This will be "unpopular opinion" it seems, but…

386 - Windows 3.11
486 - Windows 95
Pentium or newer - Windows 98

max out on RAM in all cases.

GemCookie wrote on 2025-08-14, 09:25:

I'll take Windows 95 on any hardware. Both operating systems are horribly unstable, but 95 at least runs significantly faster, even on a Pentium 4 system. I also have a soft spot for the underrated releases – I've skipped 32-bit Windows XP for 2000, XP x64 and Vista on several of my machines.

Echoing the sentiment, everyone already knows my opinion but here goes again anyway:

Windows 95 OSR2 up to something in the ~1 GHz range, always. Pentium 4/AthlonXP is where I tend to draw the line. On hardware older than that Windows 98/SE doesn't offer any tangible benefits, and is often less stable and slower, even with its supposedly improved memory management etc. In some instances you'll find drivers for things out-of-box in Win98 that you would have to manually add for Windows 95, but that's a minor issue - just have the drivers ready to go and its not a bother. You'll usually have to update the drivers shipping with the OS to newer versions anyway.

For P4/Athlon-era hardware, one might as well skip ahead to Windows XP - but there some people prefer Windows 98 because it allows them to keep "real DOS" for older apps and games.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-09-06, 00:14:

+1 […]
Show full quote

ppgrainbow wrote on 2025-08-16, 08:14:

OS/2 2.0, 2.1, 2.11 and 2.11 SMP can all perform well if 64 MB or more RAM is installed. 😀

In OS/2 2.0, Windows 3.0 only supported Standard and Real Mode and can address up to 64 MB of memory in the subsystem. For OS/2 2.1 and up, Windows 3.1x supported Standard and 386 Enhanced Mode and is capable of addressing up to 128 MB of memory in the subsystem.

+1

There's a commercial/training video about OS/2 v2:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC5zoB … GGf3jFOAYV87R_u

In essence, OS/2 was initially implementing the whole Windows memory-managment within Win-OS/2.

But beginning with Windows 3.1 it patched existing Windows to become an DPMI client.
That's very interesting, because it removed need for XMS/Himem.sys.
Memory now could be accessed from Protected-Mode and with better performance.

In principle, Win-OS/2 would have had offered better performance to
demanding Windows applications that juggled with lots of data.
Provided, that OS/2 itself have had enough physical RAM available.

I can attest to Win-OS/2 running Win16 applications faster than native Win3.1 (under Warp 3.0)

i have a slot 1 motherboard from 1997 ms6117 ver 1.1 flashed to the latest bios (mine is the AMI verison bios) from ver 1.1 ver 2.0, enable larger hard drive then original 8gb limit, but AMI version it's limited to 20gb with the latest bios (planning to use a controller card to bypass the storage limitations of the bios) the maximum support is pentium II 333mhz and celeron 433-466mhz, 75 mhz fsb. it works fine. it's currently on WIN98 SE with 256mb (pc-100) ram, and a voodoo bashee agp, will it benefit from win95? (using Win95 OSR2.5 for the use of USB for mass storage) it's just very nostalgic for me.

cause i already have 2 win 98 builds, 1 socket 370 pentium 3 650mhz 320mb ram (pc-100), voodoo 3 3000 agp, 80gb storage, 1 socket 478 pentium 4 2.8 ghz, 512mb (ddr 400), ATI radeon 9600xt, 80gb storage.

vintageonthemoon wrote on 2025-11-24, 17:13:

i have a slot 1 motherboard from 1997 ms6117 ver 1.1 flashed to the latest bios (mine is the AMI verison bios) from ver 1.1 ver 2.0, enable larger hard drive then original 8gb limit, but AMI version it's limited to 20gb with the latest bios (planning to use a controller card to bypass the storage limitations of the bios) the maximum support is pentium II 333mhz and celeron 433-466mhz, 75 mhz fsb. it works fine. it's currently on WIN98 SE with 256mb (pc-100) ram, and a voodoo bashee agp, will it benefit from win95? (using Win95 OSR2.5 for the use of USB for mass storage) it's just very nostalgic for me.

cause i already have 2 win 98 builds, 1 socket 370 pentium 3 650mhz 320mb ram (pc-100), voodoo 3 3000 agp, 80gb storage, 1 socket 478 pentium 4 2.8 ghz, 512mb (ddr 400), ATI radeon 9600xt, 80gb storage.

Not much of a difference. Loading things within the shell will be a little snappier without IE. If you plan on installing IE4+the desktop update, you might as well use Win98. On Win 95 you lose the ability to easily use a USB-mouse and keyboard, but if you're on PS/2 peripherals it won't matter.