Welcome, very interesting build. Please keep posting updates sharing your experiences as you go along.

For me, win98 game compatibility was rather poor with the Quadro FX 1300. In my case I think I tried it on an Intel 915 Chipset. Worth trying though, as you have it.

Sounds like an ambitious build! I do love systems designed to cover a range of operating systems and periods.

I'll be especially interested to see how Windows 98 performs on this setup.

Thank you all for the supporting words 😀 I don't have everything already, this is just a plan, will take some time to obtain these items - that's why I'm asking if you see any no-nos.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-05-13, 21:58:

For me, win98 game compatibility was rather poor with the Quadro FX 1300. In my case I think I tried it on an Intel 915 Chipset. Worth trying though, as you have it.

Do you remember any details? E. g. specific games that didn't work or worked with obvious, instant artifacts? Drivers used maybe? Asking because it would allow me to quickly test this part.
I wanted this video card, because it's the last one to support some features (table fog, 8-bit paletted textures) and at the same time the first to support PCIE (yeah, I heard about PCX 43000... no.). And the proper PCX 5950 / 5900 are super rare and expensive.
I can obtain another rare card - PCX 5300, but that's just FX 5200 with HSI bridge, I think it would be too slow - but has advantage of being passively cooled.

BTW. My Bloodrage is being repaired, so had to buy another X58 as I need working PC.
Asus Rampage II Extreme was bad, couldn't get my 16X-sized-but-using-only-8X PCIE GPU to work on 16X slot - had to use 8X one on the bottom - but then couldn't add my Kingston PCIE-to-M2 adapter because the PC won't start.
Also, already learned the hard way that mixing video cards with HSI bridge and motherboards with NF200 chip (Asus P6X58-E WS in my case) is asking for trouble. Mine didn't even fully post, can't enter BIOS, can't boot the OS.
Currently have Asus Rampage III Extreme and will use it if my Bloodrage can't be revived.

KoRni wrote on 2026-05-14, 05:24:

Do you remember any details? E. g. specific games that didn't work or worked with obvious, instant artifacts? Drivers used maybe? Asking because it would allow me to quickly test this part.
I wanted this video card, because it's the last one to support some features (table fog, 8-bit paletted textures) and at the same time the first to support PCIE (yeah, I heard about PCX 43000... no.). And the proper PCX 5950 / 5900 are super rare and expensive.

Yeah, I got the FX 1300 for similar reasons. That, and the fact it was really cheap!

I am sorry, but I dont recall what games I tried. It was one of my first attempts at a retro build when I had very little hardware and even less experience. So it may be that I used bad drivers or installed things in a bad sequence. I suspect I also installed Windows 98 unofficial SP3, which I now know can cause issues.

I do recall though that I had better luck with ATI X600 than I did with Quadro FX1300, FX1400 and FX3450. All were quite cheap cards. I think table fog didnt work on the Radeon though.

Sounds like a neat experiment, I'll be following this thread with great interest.

My (obvious) 2 cents is that W98 (with a side of DOS) just doesn't make practical sense to me here, it'd mean losing far too much compatibility for my taste for no real gain. Hence why "experiment", and also very much why I'm interested in this.

Keep us posted!

such wrote on 2026-05-14, 15:20:

Sounds like a neat experiment, I'll be following this thread with great interest.

My (obvious) 2 cents is that W98 (with a side of DOS) just doesn't make practical sense to me here, it'd mean losing far too much compatibility for my taste for no real gain. Hence why "experiment", and also very much why I'm interested in this.

Keep us posted!

By losing compatibility you mean - with older DOS games? Win98 has two purposes in this build: W98 games with A3D support and DOS games. I will probably also try to install a separate DOS.

you need to get an ESS 1970 sound card , also known as ESS Canyon 3D.

If you are lucky enough to get one.

KoRni wrote on 2026-05-15, 08:07:

such wrote on 2026-05-14, 15:20:

Sounds like a neat experiment, I'll be following this thread with great interest.

My (obvious) 2 cents is that W98 (with a side of DOS) just doesn't make practical sense to me here, it'd mean losing far too much compatibility for my taste for no real gain. Hence why "experiment", and also very much why I'm interested in this.

Keep us posted!

By losing compatibility you mean - with older DOS games? Win98 has two purposes in this build: W98 games with A3D support and DOS games. I will probably also try to install a separate DOS.

Yeah, this is is mainly about DOS.

In terms of Windows... this might be old wives' tales territory, but I ran Athlon XP on VIA for a year and when it did work it worked fine, but even that config did have odd quirks that bothered me that completely disappeared when I moved to P3 on 440BX - that's all Windows, didn't do much DOS on that machine (no ISA is a dealbreaker for me there). X58 looks much too bumpy to me, even if the testing does seem to indicate... it's a better experience than expected? I'd be interested to give this or Z68 a try one of these days as a project on the side. Don't have the space for this right now, so happy to experience it by proxy instead 😀

bitzu101 wrote on 2026-05-15, 10:01:

you need to get an ESS 1970 sound card , also known as ESS Canyon 3D.

If you are lucky enough to get one.

Sorry, is this suggestion for my build? What's so special about this card?
If it's third sound card to be added to my build, it will probably not happen unfortunately - I only got one PCI port available. And Diamond MX300 with its Vortex 2 chip isn't going anywhere 😀
Basing this build on NF790i (which do have two PCIs) will probably not happen - nForces were always a pain, and that's with official drivers available for W98. Without them, it's really asking for trouble. I will still try, but don't have a lot of hope.

Can't edit my post - I see there was some trouble with people trying to wipe their contribution to VOGONS, maybe that's why.
Anyway, did a bit of research about that ESS 1970 - and it's another chip that used proprietary 3D system - MultiDrive 3D, made by Sensaura. And it was like a middleman, translating EAX1, EAX2, A3D 1.0 and D3D calls - theoretically supporting many games. But this really doesn't look all that compelling to me, compared to native A3D (not to mention A3D2.0), and even EAX. And it's natively supported just by a handful of games.

It's probably about better than usual DOS compatibility for a PCI card, but I never used one, so can't say personally.

ess sound cards are good for DOS compatibility.

ESS solo 1 is the BEST card for DOS paired up with specific DDMA motherboards.

aureal vortex 2 is great or super great for windows only.

Did more reading to explore putting more emphasis on DOS in real mode for my build, and realized that it would require ISA slot for sound card. Simple as that. I know there are motherboards with SB link, but they usually have ISA anyway. No way around this if you want full compatibility. Hence I'm keeping the focus on DOS under W98, W98, XP and early W7. In real mode DOS max I can get is SB Pro emulation.

My Asus Rampage III Extreme arrived. Damaged 😒 And my Foxconn Bloodrage is still being repaired.
But, still exploring the sound card options, I found very interesting piece - Yamaha WF192XG. Yes, it's based on YMF724 chip we all know and respect, but I found that it also have built-in that Sensaura someone already mentioned here. And it has genuine OPL3 chip, that can be used in DOS-under-W98 if I understood things right - please correct me if I didn't.

That gave me an incentive to look for X58 motherboards with two PCI slots. It also means my Foxconn Blood Rage board cannot be used (one PCI slot only). I also decided to add classy flavor to my build and added FDD and IDE options to requirements and the motherboard search began again.
I found only one Asus motherboard - P6T - that meets these requirements and have slot distribution that allows installation of my cards (dual slot PCIEXx16 video card, single slot PCIEXx16 video card, PCIEX x1 sound card, 2x PCI sound cards). The only other producer is ASRock - have six of such boards, and these would even let me have another free PCIEX slot (e.g. for M.2 drive). ASrock X58 SuperComputer is an interesting case - it's the only X58 board I know to have three PCI slots! But I can't think of another card to install, besides, one slot will be blocked by dual slot GPU.

So, after lengthy search, I found Asrock X58 SuperComputer board! And it came DOA 😦 Do people really think buyers will not notice the board is dead? Anyway, now P6T is on my way, but in the meantime, what do you guys think about this combo? Diamond MX 300 for A3D and WF192XG for OPL3 / Sensaura? Both cards also have basic EAX support if needed, and in DOS real mode, both can emulate SB Pro (I think Vortex is better in this matter, but always nice to have more options).
Another question - considering above requirements and goals, do you think ESS Solo-1 is of any use to me? I know it's one of the best for games in real mode DOS, but I think it needs that SB link to do that. Is there a point of using it in my build?

Forgot to mention X-Fi Titanium for EAX. How do I get to edit my posts? Do I need some number of posts / likes / reputation points?

Also, whenever I mention "DOS real mode" I just mean native DOS (can be real or protected mode).