I would go for the ti-4200 myself, but overall this looks like a killer 98se machine.

ODwilly wrote:

I would go for the ti-4200 myself, but overall this looks like a killer 98se machine.

Yeah. Was lucky to get that board. It was a "budget" pc, only with that Mobo plus CPU, 1GB Ram, 80gb HDD, a case and a PSU.
They told me that I could get it for free, only I was nice and did pay for it though. I paid 50 kroners. (roughly 7.50 US dollars)

You could dual boot XP as well, 512mb of ram works great as long as you do not install Service Pack 3. With SP3 and 512mb of ram it ends up swapping to the hard drive all the time.

ODwilly wrote:

You could dual boot XP as well, 512mb of ram works great as long as you do not install Service Pack 3. With SP3 and 512mb of ram it ends up swapping to the hard drive all the time.

Hmmm... Dual boot ay!
Think I will stick to 2K. Although XP need activation, I really do not have any offline activation tool.
One big dilemma, as I have two or three product key stickers. And none of my retro machines are going online.
XP is not really my thing eighter.

For this box I would use the onboard, YMF724 or Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. Looks sweet!

The Ti4200 is fine, but a Ti4600 would be better. Also, I wouldn't bother with XP (SP2 or SP3) if you want to stick with 512MB RAM for compatibility with Win9x. Win2K Pro is the better choice if you want to dual-boot an NT system. It has most of the advantages of XP with none of the disadvantages.

I've got a 1ghz Coppermine with 512mb RAM that dual-boots with XP SP3. It is sluggish. Eventually, I will put it back to being a Win98SE-only system.

Also, pop a cheapo SB Live in there for EAX.

Nice 😀

What are you going to run on it? Specific games? Benchmarking? Or just for fun?

I found that GF4 Ti cards have tons of performance for Windows 98 games. I recommend using an older driver. Version 40 something should work well and be more compatible. To disable V-sync I use PowerStrip.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Nice 😀

What are you going to run on it? Specific games? Benchmarking? Or just for fun?

I found that GF4 Ti cards have tons of performance for Windows 98 games. I recommend using an older driver. Version 40 something should work well and be more compatible. To disable V-sync I use PowerStrip.

I remember the nvidia 41.09 driver at the time being one of the fastest drivers for the Geforce 4 series.

Thanks all. Yeah. Looking forward to build this system, it is just going to take some months.
I only have these two GFX that I did mention in the first post, so I will be using one of them.

Software wise. Hmmm... Well. It is going to be a highend 98 machine, so the early Win98 games are
off limit to this build. I think this is more aimed at the last two years, before the realease of XP.
So perhaps later drivers than 40 (nvidia) are going to be used. Now is just not the time to think about it.
Other than that. Well... This build is somewhat more like a fun project than actually a daily gaming rig.

For the sound. I do have this YMF724 card. Yeah... Just that I have my doubts on using it actually.
No Dos games are to touch this build, so perhaps the 724 is more or less a wrong choice.
Just have to tinker and experiment this one through. Nothing wrong about that I guess.
I don't have a spare Live card, and I am not just going out to buy for this one, just for the sake of geting a Live.
I have two of those, yet I see no reason for a third in my collection. Going with what I have.

Speaking of what I have. Well... I have that GF4-ti4200 and that GF-fx5200. Both resting in my HW-Box.
No need for faster cards for me. Still standing on using what I have.
Though early 98 games are way better off, using an Radeon card (better compatibility amoungst the 9000 series)
Yet this is a late-Win98 build, so I am hoping that GF4 has better compatibility amougst those games
that are from 2001/02. (possible later games) Not going to play anything like Diablo2 or NFS3.

Speaking of buying stuff. Well... I am going to need a new PSU for this one. And a case.
Actually the only two things I do not have for this build at the moment. And well. Hope someone will
buy what I have put up for sale. As they would give me just the right amount of money.

Not going to tell anyone what those items are in this tread, respecting that this is not a marketplace. 😁

EDIT
Actually missing a SATA DVD drive for this one too.... (late-win98, no need for audio cable)
Guess those SATA-DVD-Reader/burner's are really cheap these day's.
They are useable for modern Win7/8/10 machines, yet nobody actually uses them these days.
It's all about download's, cloud storage and usb-sticks/harddrives now.

foey wrote:

I remember the nvidia 41.09 driver at the time being one of the fastest drivers for the Geforce 4 series.

Noted.... For later test runs, when installing Win98SE. Thanks for the tip. 😀

And so, it begins.... 🤣

The initial setup for my high-end Windows98se machine, dubbed "The Beast" have been started.
The board is the MSI-K8mm-V http://www.msi.com/product/mb/K8MMV.html#hero-overview

For this, I have chosen the following hardware:

Sempron 3300+
512mb Kingston DDR-400
Asus Geforce-FX5200 128mb
Western Digital 80gb SATA-HDD
1.44mb floppy
And some random optical drive

Windows boot-floppy can see, partition and format the HDD just fine. So this is a start.
Other than that, I have noticed some things regarding the motherboard.

- The Bios have memmory settings for Os/2.
- PCI-setup have settings for "reserved", and something mentioned about Legacy-ISA (one can only hope)
- Finally, it has raid-bios for the dual-Sata. Hmmmmm!!!! Win98-Striped setup 🤣 Naaaa... Seriously 😳

Finally.... I have two other Seagate SATA harddrives as backups...

Yeah... Hope this will do nicely.

Nice testbench!

Noticed the USB to PS/2 adapter. Windows 98 has native USB support for keyboard and mouse. USB mouse is smoother for gaming when I tried it.

Yup... Usb-Ps2 adaptor. I never ever have used any USB or Netcard for any of my Win98se builds.
Never used it back then, and never going to use that for Win98se now. And more IRQ's free for stuff. 😁

I found that the mouse was not as smooth when playing FPS games with PS/2. Using a newer gaming mouse, like a MX518 through USB, the experience was much improved, like playing on a modern machine. Resources shouldn't be an issue. Make sure to disable serials and parallel and you're set.

Now if you're DOS gaming as well, then you will need PS/2, no doubt. I do the same thing in that case. But i just remember when I played Unreal on that Voodoo 5 beast of a machine, the USB mouse made a massive difference. With the PS/2 mouse I thought the game / engine was stuttering, but it was actually the mouse.

And you're building "The Beast", so you want your games to be smooth. Maybe just check it out, maybe my machine was different in that regards and had a "slow" P/2 port?

Just played UT99 on this machine. All smooth and no stuttering as far as I can feel or see.

On the build so far....
My FX5200 is artifacting and makes some gfx issues. Tried with a Radeon9600, no issues at all.
The difference is FX5200 = 7400+ in 3Dmark99 and the 9600 gives 7200+
Can't argue on this. Better to have nice image, than speed and some issues.
And I need to find a faster card. For now, the Radeon will do nicely enough.
(Those tests were all with AAx4)

Installed that YMF-724 card, and I got legacy. Nice to have at least Doom2 running with good MIDI music.
Not that it's about Dos gaming, this machine. Just nice to have Doom2.

Going to bed now. Testing more tomorrow and posting some pictures. Perhaps it's being "cased" too....
Have to get some sleep and do some more tomorrow.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Now if you're DOS gaming as well, then you will need PS/2, no doubt.

Not really, unless the BIOS is ancient (SS7-ancient), an USB mouse will be used through the Legacy Support, and behave as if it were a PS/2 one.

alexanrs wrote:

philscomputerlab wrote:

Now if you're DOS gaming as well, then you will need PS/2, no doubt.

Not really, unless the BIOS is ancient (SS7-ancient), an USB mouse will be used through the Legacy Support, and behave as if it were a PS/2 one.

It was a Pentium III.

Legacy USB was disabled in the BIOS. Windows 98 SE supports USB mice and keyboards directly.

philscomputerlab wrote:

alexanrs wrote:

philscomputerlab wrote:

Now if you're DOS gaming as well, then you will need PS/2, no doubt.

Not really, unless the BIOS is ancient (SS7-ancient), an USB mouse will be used through the Legacy Support, and behave as if it were a PS/2 one.

It was a Pentium III.

Legacy USB was disabled in the BIOS. Windows 98 SE supports USB mice and keyboards directly.

In my experience you can leave Legacy Support on, as Windows is smart enough to take over the mouse and use it as a native USB device regardless. That way you have Windows using an USB mice and DOS behaving as if it were a PS/2 one.

I know, I did it because I was investigating why the mouse was smoother via USB. If I ever run into this issue again, I might make a quick video about it as the difference, like always, can be subtle to some and unnoticed. You know, like the 60 fps debate and all of that 😀

Could have been an isolated case and combination of hardware and software, who knows.