If you're using a more modern mobo, I guess it'll have sata ports so you could even use an SSD I think

A 939 motherboard generally should work OK. Just don't use the nvidia chipset boards. They are not very compatible with windows 98.

Remember, maximum RAM is 512meg if you want a happy time with windows 98

Regarding the geforce 4 ti 4200, they are not hugely expensive and from time to time deals pop up. I was able to score one for 20 euro delivered, but it was a version with only a single VGA + TV-out, no DVI. (I actually got it cheaper, as they shipped it with the incorrect cooler, it was floating in the anti-static bag when I got it. Thankfully it worked with one of my spare coolers and they refunded me 10 euro for my trouble)

canthearu wrote:

A 939 motherboard generally should work OK. Just don't use the nvidia chipset boards. They are not very compatible with windows 98.

Remember, maximum RAM is 512meg if you want a happy time with windows 98

Regarding the geforce 4 ti 4200, they are not hugely expensive and from time to time deals pop up. I was able to score one for 20 euro delivered, but it was a version with only a single VGA + TV-out, no DVI. (I actually got it cheaper, as they shipped it with the incorrect cooler, it was floating in the anti-static bag when I got it. Thankfully it worked with one of my spare coolers and they refunded me 10 euro for my trouble)

One thing that may be a problem is display scaling. I have a 1080p monitor which doesn't have any built in scaling options so anything that's lower resolution 4:3 is going to be stretched unless the GPU can do it. I have an old 1280x1024 LCD I could potentially use but would prefer to just use one monitor. Does the geforce 4 or any other cards from back then support scaling in windows 98?

edit: Actually nevermind. I just tried messing with it again and a 4:3 option appears in the monitor settings after I change to a resolution like 1024x768.

Deksor wrote:

If you're using a more modern mobo, I guess it'll have sata ports so you could even use an SSD I think

According to this thread:

Asus A8V deluxe and win98.

Apparently you have to change the SATA ports to compatibility mode but it won't let you do that, at least on the A8V board.

edit: Actually looking at the A8V-X manual there's this entry:

https://i.imgur.com/LQMaoNr.png

You could even go with socket 754 and a Sempron to save a little cash. Maybe check out the Asus K8V-* series boards, which use similar VIA chipsets as the A8V-* line. Single-channel memory and fewer DIMM slots shouldn't matter since you're limited to 512MB anyway, and you certainly don't need the dual-core CPUs the s939 platform supports.

The only issue I think is most s754 boards have AGP slots, but I don't think Win98 is compatible with many PCIe graphics cards anyway.

Well I went ahead and got the A8V-X and 3200+. The Geforce 4 ti 4200 I was looking at got bought at 70 dollars so I guess they're more sought after now or something? I'm not really sure what alternatives there are that would provide the best compatibility. I liked that there was some registry hack you could do with that card that would enable vsync options in the control panel, since not all games have vsync settings you can adjust and I'm very sensitive to tearing/stuttering. Also not sure about what the best storage option would be. I guess for a sound card I could just get a sound blaster live?

Apparently there's a way to install windows 98 from a usb key using Easy2Boot and my motherboard only got one bios update that doesn't seem very important so will I need a floppy or cd rom drive? For games I would probably just use cd mounting software, assuming that works.

Xenphor wrote:

The Geforce 4 ti 4200 I was looking at got bought at 70 dollars.

Not worth it imho.

Look around for an fx5700 (not LE!). Should be cheap and it's not as crappy as 5200/5500 were. Leadtek and I think Asus as well used some pretty misleading model numbers back in the day, it might be worth searching for the model numbers.

Idk where you live bug socket 775 boards for pentium 4 like the p5p800-vm are really cheap here, and socket 775 pentium 4 you can get for less than a fast food meal.
Agp video cards like a radeon 9600 should be good enough and cheap too.

I decided to go with the jp103-5 sata to ide convertor so if I can't get the sata ports working for some reason I can use IDE. I suppose I'll get an SSD anyway even if the speed will be limited because at least I could potentially use it for other things, assuming there's no issues with the adapter and SSDs. Do I have to worry about stuff like TRIM or things like that? I also read something about aligning the partition correctly which I guess I should do first in another OS? Or would it better to just get a mechanical drive?

Don't really have to worry about TRIM. It is nice, but drives will generally work fine without it, but maybe a bit slower.

You should partition your SSD drive using software that does align to 4K properly.

Radeon 9600 cards are a pretty good idea. Very cheap at the moment.

canthearu wrote:

Don't really have to worry about TRIM. It is nice, but drives will generally work fine without it, but maybe a bit slower.

You should partition your SSD drive using software that does align to 4K properly.

Radeon 9600 cards are a pretty good idea. Very cheap at the moment.

Ok I got a 128gb adata SSD. Would it be best to use gparted to partition and format it to fat32 first? Will windows 98 then be able to install properly or should I only create the initial partition? Since the drive is 128gb I guess I won't have to bother with limiting the size of the partition?

You can use a 3rd party partition tool then format using the windows 98 cd. Make sure it is the right code and that the partition is bootable.

You will likely be fine with partition size.

canthearu wrote:

You can use a 3rd party partition tool then format using the windows 98 cd. Make sure it is the right code and that the partition is bootable.

You will likely be fine with partition size.

Ok thanks.

Reading about the Radeon cards it seems that they lack table fog and palletlized texture support which some games use. Since I'm mainly going to be using this machine to play more obscure games and not the usual quake and such (since popular games like that obviously run much better on a modern machine) would it still be wise to get something like that?

For example I would be interested in playing very old console ports to the PC.

If you want to play games that are a good fit for a high end P-III or P4/Athlon build, you will not have problems with the radeon.

If you want to play games that are more for the Pentium II time, you could just get yourself a Geforce 4 MX to run better with these games. The geforce 4 mx has some of the old style features and can be had really cheaply. Any of the games using these old features will run well enough on the geforce 4 mx.

Just be aware that newer motherboard AGP slots will not typically work with very old original AGP cards, like the voodoo 3 AGP cards, as the voltage changed during it's lifetime. Normally motherboards and cards are slotted so you can't slot an incompatible AGP card into your motherboard, but sometimes they screw it up.

I ended up going with geforce 4 ti 4800se. Paid a bit more than I would have liked but at least the dude lives only a couple hours away.

The only thing left then is the sound card which I probably will go with a sound blaster live. Apparently some models don't behave well that were in Dells and such? Is there a good way to spot a decent version of the card?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Creative-Sound-Blast … +live.TRS0.TSS0

This one looks ok.

Just be warned, you may not get DOS compatibility with such a newer motherboard.

Well I'm not looking to run pure DOS or anything. I seem to recall back in the day simply installing DOS games within windows and they worked okay, but I don't play any obscure DOS games. Mostly just stuff like Doom.

For music I'm probably going to try installing that Yamaha Softsynth s-yxg100 which I've used before in XP that sounds good for general midi. Most games I would play tend to support general midi. I guess sound effects might be messed up.

But I haven't used windows 98 in ages so maybe it doesn't work.

edit: I'm reading lots of people having problems with the sound blaster live and VIA chipsets. It seems intel chipsets are recommended when using that sound card. Do I just need to find the right driver or should I look into a different card?

Alright I decided to go with the Yamaha XG YMF744. Apparently it has XG midi support in windows which would be nice even if there is a soft synth. I also don't care about EAX and mostly just care about stability and compatibility.

One other question I was wondering about is power consumption since I only have a spare Antec BP 350W power supply. Will that be enough to power the system? In the video it said the system didn't consume that much power (about 80-85W) but I've been looking at other windows 98 builds and apparently some of them can consume quite a bit of power.

Xenphor wrote:

Alright I decided to go with the Yamaha XG YMF744. Apparently it has XG midi support in windows which would be nice even if there is a soft synth. I also don't care about EAX and mostly just care about stability and compatibility.

One other question I was wondering about is power consumption since I only have a spare Antec BP 350W power supply. Will that be enough to power the system? In the video it said the system didn't consume that much power (about 80-85W) but I've been looking at other windows 98 builds and apparently some of them can consume quite a bit of power.

The power consumption and the need for hugely powerful PSUs is something I consider more of a myth than reality. I powered my Athlon 64 3800+, Radeon X800 Pro, 3Gb DDR, 3 HDD system with a 350W Nexus power supply for about 10 years before the caps on the PSU gave up. My current i5 3450 (overclocked), GTX 960 (overclocked) 4 HDDs and 16Gb DDR3 consume around 250w at max synthetic load, and are powered by a 12 year old Antec Truepower Trio 430w PSU.