MattRocks wrote on 2026-03-31, 18:58:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-03-31, 18:25:

I honestly haven't seen Windows Me running on a PC since I worked at a repair shop in the early 2000s. I will have to install it […]
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giantenemycat wrote on 2026-03-31, 15:50:

I was also able to get this going. As I suspected, taking out the USB card and PC speaker allowed it to boot up just fine. Everything works, including HDD and CD-ROM. 40MB RAM. Windows ME installed, but it's pretty bare. What interests me is it's slow as all hell, now this reminds me of the ME experience I had on my first family PC.

I honestly haven't seen Windows Me running on a PC since I worked at a repair shop in the early 2000s. I will have to install it sometime to remind myself of what it was like. I remember, at the time, actually liking setting up WinMe systems because they had so many more drivers pre-installed compared to Windows 98\SE. We had nifty "shop CDs" (complete with custom interface and disc labels, 🤣) that contained as many of the drivers, runtimes and other things that we needed to set up most computers... but Me systems tended to not need much at all to work.

It's funny how different things were then. Now, the idea of just using whatever old drivers the OS came with (because Windows update didn't automatically update drivers like in later versions) seems weird. Back then, it was like "Hey, these drivers actually work and don't cause a BSOD, potentially requiring an OS reinstall! Use them and then DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!"

... also, 40MB on WinME sounds excruciating! My Gateway with Win98 (first edition) and a PII 400 came with 64MB in early 1999. My brother was running a Pentium 200 MMX with 96MB of EDO back then too. Can't imagine having so little to run Me.

IIRC, WinME was also a lot better at automagically solving IRQ conflicts.

ME is in every way a better OS for 9x games if:

* You don't need to run DOS programs
* Your running a 500+MHZ CPU w/ 128MB+ RAM

Also supports USB Mass Storage devices out of the box.

RetroAddict wrote on Yesterday, 19:42:

I was given something a while back which I've only recently got around to testing due to having no nostalgic attachment to Pentium 4 setups at all. Apparently the CPU is quite rare as I can't find any sold listings anywhere to know what I should put it up for if I decide to get rid! I've run xp on it, and with a Sapphire X1950 Pro it was producing some great performance in the 3Dmark Suite and Quake 3! It's a Pentium 4 socket 478 Extreme Edition at 3.4Ghz, the board I believe to be a very average at best, P4i65G.

Also purchased an aopen HX08 complete with fairly average internals, need to work out what to build in that one! 😀

That's the absolute pinnacle of socket 478. I've had that on my search list for ages, but prices tend to be outrageous. Congrats on that one!

Still missing my HX08 too. It was an absolute beauty. Got an HQ08 from a friend, albeit missing one side panel unfortunately.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on Yesterday, 23:11:

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 13:15:

Are your video drivers enabling BitBlt? […]
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giantenemycat wrote on 2026-03-31, 15:50:

What interests me is it's slow as all hell, now this reminds me of the ME experience I had on my first family PC.

Are your video drivers enabling BitBlt?

I just booted the Savage2000 in its original box and no drivers had been installed so WinXP was rendering the entire desktop on the CPU, combing that in RAM, then copying the frames to VRAM. The whole system was terrible unresponsive. WinME might behave similarly with standard VGA driver.

Rather than download and copy driver files over USB, I dropped in a GeForce2Ti that WinXP automatically recognises and the whole system turned snappy.

The Savage2000 is a terrible card. The TnL engine only works somewhat correctly under S3 MeTaL, and its slower than a TNT2 Ultra in a lot of games despite being pitched as a GeForce DDR/Radeon DDR competitor. Generally buggy drivers, and underwhelming performance in DX6 titles as well.

Some of your points are moot because TNT2 Ultra is often faster than early GeForce/Radeon cards in DX6 titles.

But none of that matters because it's a Savage2000!

When it came to sales, FPS is all that mattered and gamers switched off visual effects to maximise FPS. Texture compression was a paper tickbox, not a runtime comparison. I remember GeForce owners saying of their own cards "I can't imagine anything looking better," without having enough modesty to actually compare side-by-side. Attached screenshot is from the academic paper linked.
http://sv-journal.org/2014-1/06/en/index.php?lang=en

Due to low sales, actually comparing side-by-side was near impossible because almost nobody had a Savage2000.

RetroAddict wrote on Yesterday, 22:43:

MattRocks wrote on Yesterday, 20:27:

RetroAddict wrote on Yesterday, 19:42:

Also purchased an aopen HX08 complete with fairly average internals, need to work out what to build in that one! 😀

Oh man, what a coincidence - where did you find that?

On the old bookface marketplace! The case and innards, plus a monitor and a generic keyboard and mouse cost me very little. I had the smaller aopen case back in 2000 but it’s so rare to see anything like that for sale down here I couldn’t resist! I have the seller of your mystery box favourited too 😂

Ah, I don't browse bookface. AOpen cases were very popular ~2000, as were weird public spectacles.