PARUS wrote:ruthan, the multiboot king must work with Windows 98/ME without issues.
Common, Windows 98 was bluescreen era 😀
If you could show it I would buy ICH10 mobo with 1 PCIe slot (for X-Fi Titanium) and 4-5 PCI slots (for video DOS/9X, sound for DOS, 3dfx, sound for WIN9X) with the great pleasure! Does ICH10 have good results with Windows98? Did somebody tests?
Im not too much friendly with that ICH5,6,10 naming by south-bridge- i know that is somewhere on wiki, but its annoying, i never used it, im using whole chipset names or platforms etc. if you could translate it for me, it would be great.
1 only PCI-e slot - had only first strange boards for 1 PCI-E GPU in age AGP to PCI-E migration. I think that maximum what you could expect on MB, without some PCI extender board are 2 or 3 PCI slots.
3dfx - i have those cards, because wrappers exists and have 2 Direct3D / OpenGL devices would be probably PITA (i never tested it), i dont you them.
Sound in Windows 98SE is not problem - even SB Audigy and SB live working on new boards even through PCI-E to PCI boards (X99) By Windows 98 sound - i dont means Windows 98 Dosbox - its different beast. Yamaha 744 working too - no problem there.
Once MB is able too boot into Windows 98 and video and sound drivers are working, Windows games are usually just working.. Problem could be Windows 98 Dosbox, but that way we are care about native pure Dos. You could tune Windows 9x Dosbox too, but it feel for me as duplicity and once i have pure Dos, i never cared too much about it.
Yet absolute king is i865+ICH5 now. It has ISA+DMA bus!!!!! It has Win9X support without headache.
OK, ISA is too much fun. I will be agree to ignore ISA with PCI sound for DOS but if you some showcase DOS and Windows98 work on ICH10 chipset.
That is exactly that part of Window 98 Dosbox which im are trying to avoid, because for DirectX sound are could be used both ISA and PCI cards, i remember in era articles how great is that we finally get rid of evil ISA - because of stability and speed.
By the way I slow down (for old DOS games) Core2+chipset very easy on i865 system. But if I try to do it on my X48+ICH9 system I get problems (keyboard malfunction, freezes etc).
Im happy with my Core 2 Duo system on Conroe865 too. I cant speak about X48, im testing Dos compatibility of X58 and we will see, i X48 probably wouldnt be worse, but it is a lot about right MB vendor, Bios settings, right additional cards and software settings.
You could check my DOS compatibility thread - i tested maybe 25,30 games (yeah tested set of games is subjective), is would say that 70% are working out of box (with right config branch). without any new computer patches for specific games, slowdowners, DOS4WG patches, autoexec, vesa utils, autoexec / config tuning - FILES / BUFFERS and other magic stuff. For me its good results, but i hope that with some community knowledge i could reach 90% compatibility level, otherwise i would be a bit disappointed. We will see..
For now i dont have keyboard issues with PS2 keyboard and mouse and PS2 switch - it could be vendor specific.
Freezes - are there, but for now at very beginning of games - Dune II menu, games start.. When i reach gameplay state, i dont have usually issues - i had only 1 freeze in Anvil of Dawn, but i had similar even with Dosbox so.. its under analysis.
So I think the king is i865+ISA yet! With Core2 CPU this system is working fine on DOS-Win9X-WinXP/7/8.1, can get XT performance without issues, 286-386-486 performance without issues and so on Pentium-Pentium2 ----- Core 2 3GHz.
If we are pressing on X58 pure Dos compatibility, we cant be soft on Core 2 - so i would tell, that Windows 7 / 8.1 - experience, is sub optimal.. you cant really play too much Windows 7 / 8 games and CPU is slow for more demanding apps and multitasking etc. If im not wrong you are limited to 4 GB of memory which is not enough modern OS and apps - even internet browser could consume 2 GB of memory..
Saying that Core 2 is good enough for Windows 7/8.1 its like saying that if Dos FIlemanager (= Windows explorer) + Text editor are working, Pure Dos is working. We discussing games so it should be 1 to 1.
Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.