Way to new for that kind of machine. You are trying to use a cpu released in 2010... Well, buckle up and enjoy the ride.

I don't think CPU is a problem here. I've seen Windows 98 SE working fine on i7 (using just one core). As long as there isn't too much RAM it should be good.

Other components are more restricted due to driver availability, but with several PCI slots, there is some room to add what I need outside of motherboard integrated parts.

512mb for win98 unless you are using one of the patches. I had no ends of instability when running 768mb. Your mileage may vary, as does others

>512MB with Windows 98...

I would think finding a AM2/3 board that has drivers for win98 is going to be a struggle.

AM2 is viable, but the best results are going to be with S939 or S754 systems running VIA or SIS chipsets.

I was considering win98/winxp pc as well. One of my main questions is that are there many games for winxp that do not run well with just 512Mb of ram?

If a game needs more than 512MB of ram it will probably work in a modern Win 7 machine already. Same goes for anything DX9. A "maxed out" WinXP machine will be a different design than a Win98/WinXP max-out.

Auzner wrote:

If a game needs more than 512MB of ram it will probably work in a modern Win 7 machine already. Same goes for anything DX9. A "maxed out" WinXP machine will be a different design than a Win98/WinXP max-out.

I just remembered something. When I was playing with my super socket 7 system that had 256mb ram, there was some dos games that didn't work in dos mode because of too much ram. I used himemx to limit the ram to 32Mb to make those games work, but then I noticed that win98se was also only able to see the same 32Mb, so I made boot menu in config.sys to choose between 32Mb and full ram modes. Would it work with win98se to limit ram to 512Mb with himemx on a pc that has more ram than that?

Some of the last DX8 WinXP games like UT2004 recommend 256MB, 512MB is already double that. These are always purpose-built machines for older gaming, not multitasking or daily use. There's not much reason to have over 512MB in 98/XP builds--not many games (I can't think of any which won't run in Win7) will even get to touch it.

But there are plenty of work-arounds out there to get over 512MB operating in 98.

You don't need IDE for Windows 98. There are plenty of SATA controllers with Win98 drivers.

Looks like the Realtek 8111E gigabit NIC can be used in Windows 98.

And one motherboard that comes with that and is an AM3 board is the ASRock 890FX-Deluxe 5

See this post for more info on a similar to want you want build:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-322950 … dos-gaming.html

Looks like you could also use the ASUS Crosshair Formula IV and have the onboard NIC work in Windows 98 as there are DOS NDIS2 drivers available directly from Marvell.

As long as the NIC chipset has DOS NDIS2 drivers, you can use it in Windows 9x.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/176892-using-rea … ivers-in-w98se/

Great project, I'm working on something similar (though it's paused right now). Using a Geforce 6800GT for Win98 and GTX 650 for Win XP on the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2.

Thanks for all the comments! 😀

I plan on using IDE drive because of IDE to SD card adapter that I have. It's much easier, in my opinion, to install both systems (XP and W98) on separate SD cards and just swap them out with my modern PC when I need to download some software or games (especially that there aren't good options for a web browser on W98).

The MoBo @cyclone3d suggested looks even more modern than what I was planning to use, and although it has just two PCI slots if the NIC is supported it should do. I'm only worried about UEFI and Windows 98 compatibility, but that is something I need to research.

I also get that I don't need more than 512 MB of RAM, but I find 4 GB* to be comfortable to use in WinXP and with a patch Windows 98 can handle that as well. I'm slightly afraid my GPU (7900 GTX 512 MB) might be problematic for Windows 98, but that's also something I need to test first. I have also a GeForce 6800 GT as a fallback, but that's an AGP card and I'd have to change my MoBo plans.

* Well, 3.sth GB, unless it's a server Windows with PAE

Or you could use Windows XP x64 to get support for more than 4GB RAM total (RAM - video card RAM)

I did FAR more powerfull rig on basic Win98SE (no unofficial patches) : "Madness", One retro PC to rule them all :) 😁
However, for me :
1) I couldn't install more than 1GB of memory for Win98SE (it would crash on startup after first boot driver installation, even after installation itself went fine [I used 1GB+ method to bypass RAM limits]).
2) Because of 1, and with 12GB of RAM installed, I needed R. Loew's patch for high capacity RAM.
3) I couldn't use GTX 780 Ti with 7900 GTX (regardless of the above) 😉
More info in my thread.

A 750W PSU for win98 gaming though?

@Auzner
I used what I have available 😀
Also, 750W isn't that much of an overkill for OC'ed Hex Core LGA1366 CPU and GTX 780 Ti + lots of addons on top.
That PC was designed/build to run ALL OS'es with no hardware changes at all.

To be clear : I didn't tested how much power that configuration actually uses for given OS.
In case of PSU however, better safe than sorry and I don't own a high enough quality 550-650W PSU, that I can trust to power up this thing when it's at full speed.

agent_x007 wrote:

I did FAR more powerfull rig on basic Win98SE (no unofficial patches) : "Madness", One retro PC to rule them all :) :D However, […]
Show full quote

I did FAR more powerfull rig on basic Win98SE (no unofficial patches) : "Madness", One retro PC to rule them all :) 😁
However, for me :
1) I couldn't install more than 1GB of memory for Win98SE (it would crash on startup after first boot driver installation, even after installation itself went fine [I used 1GB+ method to bypass RAM limits]).
2) Because of 1, and with 12GB of RAM installed, I needed R. Loew's patch for high capacity RAM.
3) I couldn't use GTX 780 Ti with 7900 GTX (regardless of the above) 😉
More info in my thread.

How do you use that motherboard with win98 when there are no motherboard drivers for win98?
Did you use some kind of modified drivers to get Geforce 7 series graphics card work with win98? Can you tell where you can download the drivers?

I simply use it on default ones and disable stuff I don't need.
Why would you try to find a driver that clearly isn't needed to get the board working ?

Here's my Device Manager : LINK.
As for NV driver - Yes, I used moded 82.69 version : LINK.

agent_x007 wrote:

I simply use it on default ones and disable stuff I don't need. Why would you try to find a driver that clearly isn't needed to […]
Show full quote

I simply use it on default ones and disable stuff I don't need.
Why would you try to find a driver that clearly isn't needed to get the board working ?

Here's my Device Manager : LINK.
As for NV driver - Yes, I used moded 82.69 version : LINK.

I was looking at the txt file related to the modified driver here http://www.mdgx.com/files/NV8269.TXT
Any idea why 8800 GT support is missing?

Because he didn't added it to .inf file.

Modded NVAML.INF = added support (theoretically)...

Adding IDs of GPUs to .inf driver file tricks/bypasses "no driver found" error on driver installation.
However, this means Windows 98 tries to use NT based driver on Windows 98 OS (because there are no Win98 drivers for DX10 cards).
WinXP driver can't work in Win98 environment which results usually in Windows 98 crash on first reboot (after driver installation). Using NV40/G70/G71 driver is also out of the question for G80 (because of fundamental changes made in GPU architecture).

In short : DX10 cards can't work in Win98SE.
I checked it with 8800 GTX - Windows simply gives "protection error" message after reboot from driver installation, and no - KernelEX can't "fix" this.

DX10 cards will only work with Win98's "VGA compatible" driver.
Which makes them as capable as vintage VGA 2D card for PCI/ISA.