candle_86 wrote:

For what your asking, here is what I'd look into building.

Geforce 6800 Ultra AGP PRetty much will destroy DX7,8 and 2003/2004 DX9 Games

The only 6800 Ultra's I can find are from Apple PowerMac's... will these still work? Also what patches are you referring to when it comes to installed Win98SE?

The MAC version of the 6800 won't work on PC as is. It needs to be reflashed with the bios from a PC version of the card. If you can't find a 6800, look for an x800 or x850 in stead. They are just as fast (the x850xt is actually a bit faster). If you can't find those either, the 6600 agp, 5900xt or radeon 9800 pro are good cards as well. As for patches, he was referring to the fact that win98se won't work with more then 1gb of ram - it won't even install properly. Those patches are hard to find, cause instability and some even cost money - I suggest you stick with 1GB of ram for your win98 machine to avoid complications like that.

It's just a simple .in file edit to get 98se to work with up to 1.5 GB. There is some sort of patch that allows up to 2.5 GB, but that's where the system can get unstable. It depends on a host of factors, but if you want to run some old copy of Photoshop, then the 2.5GB patch is fine.

I've never had a problem with stability and 1GB of ram on 98se. Just a quick edit to the system.ini file fixes things. But in all honesty, if you don't have a bunch of stuff installed and running in the background, then you won't see any difference than if it had 384MB. Only a small handful of games will take advantage of anything over 256MB.

If you're only going to game with it, just stick to 512MB or less. You won't see any real world benefits with anything over 512MB.

I find the simplest way to build a Windows 98 pc is to get a Pentium 3, Geforce 4, 512mb ram, Sound Blaster Live! and a 80gb IDE drive. That build never fails.

Kodai wrote:

It's just a simple .in file edit to get 98se to work with up to 1.5 GB. There is some sort of patch that allows up to 2.5 GB, but that's where the system can get unstable. It depends on a host of factors, but if you want to run some old copy of Photoshop, then the 2.5GB patch is fine.

I've never had a problem with stability and 1GB of ram on 98se. Just a quick edit to the system.ini file fixes things. But in all honesty, if you don't have a bunch of stuff installed and running in the background, then you won't see any difference than if it had 384MB. Only a small handful of games will take advantage of anything over 256MB.

If you're only going to game with it, just stick to 512MB or less. You won't see any real world benefits with anything over 512MB.

Win98se + 1gb of ram is perfectly stable - no ini edit or patching necessary. Go above 1 GB and that's where the problems start. I managed to install windows 98se with 1.5gb of ram but it kept bsoding when loading drivers. I edited the system.ini file but the machine was VERY slow and kind of unstable. 1GB is the best option for 98se - no modding, no headaches.

Trank wrote:

I find the simplest way to build a Windows 98 pc is to get a Pentium 3, Geforce 4, 512mb ram, Sound Blaster Live! and a 80gb IDE drive. That build never fails.

I concur, Mr. Trank! Make it so!

I think that is the best all-around, cheapest, easiest, most solid Win98SE build you can do. Although, as I mentioned previously, I would restrict my SBLive choices to the CT4620 or CT4670 for better SB16 emulation with fewer headaches. For video cards, Voodoo 3 3000 if you want compatibility, GF4 Ti4200 for performance.

I strongly disagree with other posters regarding using more than 512mb RAM. Really, you don't even need more than 256mb RAM for any game that you'll run under Win98SE. Some games like Longbow II actually have problems with more than 320mb RAM. If you want to keep things nice, simple, and headache-free, just stick with 256-512mb RAM. You won't see any gains in performance by using more than that anyway.

Trank wrote:

I find the simplest way to build a Windows 98 pc is to get a Pentium 3, Geforce 4, 512mb ram, Sound Blaster Live! and a 80gb IDE drive. That build never fails.

This is exactly (almost) my opinion on the subject, too.
I would just add:
- Geforce 2 is also ok
- You can use 512MB, and will have virtually no problems but 256MB is also ok and there is no real life gains when 256MB / 512MB compared
- And I would like to have an AWE64 instead of Live, considering this platform I also very nice for playing late DOS games.