Sorry, you're right of course. Maybe what I said was a bit overstated.
It's just.. Some of those experts go somewhat into to details of the x86 architecture and Win NT,
only to explain why it is "impossible" or not feasible to support ntvdm on recent x64 versions of Windows.
The author in the link I mentioned goes even further and claims it would be too much of an effort and totally not worth it:

"Microsoft was facing a challenge: to support legacy DOS applications, the existing NTVDM needed to be extended to do full 8086 processor emulation (with the corresponding performance impact of emulation). Given the abundance of other virtualization & emulation products on the market, it was decided to remove the NTVDM from Windows x64 all together."

I wonder what challenge he meant. They already had it! Yes, ntvdm is old. But so is the NT kernal.
Besides, the normal ntvdm is still inside the newest Win10 x86 builds, so it can't be that difficult.

Plus, he mentions a "performance impact of emulation". I wonder, is he kidding ?
We're talking about 486 era software. Even an old Athlon64 (the minimum you need for Win X64) is running
an full-fledged emulator like PCem/DOSBox at high speeds. In fact, it would be good if ntvdm was throttled to 286-486
levels, as some early DOS or Win 3.x programs are still speed sensitive (like Lunar Lander v3).

*sigh*

Sorry, again. Normally I don't moan about stuff. But this really annoys me for years.
There's a lot of old, but nice windows software out there, which can't be run out-of-box anymore because of this stupidity.
Plus, they often blame the x86-64 architecture for this, eventhough it's not its fault.
Yes, the loss of V86 (in 64bit mode) is sad for most, but imagine the headache it would cause if it was still there..
What the engineers did was probably the safest method to ensure things were kept working properly.
Besides, maybe there's a way to access V86 by switching between compatibility mode and long mode back and forth.
I heard techniques like this are also used by virtualisations software. Maybe that's true, I don't know.
I mean, it's even possible to run Win 7 x64 on a Windows XP 32bit host, if VTx or AMD-V is enabled (XP can't run in long mode).

@squareguy I'm sorry for the long post. I hope you don't mind. I know, it was not really on-topic and it wasn't very polite of me either.
Nevertheless I wish you the very best for your project! 😀 And I'm curious aswell how good Win98 will run on this machine..

Jo22 wrote:

Besides, the normal ntvdm is still inside the newest Win10 x86 builds, so it can't be that difficult.

To be sure, the NTVDM in Win10 x86 is almost certainly very different from the NTVDM from the RISC ports - meaning it probably has its own fleet of bugs and security vulnerabilities that Microsoft would have to start supporting.

Plus, he mentions a "performance impact of emulation". I wonder, is he kidding ?

Yes, that's kind of ridiculous, especially since the article as a whole seems to be directed to the sort of corporate software that would never be as processor-intensive as a typical game.

Here is a list of the basic information I have put together thus far for the build. I dub thee Minnie Beast.

The PDF contains clickable links to other information sources and drivers

I ran 3DMark 2000 and figured you'd like to see how your system compares.

P4 1.8ghz; 2x256mb at 266mhz; gf4 ti 4200 128mb at 250/500
11690 3dMarks

Seems like even without dedicated CPU tests there is a clear advantage, i doubt 25mhz GPU clock would make for such a big difference on their own.
My card already has faster memory than the 128mb variants usually do, it's an aopen version. http://imgur.com/AoW83rH

Well, it"s gotta be a combination of more memory bandwidth, faster CPU and maybe just a better, more mature AGP chipset in general (Intel 865).

Thoughts?

I doubt it is CPU alone.

I'm not gonna lie, I like this board more and more everyday. I just need more free time with it.

Chipset should be the same being an 865g with ICH5 but on socket 478 instead. It's an Intel D865GLC board.
Memory bandwidth may be a factor indeed, 266mhz is the highest a CPU with 400mhz FSB will allow, 533FSB goes up to 333mhz and 800FSB goes to 400.

The versatility of the 865 chipset is somewhat mindblowing to me, from a 1.6 P4 northwood all the way to a QX6800 quadcore.
If anything it's remarkable how similar these two machines are even though the CPUs are five years or so apart.

I thought about getting a X6800 for its unlocked multiplier, 6-12 I believe, and doing a BSEL mod to force it to 800 MHz FSB to avoid overclocking chipset. Then I could go from 600-2400 MHz easily but it doesn't seem worth it. The Celeron 450 can go down to 1100 MHz and I am not seeing any benefit in going from 1100 down to 600. I would need to go lower than that for speed sensitive games, say like the mouse scrolling in Warcraft II. I think once project is finished I will look at cache and / or slow down utilities if I try to use this box for such games. I probably will not even try to play games like that and instead use a proper 'Time Machine' for those so, I guess this entire post is moot, 🤣.

Here is default 3DMark2001 SE Score

13,525

squareguy wrote:

I thought about getting a X6800 for its unlocked multiplier, 6-12 I believe, and doing a BSEL mod to force it to 800 MHz FSB to avoid overclocking chipset. Then I could go from 600-2400 MHz easily but it doesn't seem worth it. The Celeron 450 can go down to 1100 MHz and I am not seeing any benefit in going from 1100 down to 600. I would need to go lower than that for speed sensitive games, say like the mouse scrolling in Warcraft II. I think once project is finished I will look at cache and / or slow down utilities if I try to use this box for such games. I probably will not even try to play games like that and instead use a proper 'Time Machine' for those so, I guess this entire post is moot, 🤣.

if i'm sure, you can change FSB speed on BIOS

squareguy wrote:

I thought about getting a X6800 for its unlocked multiplier, 6-12 I believe, and doing a BSEL mod to force it to 800 MHz FSB to avoid overclocking chipset. Then I could go from 600-2400 MHz easily but it doesn't seem worth it.

X6800 has A LOT higher max multiplier.
Think x30 or more (at least from what I seen in my boards) 😀

Well all the hardware is working perfectly and all drivers loaded. I have several clones at each stage in case I need to go back. I'm in the home stretch on this build.

Here is my main problem now. I tried making a bin\cue of a new Thief II DVD I just got with ImgBurn and mounting it with Daemon Tools, it was a no go. I then tried using ImgBurn to make an ISO of it and same as before Daemon tools mounted it but the virtual disk wouldn't open. Basically I am in the market for a new CD cloning software and I am willing to pay for it. I want to be able to make images of my CD's and not have to use any cracked exe files. I hear CloneCD is good but what version for Windows 98 SE? Any other software to use instead?

I tend to use discjuggler but on a modern machine, mostly since its cdi format is best suited for my console related needs. imgburn usually does the job but maybe there's some copy protections getting in the way?

In other news i've swapped to the fastest 'early 2002' Pentium 4 now, 2.53ghz FSB533 and ran benchmarks again
3dmark 2000 went from 11690 to 14049
3dmark 2001se from 9299 to 10882

I did not quite expect that jump in 2000 but i guess it really was cpu and bandwidth limited, this is all still with the same standard GPU clocks. (250/512 as it turns out, thanks aopen)
This is the fastest CPU i'm willing to use as i want to limit myself to the GF4 ti launch window, i'd rather not get sidetracked into an infinite upgrade loop.

Seems the newest version (5.3.4.0)of CloneCD runs fine on Windows 98, I got the 21-day trial for now. Unfortunately Virtual CloneDrive does not, so I mounted with Daemon Tools 3.47 and everything worked fine.

https://www.redfox.bz/en/clonecd.html

Nice build, you have similar hardware to what I used in my really fast windows 98 machine. Biggest problem I had was with the sound cards. I was trying to use a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 together with a Aureal Vortex 2 and had nothing but problems. I gave up and removed the sound blaster in the end. Did you have to do anything unusual to get them working together?

I am planning on doing a writeup later on once i'm 100% done and had a chance to use it for a while but here is what you need to know.

Universal USB stack can royally screw it up with the Vortex 2 drivers. I used the Intel USB 2.0 drivers and used the Universals mass storage driver but not the USB driver. I setup everything before installing sound cards. then do following.

1. Install Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (SB0060) and Creative's Web Drivers for it (SB0060 is specifically mentioned in the driver download page)
I feel this is a better option as I feel it has better Windows 98 support than the Audigys do.
2. In control Panel disable everything for the card under creative and sound except the card itself under sound devices.
3. Install Vortex2 and 2041 drivers with modified inf file to disable real mode DOS support and Bus Detection.
4. Install the A3D Support Files 3.12
5. enjoy

you have to switch between the mixers to intially set your sound levels and whats muted then just leave it on Vortex2. Make sure to unmoute the Vortex2's input for the SB Live! 5.1 and bump that volume up.

Put a shortcut on your desktop to Multimedia in control Panel and use that to select default playback device to switch between the two cards.

EDIT: I didn't take a lot of time to write this, make sense? Be sure to install SB first! Otherwise it will overwrite your A3D.DLL. When you install Vortex2 if it asks if you want to overwrite the SB's A3D.DLL choose yes. I made a few changes so re-read

Thanks for the fast reply. I will have to try them again at some stage. I never actually tried a SB Live together with the Vortex, though maybe I should have. On paper the Audigy looks better in almost every way, signal to noise ratio etc. But it looks like that's not the case with Windows 98 if the driver support is bad.

I didn't have issues with the USB drivers, i just install the intel usb2.0 drivers followed by the mass storage driver and everything works.
However i do so before the audio drivers since i need usb to transfer them.

The sound card setup works the same for me (vortex2 + CT4620), no issues.
I just disable bus detection as i very much want dos support.

by installing the Intel drivers first and not following the instructions from the universal usb you won't have the problem.

I only disable real mode DOS but I leave DOS Window support. I'm never going to boot to pure DOS on this box anyways.

I am not saying the Audigy won't work but I decided to stick with the Live! because it was Creatives main product during Windows 98 and the Audigy was really the main product during XP so I feel its drivers got better attention.

One more issue. DOS Windows games had no sound effects because the disabled SB16 emulation wasn't really disabled and it caused the programs to not be able to detect the Vortex SB emulation. You could disable the entire Live! card and reboot but that seems like a pain. After looking at INF files and the registry I came up with the simple solution below.

Rename CTSYN.VXD in C:\Windows\System to actually disable the SB Live!'s SB16 emulation.

Almost done. More information forthcoming soon, hopefully. Anyone have a request for testing of a particular game?

I have been very pleased with the stability of this machine. It has not been quirky or temperamental in the least. It reminds me of a solid BX / P3 system but faster and of course lacking ISA slots. My overall plan now is a Windows 98 Time Machine (Parts on hand, partly assembled) for DOS and early windows if I want, this machine for Windows 9X era and an XP box (Parts on hand). So far this box has been very versatile and I look forward to really getting to know it in the next few months. The only thing it doesn't do is Glide. A PCI Voodoo 1/2/3 card could remedy that but I have no plans for Glide on this box. The Time Machine will get Glide (Where it's actually needed IMO) and the XP machine could run nGlide if I choose to. The only challenges with this build were the Universal USB 2.0 Drivers locking up the PC with the Vortex 2 installed (easily taken care of), the Vortex 2 bus detection (easily taken care of) and the SB Live! playing nice with others (easily taken care of). By the way, this is a Vanilla Windows 98 SE install with only two updates, DirectX 8.1 and Windows Installer 2.0.