Geforce 4 Ti4200 and Radeon 9600 did fine on Win98SE in my experience, even on a ViA chipset.
Also the X700/800 series should do well but may be a bit overkill for socket 370 and are not so easy to get with AGP (and quite fragile due to the AGP bridge chip).

I'd go with the Ti4200 or maybe even a Radeon 9550 which may be cheaper than the others.

There were native AGP X800 cards. Question is whether AGP 3.0 cards would be worth the potential troubles in such a Win98 rig.

ChrisK wrote on 2025-05-21, 06:56:

Geforce 4 Ti4200 and Radeon 9600 did fine on Win98SE in my experience, even on a ViA chipset. Also the X700/800 series should do […]
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Geforce 4 Ti4200 and Radeon 9600 did fine on Win98SE in my experience, even on a ViA chipset.
Also the X700/800 series should do well but may be a bit overkill for socket 370 and are not so easy to get with AGP (and quite fragile due to the AGP bridge chip).

I'd go with the Ti4200 or maybe even a Radeon 9550 which may be cheaper than the others.

Thanks a lot for your recommendatins. The x700/800 series was not an my radar to be frank but they are interesting cards from technical point of view.

But I am not sure if they might not be too much for a win98se gaming system just like putas has said.

The 4200 ti geforce would be the most logical choice. This card is also my first pick.

In theory it can be very tempting to deal with some more powerful card to go crazy but in the end I want something that justs works and max out the system with as little headaches as possible.

I got myself a geforce 4 4200 ti for my system

Gigabyte GA-7IXE board
Amd Athlon 700 Mhz

256 mb PC 133 ram

and I like the results. The first card for that system was Voodoo 3 card as well. If you find a geforce 4 4600 ti you also consider that card. There is nice video from phils computerlab on youtube abou the card.Phil called the card one of the best cards for windows 98.

Depends on the resolution, but some 2001 and 2002 games can be very hard on an s370 system with the most available graphics cards.

I feel like Morrowind can slaughter anything aside of the most powerful options if you want to max it out. Same with Splinter Cell. I found Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 to also be very heavy. For that an FX5700 is just about enough in 1280×1024. And all this if you pair the fast GPU with a decent Athlon XP or Pentium 4. With a Pentium 3 I'd keep my expectations low. I'd just drop W98(SE) at 2001 and go for a cheaper XP build.

RandomStranger wrote on 2025-05-21, 16:31:

Depends on the resolution, but some 2001 and 2002 games can be tough on an s370 system with the most available graphics cards.

I feel like Morrowind can slaughter anything aside of the most powerful options if you want to max it out. Same with Splinter Cell. I found Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 to also be very heavy. For that an FX5700 is just about enough in 1280×1024. And all this if you pair the fast GPU with a decent Athlon XP or Pentium 4. With a Pentium 3 I'd keep my expectations low. I'd just drop W98(SE) at 2001 and go for a cheaper XP build.

Thanks a lot for your objections. Yes leaving the rig like it is and start from the scratch from 2001 beyond is good idea. Getting second rig for xp with a athlon or p4 is something I wanted to do for quite some time now. But then I had to postpone my plans.

Starting that project now would be possible.

My prefered resolutions would be 1024x768 or 1280x1024.

Which cheap athlon xp or p4 combination would you recommend as good starting point?

For early XP I'd go further. AMD Sempron 145, it's single core-single thread, very fast, but with low TDP. Some early games have issues with dual/multi core. Though there are workarounds. I like the 780G chipset for AM2/+/3 CPUs. I used to daily drive a GA-MA78GM-S2H.

For graphics card, something from the enthusiast level from the Geforce 7000 series. Some games have issues with graphics cards more recent than that. Though there are workarounds.

Also agree 4200 ti is a good logical choice for a P3. Sure GF6 is the last with official support but not really suitable for a P3 and suffers compatibility issues anyway.

I also feel once games start to get to demanding for a P3 (and in my case) a Ti4600 the games are really more XP era that just happen to have 9x legacy support (GTA3 is a good example)
Its a good time for cheap XP builds. LGA775 make great powerful retro PC's and even newer 1156/1366 can be had for good deals.
Add a mid level PCIe card towards the end of XP compatibility and it'll be more then powerful enough for XP era games.

RandomStranger wrote on 2025-05-21, 17:52:

For early XP I'd go further. AMD Sempron 145, it's single core-single thread, very fast, but with low TDP. Some early games have issues with dual/multi core. Though there are workarounds. I like the 780G chipset for AM2/+/3 CPUs. I used to daily drive a GA-MA78GM-S2H.

For graphics card, something from the enthusiast level from the Geforce 7000 series. Some games have issues with graphics cards more recent than that. Though there are workarounds.

Thanks a lot for your recommendation. The sempron 145 sounds interesting. In case some of the early games have problems with mulit core cpus a powerful single core cpu sounds like the perfect match for my gaming needs.

I will also check out the geforce 7000 series to find a proper gpu.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-05-22, 00:32:

Also agree 4200 ti is a good logical choice for a P3. Sure GF6 is the last with official support but not really suitable for a P […]
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Also agree 4200 ti is a good logical choice for a P3. Sure GF6 is the last with official support but not really suitable for a P3 and suffers compatibility issues anyway.

I also feel once games start to get to demanding for a P3 (and in my case) a Ti4600 the games are really more XP era that just happen to have 9x legacy support (GTA3 is a good example)
Its a good time for cheap XP builds. LGA775 make great powerful retro PC's and even newer 1156/1366 can be had for good deals.
Add a mid level PCIe card towards the end of XP compatibility and it'll be more then powerful enough for XP era games.

Thanks as well for your input. I will check out the various LGA 775 mainboards and also the never 1156/1366 to see what is availble right. The same goes the pci cards you have mentioned.

Can you think of some specific cards you would recommend?

ps: I also think that I will get the geforce 4 4200 ti anyway. Nothing against the v3 but I am also curious what the p3 can do with a more powerful card. The 4200 ti cards are reather cheap at the moment so getting one would not break the bank.

Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 can run on 98, but the focus wasn't on 98 anymore at that time and the driver quality got a bit shaky. If you want to move into the realm of Direct3D 9 games you should get XP going. You will probably end up performance chasing right to a modern machine though.

There are of course a lot of interesting possibilities for a 2004-2010 era machine however.

Radeon X800XT PE is the answer here..

swaaye wrote on 2025-05-22, 12:27:

Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 can run on 98, but the focus wasn't on 98 anymore at that time and the driver quality got a bit shaky. If you want to move into the realm of Direct3D 9 games you should get XP going. You will probably end up performance chasing right to a modern machine though.

There are of course a lot of interesting possibilities for a 2004-2010 era machine however.

Thanks for the answer. Yes, for the XP system, I want to get into the realms of Direct3D9. That would perfectly describe my plans. I am looking for a machine that can play games from 2002 to 2006 in good quality. That is era of xp that interests me the most in xp gaming.

for that area something like intel 775 system or socket 939 build would be a good starting point or what do you think?

retep_110 wrote on 2025-05-22, 18:39:

Thanks for the answer. Yes, for the XP system, I want to get into the realms of Direct3D9. That would perfectly describe my plans. I am looking for a machine that can play games from 2002 to 2006 in good quality. That is era of xp that interests me the most in xp gaming.

for that area something like intel 775 system or socket 939 build would be a good starting point or what do you think?

That is quite a range of games. 2002-2003 games are a breeze for such a machine, with just about any PCIe GPU. 2006 games are going to push it though. I think you'd want a minimum of Radeon X1900XT. I don't recommend even considering any GF 6/7 cards. You should also avoid the Shader Model 2.0-only Radeons (that's Radeon 9500-X850). To guarantee >60 fps with 2006 games at high resolution you should consider cards like GTX 580 or Radeon HD 5870 though.

Socket 939 is pretty neat. I really like to throw together a nForce4 machine every now and then. The Core 2 is a lot faster though. Even Phenom II was barely able to keep up.

retep_110 wrote on 2025-05-22, 05:38:

Can you think of some specific cards you would recommend?

ps: I also think that I will get the geforce 4 4200 ti anyway. Nothing against the v3 but I am also curious what the p3 can do with a more powerful card. The 4200 ti cards are reather cheap at the moment so getting one would not break the bank.

I would look at it from the other direction, as you said you were thinking about a XP build I'm assuming you have some XP era games you want to play?
I would pick a card that'll play's those games well, but as a rough guide I've a GTX590 which has no trouble at all playing my most demanding game (GTA SA) even with driver enhancements like AA, AF maxed out.

Yes I'd still get the 4200 ti. it's much more powerful for D3D games. For I while I actually had my 4600 ti which was set as primary and V3 2000 PCI in the same PC.
It worked pretty well, had a monitor attached to each so a 2 screen setup in Windows. D3D games would go to the Primary (so the GF4) and glide would automatically go to the V3.
Only game that didn't work was Powerslide in glide. For that game I needed to disable the GF4 in device manager and reboot.

Is this still about the original Win98 system? Or are we talking about a second XP only system now?
I think as some others said already for the 98 system the Ti4200 is a good and very reasonable card regarding power, prices, availability and driver support.

For a pure XP system, though, I'd choose either 775 (look for Core 2 Duo support!) or AM2/2+/3/3+ depending on prevalence for Intel or AMD. 939 seems too limited in terms of processor choice to me.
There are AMx boards that support from the lowest Semprons/Athlons up to 6core Phenom IIs with support for DDR II and/or DDR III. Most AM2/2+ boards can even run AM3 processors due to the CPU-integrated DDR II / III memory controller. So the range for such system is very broad.
GPU-wise I can't say that much. Not a power gamer. I mostly went with ATi/AMD the last decades years with the last card on XP beeing an HD3850. After that died I switched to a PCIe HD7xxx and with it to Win 7.

ChrisK wrote on 2025-05-23, 06:02:

Is this still about the original Win98 system? Or are we talking about a second XP only system now? I think as some others said […]
Show full quote

Is this still about the original Win98 system? Or are we talking about a second XP only system now?
I think as some others said already for the 98 system the Ti4200 is a good and very reasonable card regarding power, prices, availability and driver support.

For a pure XP system, though, I'd choose either 775 (look for Core 2 Duo support!) or AM2/2+/3/3+ depending on prevalence for Intel or AMD. 939 seems too limited in terms of processor choice to me.
There are AMx boards that support from the lowest Semprons/Athlons up to 6core Phenom IIs with support for DDR II and/or DDR III. Most AM2/2+ boards can even run AM3 processors due to the CPU-integrated DDR II / III memory controller. So the range for such system is very broad.
GPU-wise I can't say that much. Not a power gamer. I mostly went with ATi/AMD the last decades years with the last card on XP beeing an HD3850. After that died I switched to a PCIe HD7xxx and with it to Win 7.

It is a about a pure xp system. I was planning to get full xp system at some point in the future anyway and due to the thread i was inspired to look into full xp if I really want more power and leave the win98se system as it is now.

I still might get geforce 4 4200 ti for the win98se system in case I find one at good price.

Thanks for the advice.

swaaye wrote on 2025-05-22, 22:00:

retep_110 wrote on 2025-05-22, 18:39:

Thanks for the answer. Yes, for the XP system, I want to get into the realms of Direct3D9. That would perfectly describe my plans. I am looking for a machine that can play games from 2002 to 2006 in good quality. That is era of xp that interests me the most in xp gaming.

for that area something like intel 775 system or socket 939 build would be a good starting point or what do you think?

That is quite a range of games. 2002-2003 games are a breeze for such a machine, with just about any PCIe GPU. 2006 games are going to push it though. I think you'd want a minimum of Radeon X1900XT. I don't recommend even considering any GF 6/7 cards. You should also avoid the Shader Model 2.0-only Radeons (that's Radeon 9500-X850). To guarantee >60 fps with 2006 games at high resolution you should consider cards like GTX 580 or Radeon HD 5870 though.

Socket 939 is pretty neat. I really like to throw together a nForce4 machine every now and then. The Core 2 is a lot faster though. Even Phenom II was barely able to keep up.

Thanks for your advice as well. The radeon x1900xt looks like a neat card and should be well suited for me to enjoy early xp games. But it cannot be denied that I would need something more post 2006 games to enjoy great quality. I will also look into the intel boards for a good core 2. system.

Core 2 is brand i wanted back then but was not able to afford one. Are any confirmed information about how compatible with earlier xp games. I am little woried that some games migh issues with more than one cpu core and look much worse than they should. A problem i have ofen encountered when playing some really old stuff on my modern ryzen rig.

But in case there are so such problems a core 2 system would be a awesome choice.

@chinny Yes i have a idea which game I want to play on my xp system. all neat fps,rts, action adventure and racing games from 2002 to 2006. big titles like need for speed underground, doom 3, half life 2, far cry, Fear and and many more.

I am also temped to play many windows 98se games in better qualtiy than possible on the vood003 in case I get the 4200.

I just played Fear on a WinXP system with a core2duo E8400 and GTX750ti. Nice and cheap setup, not sure what board though.
My other XP32 system is an Asus Sabertooth Z77 with i7-3770K, 16GB (😅) and GTX970 but I didn‘t bother to finish the build yet.
This system will cost you more because it seems the days of getting a cheap 3770K are over.

Kouwes wrote on 2025-05-23, 07:43:

I just played Fear on a WinXP system with a core2duo E8400 and GTX750ti. Nice and cheap setup, not sure what board though.
My other XP32 system is an Asus Sabertooth Z77 with i7-3770K, 16GB (😅) and GTX970 but I didn‘t bother to finish the build yet.
This system will cost you more because it seems the days of getting a cheap 3770K are over.

Thanks a lot for the info. It's always nice to hear some first-hand experience about the games I want to play. Looking more into the "future" with the i7-3370 sounds interesting performance-wise, but I have missed the right timeframe to invest in such mobo. Today, they are quite expensive.

Investing in a core 2 system would make more sense because these systems have not attracted the interest of all retro collectors around the world. Some core 2 cpu are more expensive than others but in general it is not that bad yet.

Hey there!
I got myself a 775 board for my XP retrobox not even 6 months ago (a nice lanparty dkp45).

I was lucky that I found an ebay local seller that was giving away a nice combo in an auction, so I managed to get it for 40€ with shipping. Mobo+CPU+RAM+GPU. I then went on a craze and upgraded basically all component on it. Currently it runs an E8600 (OCd at 4 ghz), 4Gb of thight DDR2 RAM and a Radeon HD6970 (also got for cheap from an auction).
The oldest game I ran on this system, currently, is Crazy Taxi (the 2002 port that ran at 50 fps, thus slower than the arcade). I'm pretty sure earlier XP games like Max Payne should aslo run without issuses on it. In case I need and older GPU, the combo included an HD4850. Another GPU option may be a GTX 560ti. They can be also had for cheap (found one for 15€ at a flea market just two days ago. Unfortunately it was 100% dead and I had to return it)
Of course, if some transition 9x - XP games do experience problems on hardware this recent (late 2000s), I also have a PIII 1000 + Ti 4200 combo as a fallback. Maxing out games like Max Payne on it it's not a big problem, just be aware that Ti 4200 can be quite expensive. If compatibility with earlier 9x games isn't a must, you can go the Radeon way and save some money (like 9600XT).

EDIT: No, not the new one. The older one from 2004. I just noticed that this new Radeon generation, with the 9060XT, is gonna cause some confusion for us retro hardware enthusiasts.