VOGONS


First post, by infiniteclouds

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Has anyone here done one before? I'm going to give it a go.

In addition to the motherboard I have an Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego that's currently in my ASUS A832SLI Deluxe, a GTX 285 or 560 TI for the PCI-E and a FX5900 Ultra for the AGP. For sound card options I have an Diamond MX300 Aureal Vortex 2 and a Audigy 2ZS - I'll install the MX300 for 98 and the Audigy 2 for XP. The plan is to use a SATA SSD for Windows XP and the IDE for my SD adapter to install 98SE on a 128GB card.

I'll have to use HimemX to set up RAM limits in 98SE since the system will have well beyond the max limit for that OS.

Reply 1 of 28, by feipoa

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I use an Asrock 939DUAL-SATA as my primary computer; I still cannot believe these are being used for Win98 gaming machines.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 4 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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Actually, I was thinking a single-core CPU would strain in later Windows XP games. I am considering getting an X2 dual-core chip but I suspect that will create issues in '98.

Reply 8 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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I guess I'll see. I don't plan to try to do any work-arounds or patches to get '98 to use more than 512MB RAM -- I'll just limit what it can see/use and go from there. I might have to pick up a 512KB module for the install if I don't have anything smaller than 1GB though..

Last edited by infiniteclouds on 2017-07-29, 05:41. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 9 of 28, by 95DosBox

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infiniteclouds wrote:

I guess I'll see. I don't plan to try to do any work-arounds or patches to get '98 to use more than 512KB RAM -- I'll just limit what it can see/use and go from there. I might have to pick up a 512KB module for the install if I don't have anything smaller than 1GB though..

I think you meant 512MB, 512KB would not load boot Windows 98. DOS would be happy with 512KB though.

I noticed a strange port on this motherboard.
1 x Future CPU Port (Supports CPU upgrade from AMD Socket 939 CPU to Socket AM2 CPU through AM2CPU Board)

I'm curious if anyone's tried that upgrade. Even some users commented this motherboard was already too powerful for Windows 98 but is it really? I've tested it on a Z68 with SATA SSD so I don't know if you really need to isolate it to an IDE. You could install the 98SE first and then XP after and you will have a dual boot loader. Make sure to keep XP on a separate partition than the 98SE. 98SE tends to like the first C: partition when mixing or adding drives it won't change the drive letter or cause problems. If you want some backward compatibility to older DOS stuff I suggest you keep this FAT16 and 2GB although depending how power hungry you want your 98SE to be and don't care about DOS stuff as much then I'd go with FAT32 8GB or 16GB primary 98SE partition, XP can be the remainder capacity just make sure it resides within the first 128GB unless you are using SP1. But 98SE doesn't like >64GB but can still work but beyond 128GB you'll need special patching or you'll corrupt the data when it gets full.

Reply 10 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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95DosBox wrote:

I think you meant 512MB, 512KB would not load boot Windows 98. DOS would be happy with 512KB though.

Hah. Yes, I most definitely meant megabytes.

I noticed a strange port on this motherboard.
1 x Future CPU Port (Supports CPU upgrade from AMD Socket 939 CPU to Socket AM2 CPU through AM2CPU Board)

That's interesting... and maybe something I'd consider testing in the future if the 939 CPUs aren't up to task for late XP.

I've tested it on a Z68 with SATA SSD so I don't know if you really need to isolate it to an IDE. You could install the 98SE first and then XP after and you will have a dual boot loader. Make sure to keep XP on a separate partition than the 98SE. 98SE tends to like the first C: partition when mixing or adding drives it won't change the drive letter or cause problems. If you want some backward compatibility to older DOS stuff I suggest you keep this FAT16 and 2GB although depending how power hungry you want your 98SE to be and don't care about DOS stuff as much then I'd go with FAT32 8GB or 16GB primary 98SE partition, XP can be the remainder capacity just make sure it resides within the first 128GB unless you are using SP1. But 98SE doesn't like >64GB but can still work but beyond 128GB you'll need special patching or you'll corrupt the data when it gets full.

Thanks for the advice. I do intend to do play some DOS games - ones that aren't speed sensitive and have high resolution software rendering. However even on the SS7 I just built the 32GB SD card seems to work just fine in DOS without any issues. I already have the spare IDE <-> SD adapter and I feel it is a cheaper solution (as I will be buying a new SSD for the XP portion of this build) with less potential for issues keeping the OS installs on separate storage devices.

Reply 11 of 28, by 95DosBox

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infiniteclouds wrote:

Thanks for the advice. I do intend to do play some DOS games - ones that aren't speed sensitive and have high resolution software rendering. However even on the SS7 I just built the 32GB SD card seems to work just fine in DOS without any issues. I already have the spare IDE <-> SD adapter and I feel it is a cheaper solution (as I will be buying a new SSD for the XP portion of this build) with less potential for issues keeping the OS installs on separate storage devices.

DOS can handle 128GB no problem as FAT32 but you need 98SE DOS to read it.
You can keep 98SE and XP on the same hard drive. Even the same partition but I prefer leaving 98SE as C: and XP as D: 32GB or so will be enough for most. You can use the remaining small for storage partitions.

Reply 12 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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I'm torn on the storage device to use for XP. On the one hand, I'd like to have as much space as possible with XP supporting up to 2 TB. On the other hand, I really don't think I want to ever remember what a HDD felt like. Even Seagate's SSHD/7200RPM drive has me thinking "Loading time~ Loading time is now~".

An Intel SSD can be had for $80 more than the 2TB SSHD but 1/4 of the space at 512GB. While there are a ton of XP games I'd like to have installed I had use Google to remember that games weren't even close to the massive 30GB+ behemoths that we see today. I don't think I found anything larger than Crysis at about 8-9GB. Also, from what I've read Intel's SSDs have Intel SSD Toolbox which allows you to do Manual TRIM but does the software work in Windows XP? The 545 series is new so it isn't listed under supported devices but I imagine it must be.

Reply 13 of 28, by WildW

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I have a somewhat similar machine, Athlon 64 booting DOS/9x/XP. I went with a modern 240GB SSD for XP and to be honest I don't think I needed to go that large. With 20 games installed and XP fully updated I'm not using 40GB of space yet. And 8GB of that is a huge set of Amiga WHDLoad games.

Reply 14 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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That's reassuring. I'll probably go with the 512GB SSD for XP then.

So far I've installed Windows 98SE without any issues and the only drivers I've installed were for the graphics card (45.23) -- I didn't install any chipset drivers and the only device manager !'s are PCI USB controller and LAN controller. I also did some preliminary DOS benchmarks.

AMD 64 4000+ (San Diego) @ stock 2.4ghz
Geforce FX5900 Ultra
512MB RAM

SpeedSys:

3514.08

Quake:

300x200 - 223.1 FPS
640x480 - 85.1 FPS
800x600 - 57.9 FPS
1024x768 - 40.5 FPS
1280x1024 - 41.9 FPS (not sure why but this is consistently higher than the lower resolution)



PCPBench:

320x200 - 269.5 FPS
640x480 - 95.6 FPS (flickering occurs)

ChrisBench:

320x200 - 267.6 FPS
640x480 - 294.8 FPS (Weird..)

Doom - 72.86 FPS

TopBench - 291

Doom's performance is significantly slower than my Voodoo 3/K6-III@550 -- not that it really matters... just interesting. I have a Visiontek Geforce 3 and MSI G4 Ti4200 I can also test -- but I'll have to look up and makes sure they're safe for this (no 3.3v AGP) board.

I noticed this chip/BIOS can do down to (180x4) which is useful for those games that get cranky at 1GHZ+.

Last edited by infiniteclouds on 2017-09-07, 04:21. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 15 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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I did a fresh install with the G4 TI 4200 and ...

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System board extension for ACPI BIOS...

Here's what I found about this...

https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/vid … -problems.7964/

The problem here is the ACPI BIOS. Run the Win98 setup and reinstall the OS as follows: […]
Show full quote

The problem here is the ACPI BIOS. Run the Win98 setup and reinstall the OS as follows:

Code:

D:\WIN98\setup /p i

This will pass a string to the installer forcing a non detection of the plug and play BIOS. Win98 will then use the APM BIOS and not ACPI.

After this you should install your motherboards chipset drivers, folllowed by graphics card drivers, then any others.

Interesting that this issue didn't occur with the FX5900 Ultra.

As for chipset drivers... http://www.asrock.com/mb/ULi/939Dual-VSTA/#osAll none of these mention 98SE so I think I should get them from here instead...

http://www.nvidia.com/page/uli_drivers.html

98SE and M1695 (which the Dual-VSTA uses) is listed there for v2.13 and v2.20.

Reply 16 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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Well -- installing windows with the /p i setup seems to have fixed that issue and let me install the ti4200.

Benchmarks in DOS with the G4Ti4200

Quake:

300x200 - 211.1
640x480 - 81.4
800x600 - 54.7
1024x768 - 38.1
1280x1024 - 39.4

PCPBench: More flickering/shuddering.

320x200 - 252.8
640x480 - 90.3

ChrisBench: still consistently giving higher FPS on the higher resolution

320x200 - 244.7 FPS
640x480 - 282.2 FPS

Doom - 67.71 FPS

I also tried Quake and SpeedSys with the CPU downclocked to it's slowest 723mhz (180FSB x 4). I think this performs like a Pentium III of similar clock speed.

SpeedSys: 1055.04

Quake:

320x200 - 137.3
640x480 - 60.1
800x600 - 44.3
1024x768 - 31.0
1280x1024 - 21.5

Reply 17 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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Ok, so if I just exit to DOS I get the performance/benchmarks above. However if I actually reboot into DOS performance is abysmal. I'm not familiar enough with DOS to know why this might be. Can someone who's run DOS on a P4 or later share their config/autoexecs?

Also, how the hell do I get Windows 98 to stop creating

"REM
REM The following lines have been created by Windows. Do not modify them.
REM
C:
CD C:\
CALL C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM
C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM /WX"

at the end of my autoexecs... causing DOS to load two COMMAND.COMs in memory?! This has plagued me for too long -- it happens on my SS7 build as well.

Reply 19 of 28, by infiniteclouds

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That was the issue. WC was enabled by default when dropping from Windows 98... but disabled when completely rebooting into DOS. I still haven't figured out the two COMMAND.COM issue that has plagued me on every machine I've installed Win98SE onto it. Not sure why Windows adds that no matter what I do.

I'm also trying to figure out the issue is with Build engine games. Unlike Quake, they run extremely choppy at higher resolutions. One thing I have tried is NOLFB (NOLFB - Disables LFB enabling DOS games to fallback to VESA 1.2 modes) and actually this worked to improve the smoothness greatly. Once using NOLFB there is definitely a disconnect with the ingame frame counter (DNRATE or RATE) because the gameplay will be very smooth in Blood or Duke3D even at 1600x1200 but the counter will say something like 10FPS. Unfortunately, there is significant screen tearing once NOLFB.

I also tried this version here which supposedly activates VSync NOLFBLIM (updated NOLFB) - Enables VSYNC for DOS Games but it didn't seem to work --unless I'm using it wrong. Also, is there an easy way to remove TSRs like NOLFB from memory ? Most of the TSRs I've used so far had a "<command> /u" function but this does not so I'm not sure how to remove it without a reboot.