hey are actually really powerful in the Win9x/DX8

Except they don't and barely can compete even in simple games like UT2004, mostly due to higher clock speed.

In a build like this is there any reason to use slower P4 cpus instead of athlon64 cpu that were considered to be much better cpu in 2003-2006 before intel released their core 2 duo?

I'd say no!

They make for a great high end 9x machine.

Oh, I think I'll be searching for GF 4's and FXs then. It's pretty hard find some decent old GPU in Turkey, it'll be hard but hopefully I'll achieve no matter what. Just curious if it's a worthy upgrade from P4 SL6PC (2.4 GHz) to P4 SL6QB (2.8 GHz) or totally unnecessary? They're both at the same price right know and wonder which one I should pick.

Don't forget the Radeon 9600 Pro. They work really well and maybe easier for you to find, than gf4-ti anyway.

texterted wrote on 2020-10-09, 12:12:

Don't forget the Radeon 9600 Pro. They work really well and maybe easier for you to find, than gf4-ti anyway.

Thank you for the suggestion, I actually found some 9600's indeed! But I'm just buying P4 SL6QB (2.8 GHz/512/533) and it's the last chance you people to stop me if there's anything wrong/bad about it, 🤣.

Good luck and have fun!

I chose P4 SL6QB (2.8 GHz/512/533) because it's Northwood and has no HT, since W98 doesn't support HT at all and it's pretty fast and quite cheap, seller already shipped it, so excited 😀 I also found this MoBo and wonder if it's recommended by you people: MSI 865PE Neo-2 (don't know if it's V, P or any other yet).

The Asus board was always top performer in benchmarks but in real life usage any half decent 865 motherboard will be fine for Windows 98, they are all using the same chipset driver from Intel.
Not sure about driver compatibility with onboard sound, network, etc but you can just disable that and use something else.

chinny22 wrote on 2020-10-09, 16:43:

The Asus board was always top performer in benchmarks but in real life usage any half decent 865 motherboard will be fine for Windows 98, they are all using the same chipset driver from Intel.
Not sure about driver compatibility with onboard sound, network, etc but you can just disable that and use something else.

Awesome. I'll be just buying it with Creative Audigy 2 ZS and my P4 SL6QB is on its way. I'm just trying to find out which GPU to buy, there not so many choices for me I believe, at least as far as I researched, since I cannot buy things from eBay. I was able to find Radeon 9600 Pro and FX 5500. I can't seem to find any GF4s, Voodoo 3 is very expensive and run out of ideas, searching for which GPU should I consider buying and searching if I can buy it for hours. Any other suggestions?

mawendir wrote on 2020-10-09, 17:12:

Any other suggestions?

You said before that "I even got some games I can't run on my modern PC." If you want to run whatever those games are specifically, then you should make sure you are getting parts that will run those games.

Otherwise, stop worrying and be happy with whatever you can find.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-10-09, 19:07:

mawendir wrote on 2020-10-09, 17:12:

Any other suggestions?

You said before that "I even got some games I can't run on my modern PC." If you want to run whatever those games are specifically, then you should make sure you are getting parts that will run those games.

Otherwise, stop worrying and be happy with whatever you can find.

I don't think that any GPU will really struggle some games I want to play but what I worry about is that if it'll be enough to play a bit newer games, like the games from 00-05, though I still want to play some DOS games too, to be honest. And the economical situation in Turkey makes me worried a lot since USD, EUR and GBP is very, very expensive against TL and I can't afford so many things that I'd want to buy, which is quite sad, so I probably got one shot to buy something good, something that'll last at least a year or two maybe, that can make me play the games I want, at least some of them. That's actually why I'm trying to find the "best".

Here are your options best to worst
GF4 Ti
Pro: Fastest Win9x card that has great backward compatibility
Con: Expensive and uncommon, may struggle with newer games

GF FX
Pro: Fast Win9x card that has backward compatibility, Common
Con: Slower then the Ti means newer games will struggle.

Radeon 9600 Pro
Pro: Fastest Win9x card, Available
Con: Bad backward compatibility

As you can see a perfect card doesn't exist, you need to decide what's important for you.
Personally I'd go for compatibility over speed any game that isn't compatible would be better off on a XP WinXP PC which gives you much better and cheaper option's anyway
Either wait for a GF4 Ti but will be a long wait or compromise for a FX

If the Radeon isn't expensive, it's not a bad card at all and you may get lucky and not end up playing any games that have compatibility issues.
I'm not aware of a nice clear list of windows game compatibility list similar to the dos one
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

mawendir wrote on 2020-10-09, 19:58:

I don't think that any GPU will really struggle some games I want to play but what I worry about is that if it'll be enough to play a bit newer games, like the games from 00-05, though I still want to play some DOS games too, to be honest.

You're aiming for a timeframe that is simply too wide to be properly covered by a single graphics card. Games from 2005 like Quake 4 or Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory will struggle even on the best GeForce4 or FX cards. On the other hand, if you go for the 6xxx series, you lose some backward compatibility with Win9x games.

Ideally, you want two dedicated machines, one for DOS+Win9x (games up to 2001) and another for WinXP (2001 and above). If you don't have the space for both, you're better off focusing on the DOS+Win9x rig and playing newer games on your modern computer.

chinny22 wrote on 2020-10-12, 08:53:

Here are your options best to worst GF4 Ti Pro: Fastest Win9x card that has great backward compatibility Con: Expensive and unco […]
Show full quote

Here are your options best to worst
GF4 Ti
Pro: Fastest Win9x card that has great backward compatibility
Con: Expensive and uncommon, may struggle with newer games

GF FX
Pro: Fast Win9x card that has backward compatibility, Common
Con: Slower then the Ti means newer games will struggle.

Any examples or sources on this with regards to compatibility on GF4 vs GF FX? Is this all basically from the shadows in Splinter Cell?

When I built my Pentium 3 rig a couple of years ago the common agreement here on Vogons was that you could go up to a FX series for Win9x to maintain the best compatibility (mainly due to it being the last generation that supports palleted textures and table fog). I haven't noticed any compatibility issues in my rig using the FX5950 Ultra. This seems to have changed lately to hail GF4 as the best card to own, what have I missed?

vetz wrote on 2020-10-12, 09:29:

Any examples or sources on this with regards to compatibility on GF4 vs GF FX? Is this all basically from the shadows in Splinter Cell?

As I'd totally forgot about Splinter Cell I meant to say GF4 and FX both have same levels of backward compatibility.
But now that you've reminded me, 99.9% backward compatibility? As its ONE game that I doubt is in majority of peoples library.

Think GF4 has and always will be the most desirable based on raw performance.
If you want to factor in price and availability the FX is a better deal

Thanks for all the comments and advices. To inform all, I bought these already,

MoBo: MSI 865PE Neo2-V
RAM: (2x) Kingston DDR 256MB 400MHZ PC3200 CL3
CPU: Pentium 4 2.8 GHz SL6QB 533/512
Sound: Creative Audigy ZS 2

So, still couldn't decide for a GPU. I of course don't want it to be "the best" of all or don't want it to run all the games in a decade perfectly well. The deal is, I don't want an XP machine. The deal here is that I only want to use W98 and play mostly early XP games and some DOS and W98 games, if possible. It doesn't have to run all DOS games, neither W98 and XP for sure and I won't get sad when/if I won't be able to run some games, it's okay. But for me better compability and/or performance for early XP games more important than playing DOS games but would like play them if I can, sure. Long story short, want to play mostly early XP games on W98, as best as possible with the possibility to play some DOS and W98 games, as much as possible. Overall, I'm not sure if I should buy FX 5500 or Radeon 9600 for this purpose, or don't know if I have any other option left, please guide me through. Also, please let me know if I'm going good enough with my hardware choices as for now, if there's anything I should do to improve my system. Lastly, I found Samsung SyncMaster 797MB and SyncMaster 793DF, any idea which one to buy or any other ideas for CRT monitors? Thanks in advance again!

The Geforce FX5950 is the best late-win98 GPU hands down, taking compatibility into account. I would not waste time on FX cards below the FX5700 Ultra, or even the FX5900U, which aren't that expensive especially if you seek out the Quadro model.

Are you aware of how much you're repeating yourself? Your posts would be easier to read if you just got to the point.

mawendir wrote on 2020-10-18, 18:37:

Overall, I'm not sure if I should buy FX 5500 or Radeon 9600 for this purpose, or don't know if I have any other option left, please guide me through.

I suggest consulting an old version of Tom's VGA Charts. Note that there is a huge difference between the 9600 SE, 9600 Pro, and 9600 XT.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vga-char … iii,730-10.html

Also, please let me know if I'm going good enough with my hardware choices as for now, if there's anything I should do to improve my system.

There is no single solution that will perform absolutely perfectly in all situations.

I found Samsung SyncMaster 797MB and SyncMaster 793DF, any idea which one to buy or any other ideas for CRT monitors?

Considering how completely impractical it is to ship a CRT monitor, and the many ways in which they can fail, you should go with whatever one you can find that seems to be in good condition.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-10-18, 18:58:

Are you aware of how much you're repeating yourself? Your posts would be easier to read if you just got to the point. […]
Show full quote

Are you aware of how much you're repeating yourself? Your posts would be easier to read if you just got to the point.

mawendir wrote on 2020-10-18, 18:37:

Overall, I'm not sure if I should buy FX 5500 or Radeon 9600 for this purpose, or don't know if I have any other option left, please guide me through.

I suggest consulting an old version of Tom's VGA Charts. Note that there is a huge difference between the 9600 SE, 9600 Pro, and 9600 XT.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vga-char … iii,730-10.html

Also, please let me know if I'm going good enough with my hardware choices as for now, if there's anything I should do to improve my system.

There is no single solution that will perform absolutely perfectly in all situations.

I found Samsung SyncMaster 797MB and SyncMaster 793DF, any idea which one to buy or any other ideas for CRT monitors?

Considering how completely impractical it is to ship a CRT monitor, and the many ways in which they can fail, you should go with whatever one you can find that seems to be in good condition.

I sure do, that's because I want to make it as clear as possible and it's only because the economical situation here gets worse and worse everyday and buying stuff, especially just for hobby, really gets harder. So I have to choose wisely because I may not have another choice to replace something I bought, thereby have to tell what I need, what I want and what I got again and again with all the details, just to make sure, just to make no mistake. Sorry to trouble your eyes and sorry for repeating myself.

Also, I can't find any FX cards other than 5200 and 5500 and will keep in mind to buy a CRT monitor withouth shipping.