AlexZ wrote on 2025-02-02, 15:04:
I do not see much point in building a really powerul Windows 98 rig as games lack details so will not benefit much from higher resolution. I just end up using 800x600 or 1024x768. Games from that era are not designed for high resolutions.
That is only true for CRT users. If you're driving an LCD you're going to want to use native resolution witch is usually 1280x1024 sometimes even 1600x1200 (for 20 and 21" 4:3 panels). Anything less then native looks horrible.
I like using CRT monitors whenever possible, but they are getting pretty hard to find - particularly ones in good working order - and they take up a lot of room. As such I mainly reserve them for older machines and 2d games. Most of my win98 PCs drive LCDs, usually 20/21" (Syncmaster 214t, Dell 2007FP, etc). In my opinion 3D accelerated games look fantastic on these, but the caveat is you need to go way over recommended system specs to drive such high resolutions at 60fps. I found that going a bit overboard on the CPU makes most 1998-2001 era games run very smooth - GPU wise they're not very demanding.
Here are a few examples of such games:
- Black and White - minimum system is a 350 MHz Intel Pentium II MMX processor, 64 Mb RAM and an 8Mb 3D Hardware Accelerator Card with Direct3D(TM) support (PCI/AGP). Now that will let you run the game, but it will be a slideshow. Black and white is very CPU intensive and also a bit of a ram hog. GPU-wise it's not particularly demanding. I find the game runs best @ 1600x1200 maxed out on moderately fast socket 478 / socket A CPUs, on a system with 256MB of ram and a late 2000 graphics card with at least 32MB of vram. A geforce 2 GTS or radeon 7500 will do quite well for this game. This game launched in 2001, so it's technically an XP era game, but it was designed to run on win9x, and has some minor to moderate stability issues when running on top of XP, particularly when running it maxed out.
- Dungeon Keeper 2 (1999) recommended specs is a 300MHz pentium II, 64MB of ram and again an 8MB graphics card. Mininum requirements ask for a 233MHz pentium and a 2MB grapics card... And, while the game will launch on a pentium MMX, it is a slidehow. In fact it's pretty unpleasant to run on it's recommended specs as well (tested on a 350MHz P2 with a riva TNT2). It will run ok @ 800x600 on a 650-733MHz pentium III / Athlon / Duron with a TNT2, but it will start chugging pretty hard when there are lots of creatures and particle effects on screen (combat). I find the game runs best on way faster machines - 2GHz Pentium 4 / Athlon 2000+, with a Geforce 3 or radeon 8500.
- Homeworld (1999) - this game again needs over recommended specs to run smoothly. I find a 900-1000MHz Pentium 3 / Athon / Duron + 128MB of ram and a Radeon 7200 / Geforce 2 MX 400 will get the job done smoothly.