuffer. For what DOS games are doing, that hasn't gotten much faster since the S3 Virge, ATI Rage Pro, Tseng ET6000 and their kin. The old PCI Ark Logic cards were phenomenally fast in DOS, despite their amazingly lackluster performance in Windows/Unix, for example.

I suppose it's possible to stick a older PCI card in a desktop, but making DOS use it is a trick though there are options on some mobos to initialize PCI graphics first if found, but then using the AGP card is tricky. Windows 2000 and later handle multiple graphics cards more adeptly, but that doesn't help with DOS.

S3 Savage cards are good for compatibility as well, even with older games like Keen.

jade_angel wrote:

For DOS compatibility, it seems the king of the AGP cards is the 3dfx Voodoo3, though from all I've seen both nVidia and ATI car […]
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dottoss wrote:

ultimate386 wrote:

Nice setup! I'm pretty sure I have the same HP laptop 😎

<snip>
These AGP cards should be faster, is it just poor DOS compatibility? Someone knows or have some experience in the field of newer AGP cards and DOS performance?

For DOS compatibility, it seems the king of the AGP cards is the 3dfx Voodoo3, though from all I've seen both nVidia and ATI cards should have decent compatibility, and most of their oddball cases crop up with quite old games. The same is broadly true of Matrox cards, though their issues are a bit more widespread.

For performance, the catch here is that in VESA modes - which are mostly what DOS games use - the faster acceleration features of the card don't matter at all, and it's pretty much a question of how fast you can write to the linear framebuffer. For what DOS games are doing, that hasn't gotten much faster since the S3 Virge, ATI Rage Pro, Tseng ET6000 and their kin. The old PCI Ark Logic cards were phenomenally fast in DOS, despite their amazingly lackluster performance in Windows/Unix, for example.

I suppose it's possible to stick a older PCI card in a desktop, but making DOS use it is a trick though there are options on some mobos to initialize PCI graphics first if found, but then using the AGP card is tricky. Windows 2000 and later handle multiple graphics cards more adeptly, but that doesn't help with DOS.

Thanks for a understandable and informative reply!! I have a couple of Voodoo5 PCI so I might test that and see if there is any difference but it will have to be a later project 😀

Is the P4EE unlocked? And what's the lowest multiplier it can downclock to?

j^aws wrote:

Is the P4EE unlocked? And what's the lowest multiplier it can downclock to?

No, they are not unlocked. The only multiplier you can set is [x17].

agent_x007 wrote:

j^aws wrote:

Is the P4EE unlocked? And what's the lowest multiplier it can downclock to?

No, they are not unlocked. The only multiplier you can set is [x17].

Correct, and as far as I know the unlocked multiplier starts with the s775 Extreme CPUs.

dottoss wrote:

agent_x007 wrote:

j^aws wrote:

Is the P4EE unlocked? And what's the lowest multiplier it can downclock to?

No, they are not unlocked. The only multiplier you can set is [x17].

Correct, and as far as I know the unlocked multiplier starts with the s775 Extreme CPUs.

Yes, with Pentium Extreme Edition 840 to be exact* 😀
All* Pentium 4 Extreme Editions are locked (ie. both PGA 478 and LGA 775 models).

*I don't count "ES" (Engineering Samples), which can have unlocked multipliers.

dottoss wrote:

... having a little problem powering everything with the MOLEX connectors. Nvidia control panel sometimes complains that the card is downclocking as it is not getting enough power. The 6800 Ultra is powered by two molex connectors ...

dottoss wrote:

...I removed the two 140mm fans from the SATA pwr cable and plugged them into the MB fan outputs and now the error message is gone! ...

Most PC fans are electrically 'noisy' and come without any filtering. It's possible that those particular 140mm fans are creating ripple, which messed with the 6800 Ultra when they were on the same peripheral wire that feeds the GPU.

Now that they're plugged directly to a mobo fan header, the mobo's onboard filtering caps may be getting rid of their ripple.

Though long in the tooth the HX620 is a fine PSU, Seasonic guts & Hitachi/Chemicon caps.