DosFreak wrote:I just don't understand the bashing of the 486 going on in here. I remember using NT4 and 98 on my Intel DX4/100 (custom build). Sure I needed 8-12mb of RAM and had to use the older explorer shell on 98 but it was useable....for 9x. I mostly ran everythng I could on NT4 anyway Diablo ftw. Now as for games there really weren't any decent 9x games from 95-98 that really interested me but for the ones I did play on 9x they ran fine.
To me, it's not so much bashing the 486: the question wasn't "will Win95 run well on a 486". The answer to that, I think, is yes, especially if you have enough RAM. The question was "is Windows pointless on a 486", and I think yes, it mostly is nowadays, because most apps and games that you need Win9x for, you also really need a Pentium or better for. Most games that run well on a 486 - and there are many - are designed for plain DOS. There is, of course, some value in getting Win9x running in its own right, but personally, I never actually liked Win9x - I put up with it, because of all the cool games and apps that ran on it.
If I were trying to go full-retro, and use a 486 as a daily driver, I might install Win98SE and pare it down, but I think even then, one could be just as well served by dual-booting DOS and OS/2 Warp, or maybe NetBSD.
Main Box: Macbook Pro M2 Max
Alas, I'm down to emulation.