Games from 2005 are well into the WinXP era, and playing them on a Win98 system seems counterintuitive.

But if you do insist, a PCIe Radeon X800 series card paired with an LGA775 motherboard and a Core2 Duo should be able to do what you want. There are a lot of hoops that you'll have to jump through to get such a system running though.

Here's a video by Phil where he builds a similar rig.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-11-12, 07:57:

Games from 2005 are well into the WinXP era, and playing them on a Win98 system seems counter intuitive.

But if you do insist, you can use a PCIe Radeon X800 series card and pair it with an LGA775 motherboard and a Core2 Duo CPU. There are a lot of hoops that you'll have to jump through to get that running, but the final system should be able to do what you want.

Here's a video by Phil where he builds a similar rig.

Thanks for the response! A couple of questions: what hoops are you referring to? Is there any thread or link I can refer to to get an idea about the pitfalls you mention? Secondly, do you have any recommendations for LGA775 motherboards?

sk3886 wrote on 2023-11-12, 09:01:

Thanks for the response! A couple of questions: what hoops are you referring to? Is there any thread or link I can refer to to get an idea about the pitfalls you mention? Secondly, do you have any recommendations for LGA775 motherboards?

For starters, there are no official Win98 drivers for later Intel chipsets like P35 and such. You can find some unofficial ones to clean up the unknown entries in Device Manager, but that's about it. Also, these systems typically have more than 1GB of RAM, which will prevent Win98 from booting without using third-party patches. Installing the GPU drivers is a bit convoluted as well, as Phil shows in his video.

You can find some of my own experiences with such a system in this thread:
Some questions about a LGA775 Win98 build using PCIe graphics

And the final build is here:
Core 2 Duo E8600 / Foxconn P35AX-S / X800 GTO / Audigy2 ZS

sk3886 wrote on 2023-11-12, 07:09:

[..]

I guess the main thing to consider is motherboard, but there are so many options that I'm getting a bit overwhelmed. The immediate two options I knew were: Asrock 775i65G and 775i65GV. It seems from this post https://msfn.org/board/topic/97588-modern-mot … &comment=809779 that motherboards with AGP slots may not be ideal ("My advice is not to buy motherboards with AGP and PCIE sockets because of possible problems"), but then aren't AGP slots needed to install GPU like Geforce 6800?

Note the "and", not "and/or".

This is not a recommendation to avoid boards with AGP, but to avoid boards with both PCIe and AGP, as if the AGP slot is derived from the PCIe bus which is unsupported by Win98, you will have issues.

Boards with native AGP straight from the Northbridge are fine and indeed exactly what you want with those requirements.

[...]

What motherboard(s) should I look for to achieve my goal? (running Hitman Contracts and NFSMW 2005 plus native compatibility with Win98SE)
I am really at my wit's end and could use your help, since there are so many members here with a lot of experience in this stuff

Given you can't just walk into a shop and choose the perfect board from hundreds on sale the answer usually is: whatever you can easily (and affordibly) find.

What you are looking for is the most high-end platform you can find with good Win98 support i.e. with AGP not PCIe. That could be Intel (P4 late So478 or early So775) or AMD (any So754/939/AM2 without PCIe). Once you find a potential candidate, look up the chipset on it and google its name + Windows 98. You should quickly see if it's easy, problematic or a no-go.

Hi ,

I would stick with intel 865G chipset with native 478 socket . Combined with 3 Ghz pentium 4 prescott/northwood does give reasonable performance and perfect compatability . Good boards asus p4800 vm , asrock p4i65g . On other hand socket 754 is another good choice . As for graphic card Geforce fx5900/ ati 9800 would fit perfect for this build . Anyway anything depends on what budget you have /willing to spend

You have conflicting expectations. Either target Windows 98 or 2005 games, not both. Windows 98 is good enough up to 2002. Socket 754 is just a bit faster and BIOSes tend to have problems with AGP in Windows 98. You should build a double core or quad core rig with PCIe 2.0, targeting late Windows XP era. For Windows 98 era, have a 2nd rig with any Athlon XP.

sk3886 wrote on 2023-11-12, 07:09:

I am trying to build a Win98 SE gaming PC that can run up to Hitman Contracts and NFS Most Wanted (2005).

As others have said, this is going to be a problem. I happen to have a boxed copy of NFS Most Wanted so I went and checked the system requirements, and here is what it says:
- OS - Windows XP or 2000 [1]
- CPU - 1.4GHz or more
- RAM - 256MB or more
- GPU - DirectX 9.0c compatible (minimum of 32 megs of memory and ATI 7500/NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX/GTS)

[1] I am shocked that an EA product acknowledges 2000.

Keep in mind an important rule of vintage computing: Win98SE hardware costs more than Windows XP hardware. You could go and pick up an ivy bridge, put something like a 7970 or 780 Ti in it, and have an absolutely insane XP rig (that happily dual boots 10 or unsupported 11) that runs modern SATA drives, PSUs, coolers, etc. for... probably way less money than an LGA775 AGP system with a GF4 Ti4600. (Those Asrock boards that run i865 chipsets with 45nm C2D/Q support may not be as highly desirable as Voodoo cards, but they're certainly among the most sought after items in the retro community) Or you could go PCI-E C2D/C2Q, ideally the 45nm ones, for absolutely dirt cheap.

The original Hitman game was in the Win98 era but Contracts was well into Windows XP.

I can see why this would seem like a confusing decision. The time period you've chosen represented a great deal of technology change. Graphics devices changed from AGP to PCIe, integrated audio changed from AC97 to HD Audio, Intel moved from Socket 478 to LGA 775, AMD and later Intel introduced 64-bit instruction sets, chipsets began to phase-out USB 1.1 circuits, manufactures phased-out smaller memory capacities, and manufactures dropped Win 98 support. Motherboards at the time supported a hodge podge of these changing standards.

You've chosen a pretty late preformance metric in a 2005 video game, but you didn't mention any other metrics. Do you want or need advanced audio processing (like EAX)? Do you want or need networking support, and, if so, how fast? Do you plan to multi-boot with other OSs? Do you want upgradablity (i.e. options to make improvements in the future)? What is your budget? Are you able and/or willing to make board repairs given aging components.

The answers to these questions might drive you in a particular direction. I wouldn't be afraid of unsupported hardware if you don't mind patches or a bit of instability. If you prefer period-correct components, though, you may have to consider some compromises given the unique time period of the mid-00s.

I'll echo the recommendation that based on the games you've listed, you need a Windows XP machine.

Windows 98 is great for gaming from about 1995 to 2001/2002.

For anything 2003 and onward you're in Windows XP territory.

fosterwj03 wrote on 2023-11-12, 16:44:

I can see why this would seem like a confusing decision. The time period you've chosen represented a great deal of technology change. Graphics devices changed from AGP to PCIe, integrated audio changed from AC97 to HD Audio, Intel moved from Socket 478 to LGA 775, AMD and later Intel introduced 64-bit instruction sets, chipsets began to phase-out USB 1.1 circuits, manufactures phased-out smaller memory capacities, and manufactures dropped Win 98 support. Motherboards at the time supported a hodge podge of these changing standards.

You've chosen a pretty late preformance metric in a 2005 video game, but you didn't mention any other metrics. Do you want or need advanced audio processing (like EAX)? Do you want or need networking support, and, if so, how fast? Do you plan to multi-boot with other OSs? Do you want upgradablity (i.e. options to make improvements in the future)? What is your budget? Are you able and/or willing to make board repairs given aging components.

The answers to these questions might drive you in a particular direction. I wouldn't be afraid of unsupported hardware if you don't mind patches or a bit of instability. If you prefer period-correct components, though, you may have to consider some compromises given the unique time period of the mid-00s.

Thanks so much for the input! So I don't really need advanced audio - basic will do. No networking support needed. Not necessary to multi-boot also. And if by upgrades you mean capability to upgrade the OS - then I don't want that either. I see two options - one is Asrock 775i65G with core 2 duo E6700 processor (2.66 GHz), while the other is Asrock 775i65GV with P4 631 3GHz. I know definitely the first one will have better performance, but will the performance difference be substantial? The latter doesn't seem to have AGP or PCIe, so I wonder if a great graphics card can be put in it. If the performance difference is great, then I guess I'll consider buying the first option.

fosterwj03 wrote on 2023-11-12, 16:44:

If you prefer period-correct components, though, you may have to consider some compromises given the unique time period of the mid-00s.

And I would add one additional thing: you probably don't actually want exactly period correct unless you're trying to play games with CPU speed restrictions or you are really nostalgic for the exact real-world experience of a game on release day.

Plenty of games shipped in this era that would not run at high framerates, high detail settings, and high resolutions on the highest-end hardware available at the time they were released, but run their best on the hardware from maybe 1-3 years later. Really, that's true of all software, not just games, back then (yes, there was an era when you had to buy an expensive new computer to run MS Office... as hard to believe for anyone who has seen the hardware requirements for Office in the past 15 years) - Moore's law and hardware was improving so fast that something that strained high-end hardware in 1997 would be expected to run great on 2000's el-cheapo hardware.

Also worth noting for those who weren't around back in the day - with the move from CRT to LCD, people's expectations for what resolutions games would be played at changed dramatically. The past 10-15 years, you've seen GPU benchmarks at 1920x1080, 2560x1440 (which I will absolutely refuse to call "1440p"), even 4K. But in 1998-2000, I think many people would have expected that some games would require them to go down to as low as 640x480 or 800x600. That was just life back then - you ran your nice CRT at 1280x1024 for productivity applications and then went down to lower resolutions for games as appropriate. But if you show up with even a 1280x1024 LCD, plug it into a period-correct 98SE system from 2000, and expect to play 2000-era 3D games at 1280x1024, I think you're bound to be disappointed.

Interestingly, even games that didn't use 3D graphics, like Age of Empires II, had weird resolution restrictions... Civilization III I think was hard-coded to 1024x768 or something unless you edit an .ini file. It's so weird because those restrictions were clearly not existential in the game engine given a simple config tweak gets rid of them... yet they had all those restrictions.

About £200 would buy you a PC that is capable of playing any game of the era you want.

i7-3770 with a 750Ti

Clarifying question - why windows 98? If your favorite games are comfortably in the XP era, you might just want to build an XP machine.

ciornyi wrote on 2023-11-12, 11:34:

Hi ,

I would stick with intel 865G chipset with native 478 socket . Combined with 3 Ghz pentium 4 prescott/northwood does give reasonable performance and perfect compatability . Good boards asus p4800 vm , asrock p4i65g . On other hand socket 754 is another good choice . As for graphic card Geforce fx5900/ ati 9800 would fit perfect for this build . Anyway anything depends on what budget you have /willing to spend

I agree, this would be the build. The best chipsets I have ever used in windows 98 is the 865p chipset (Asus P4P800 PE specifically ). The athlon 64 processors run a little bit cooler but P4s do perform better with older games (anything like 2002 or earlier). The athlon 64 will perform a bit better at the end of your date range. I think the penium 4 is the ideal platform for high performance 98, and in particular I think the north wood processors with 800mhz FSB a better balance of performance/power consumption compared to prescott.

A 5900xt/9800 pro or similar will do what you need, but 10244x769 or 800x600 is about right, no necessarily at the highest settings, and often even below 60fps (at least for demanding XP games). It would be period correct and it will work in both OS. The 5900xt has more legacy features than the ATI cards but the 9800pro is going to perform significantly better in directx9 games.

One other thing to add, the Audigy 2zs is the "best" sound card for 98 in the sense that it supports the most EAX features and works pretty well in that operating system. Make sure to install the VXD drivers. Even in XP the Audigy 2 is very good and you aren't missing very much compared to the latest x-fi.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2023-11-12, 18:07:

Clarifying question - why windows 98? If your favorite games are comfortably in the XP era, you might just want to build an XP machine.

Not only that, but as previously pointed out Need For Speed: Most Wanted requires a 32-bit OS (e.g. Win 2000 or XP).

Dual-booting both XP and 98 could be an option, but XP would be hindered on a such a machine compared to a dedicated XP box.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-11-12, 17:59:

About £200 would buy you a PC that is capable of playing any game of the era you want.

i7-3770 with a 750Ti

I agree with you about the ivy bridge, but just curious why you picked the 750Ti and not a higher-end 7xx card?

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-11-12, 18:13:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2023-11-12, 18:07:

Clarifying question - why windows 98? If your favorite games are comfortably in the XP era, you might just want to build an XP machine.

Not only that, but as previously pointed out Need For Speed: Most Wanted requires a 32-bit OS (e.g. Win 2000 or XP).

Dual-booting both XP and 98 could be an option, but XP would be hindered on a such a machine compared to a dedicated XP box.

Especially when the recommended specs for NFS Most Wanted are a 3GHz P4, GeForce FX5900/ATI 9800, 1GB of RAM. That's.. very much at the upper end of a 98SE-capable system. And because I never trust recommend specs for anything, I would probably say you want to go 25-50% above those specs for best results.

Having dug out my copy of it for my earlier post, I'm actually quite tempted to install it on my i5-3570 with the 7970. I assume it should fly... But the idea of swapping multiple CDs has discouraged me so far...

mothergoose729 wrote on 2023-11-12, 18:07:

Clarifying question - why windows 98? If your favorite games are comfortably in the XP era, you might just want to build an XP m […]
Show full quote

Clarifying question - why windows 98? If your favorite games are comfortably in the XP era, you might just want to build an XP machine.

ciornyi wrote on 2023-11-12, 11:34:

Hi ,

I would stick with intel 865G chipset with native 478 socket . Combined with 3 Ghz pentium 4 prescott/northwood does give reasonable performance and perfect compatability . Good boards asus p4800 vm , asrock p4i65g . On other hand socket 754 is another good choice . As for graphic card Geforce fx5900/ ati 9800 would fit perfect for this build . Anyway anything depends on what budget you have /willing to spend

I agree, this would be the build. The best chipsets I have ever used in windows 98 is the 865p chipset (Asus P4P800 PE specifically ). The athlon 64 processors run a little bit cooler but P4s do perform better with older games (anything like 2002 or earlier). The athlon 64 will perform a bit better at the end of your date range. I think the penium 4 is the ideal platform for high performance 98, and in particular I think the north wood processors with 800mhz FSB a better balance of performance/power consumption compared to prescott.

A 5900xt/9800 pro or similar will do what you need, but 10244x769 or 800x600 is about right, no necessarily at the highest settings, and often even below 60fps (at least for demanding XP games). It would be period correct and it will work in both OS. The 5900xt has more legacy features than the ATI cards but the 9800pro is going to perform significantly better in directx9 games.

One other thing to add, the Audigy 2zs is the "best" sound card for 98 in the sense that it supports the most EAX features and works pretty well in that operating system. Make sure to install the VXD drivers. Even in XP the Audigy 2 is very good and you aren't missing very much compared to the latest x-fi.

Regarding your first question: I know I can get epic builds with WinXP - absolutely agree. But Win98 was a part of my childhood and for me it's driven by pure nostalgia. If it's impossible to get NFSMW 2005 to work smoothly on a PC with native Win98 compatibility, then I can skip NFSMW. It's just that - mainly I want to build a high-end Win98 PC. So instead of 2005 games, I can aim for a build that can run 3Dmark benchmarks smoothly, or maybe can run NFS: Underground smoothly. I hope that makes sense, even though it (the nostalgia motivation) may sound irrational. As for "running a game smoothly", I mean I'd be happy even with 800x600 resolution, medium settings for the 2000's games.

Regarding the motherboard you recommended: there's ASUS P4P800 Rev:2.00A Intel 865PE ICH5R Socket 478 motherboard, ASRock 775i65G R2.0 LGA775 Motherboard and ASRock 775i65GV mATX Motherboard. Out of these 3, I'm still conflicted between the first two. What's your take?

There's a sketchy Youtube video that proports to have NFS MW running in Windows 98 on a GeForce 6800. If you're going to go with a GeForce 6xxxx, 7xxx, 8xxx, or Radeon x8xx, you might as well go with PCIe instead of AGP. Sure, you'll no longer have "Official" driver support, but Windows 98 can run and install on much newer hardware than the Intel 800-series chipsets. You will need patches/workarounds for USB and memory, but those really aren't a big deal.

You'll have a lot more motherboard options with PCIe.