I don't see the need 😀

Windows 98SE is perfect for V2 SLI.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I don't see the need 😀

Windows 98SE is perfect for V2 SLI.

Yup, I agree.

I would suggest Windows 2000 for the later 2000 Era Systems = Pentium III as you start seeing games supporting Windows 2000.

Not to say you can't dual boot for a bit of fun, just don't replace 😀

short answer : no , stick with Win98

the long answer is that you could dual boot , and a few games will get a boost in speed (Quake 2 and 3 engine games for instance) , but its fairly pointless, with a Pentium II (and I don't know what speed) Windows 2000 will probably not run as well as 98SE , and the kind of games that really benefit from this , will also benefit more from a Pentium III.

so overall , no , if anything a PII would suit Windows NT more, but that has its own issues with gaming.

Would not replace 9x on a PII, unless its a dual PII, and then its a dual boot.
Tho you can run it just fine. I've Run 2k on systems as slow as a Pentium 90.
If your not using a USB Keyboard\Mouse\Joysticks, try NT 4.0 as the secondary OS.
Your limited to DX3 and less +OGL\Glide but its lighting fast compared to 2k or XP on old systems.

AlphaWing wrote:

Would not replace 9x on a PII, unless its a dual PII, and then its a dual boot.

I ran Win98SE on a P2-300 system (440BX, 512MB EDO-DRAM, and a crappy Riva 128) just fine for a few years. I was an MSCE/MCT for NT4/2000 back in the day, and I wouldn't recommend either of those, if old school gaming is what your aim is. The instructor courseware for those classes were adamant that end-users should avoid the DOS support as much as possible, since it was an incomplete implementation, and was rapidly being phased out. And IIRC, the DX/OGL support on those 2 OSes topped out at much older versions.

I'm talking about 9x gaming.
If your running dos games dual boot dos or 9x.
Why would you be trying to play them under NT??? Isn't that a given?
NT4 is fun to use on older systems along side 9x, they don't need newer versions of OGL\DX and you can still get on the Net with it, just fine.

Windows 98 is perfect for SLI. Don't install 2000. Just make sure you set a proper vcache setting in C:\windows\system.ini file. Windows 9X doesn't deal with 512MB or more memory without problems.

As soon as I read Voodoo 2 I knew that you should stick with 98. The Voodoo 1 and 2 drivers
are more or less garbage on 2K. As far as I know they don't support SLI either
Not that any Voodoo drivers are great. Drivers are one of the biggest downfall of Voodoo IMO

It wouldn't hurt to dual boot if you have the disk space though. 2000 is more stable than 98

BTW Posting from Windows 2000 on a 486 with 64 RAM

Holering wrote:

Windows 98 is perfect for SLI. Don't install 2000. Just make sure you set a proper vcache setting in C:\windows\system.ini file. Windows 9X doesn't deal with 512MB or more memory without problems.

I installed the unofficial Windows 98 SE Service Pack (cant remember which version it was, it was what ever the latest version of it was, im at work and cant find it right now :3) and one of the fixes was for memory above 512MB of RAM.

AlphaWing wrote:

I'm talking about 9x gaming.

Appropos to nothing, but I had students attempt to play 9X games during lunch/smokes breaks during NT4/2000 courses, and they were really hit or miss. But is you wanna dual-boot NT/2000 and 9X go for it.

Hope it works better for you, than the 300+ students I had that tried.

Personally, I'd get a 9X machine for games, and use NT/2000 for other tasks, but that's just me.

Thanks everyone for the recommendations, I will just stick with what I have already, if the urge hits me sometime I will just dual boot, again, thanks for everything 😁

ElectricMonk wrote:

AlphaWing wrote:

I'm talking about 9x gaming.

Appropos to nothing, but I had students attempt to play 9X games during lunch/smokes breaks during NT4/2000 courses, and they were really hit or miss.

That explanation is pretty much WHY VOGONS exists. We (DosFreak, Snover, Nicht Sehr Gut and myself) started the forum mainly to share the hacks/registry fixes/patches/etc. "dark arts" to get Win9x games working natively in Windows NT4, 2000 and XP, and DOS games working in NTVDM command-prompt windows. Then DOSBox came along, and the rest is history...

Don't understand the negativity @ trying to use NT 4 on an old machine.
Especially 2k, as I USED it as my MAIN windows OS until I got a quadcore cpu, which would of forced me to get the datacenter version.
You can dual boot\Triple OS's on the same machine, so there is no harm in installing it if you got a copy.
The point is its FUN to try and get stuff working on it, and it IS fast on older hardware. It also lets you get on Net easier then 9x does as much newer browser versions are compatible with it, or can be tricked to run on it still.

ElectricMonk wrote:

And IIRC, the DX/OGL support on those 2 OSes topped out at much older versions.

DX support on NT4 is pretty limited, but Win2k can install DX9 without any problems. 😀

That said, for the system in the original post I'd also suggest Windows 98SE. I agree with the reasoning for a Pentium 3 (or higher) for W2k, not that it can't run on lesser hardware (I've seen it/used it successfully on MMX 233s without much fanfare - it isn't the fastest thing in the world, but it does work). Dual-booting might be fun if you're curious, but I wouldn't consider it required if the system isn't SMP. I haven't had any major issues with my Voodoo2 (not SLI) in 2k, but I also haven't extensively tested it with a host of applications.

I generally hate Win9x, and I gladly left it behind at the time period of these P2 machines. However, I've never had a Voodoo card. So I'll concede the advice of people who have suggested that the Voodoo drivers are better on 9x. This is obviously a very important factor. Also, if you need DOS game support then you'll need 9x or DOS anyway. Just be judicious in what you install, because 98 turns to hell when it starts to destabilize.

Depending what you use that computer for, I'd be tempted to at least try a dual boot with Win2k. Driver questions aside, it works well for Windows games, the only game I couldn't play on 2000 was because of an arbitrary version check. I never noticed a speed difference between 2k and 98, but it's been years since I last ran 98 so I might not have an accurate perception. 2k does use more RAM but not enough to matter with 768MB installed.

When Windows 2000 came out I stayed away from it because it did have problems with Voodoo drivers at the time and made the upgrade for the Voodoo box to be Windows ME instead. 🤣 😀 😐 😒

shamino wrote:

I generally hate Win9x, and I gladly left it behind at the time period of these P2 machines. However, I've never had a Voodoo card. So I'll concede the advice of people who have suggested that the Voodoo drivers are better on 9x. This is obviously a very important factor. Also, if you need DOS game support then you'll need 9x or DOS anyway. Just be judicious in what you install, because 98 turns to hell when it starts to destabilize.

Depending what you use that computer for, I'd be tempted to at least try a dual boot with Win2k. Driver questions aside, it works well for Windows games, the only game I couldn't play on 2000 was because of an arbitrary version check. I never noticed a speed difference between 2k and 98, but it's been years since I last ran 98 so I might not have an accurate perception. 2k does use more RAM but not enough to matter with 768MB installed.

I agree. 9x tends of be unstable where 2000 is generally very stable.
Many games (even DOS ones) work fine on 2000. The big problem with DOS programs on 2k/XP is caused by third party video drivers that don't support DOS display acess

I also agree there isn't much speed difference with one exception: startup. 98 is usable as soon as the desktop appears but 2000 still needs to wait for quite some time
before it is usable after seeing the desktop as background services start up. If you have a fast CPU with lots of RAM you can probably use it anyway but with a slower system
you will have to wait

leileilol wrote:

When Windows 2000 came out I stayed away from it because it did have problems with Voodoo drivers at the time and made the upgrade for the Voodoo box to be Windows ME instead. 🤣 😀 😐 😒

ME is good I don't understand why people hate it so much too.

I run ME\XP on 1.4ghz Tualatin thats running a Asus TUV4x which is Via based. I use it because it actually has less stability issues then 98se on this system, 🤣 .
Its running XP instead of 2k because, this system is my main file storage system, and Its always on.
I don't trust 2k\NT4 with that task anymore, and I really should switch it to Me\somelinuxdistro.

AlphaWing wrote:

leileilol wrote:

When Windows 2000 came out I stayed away from it because it did have problems with Voodoo drivers at the time and made the upgrade for the Voodoo box to be Windows ME instead. 🤣 😀 😐 😒

ME is good I don't understand why people hate it so much too.

Because you can get all the best features of ME using 98SE2ME without breaking DOS compatibility like ME does. Microsoft deactivated DOS real mode to get faster boot time so a lot of programs that need it on boot won't run. It also makes switching on the fly between Windows and DOS a pain with ME.