Mike_ wrote on 2026-08-06, 12:06:

bitzu101 wrote on 2026-08-05, 21:03:

Sorry , I did mean to say AT case... I hated them back then , still hate them now...Horrible idea of a case form factor.

In regards to the Athlon XP 1700+... Well , the 1700+ at 1466 or 1433 is more than enough. 512 ram , etc... It s overkill as it is. I remember using win 98 on a k6-2 333mhz.. I do have a 2700+ somewhere , but the "early 9x" build it s mainly for really easy to run games like dos games and hl1... Did I mention that my "entry l3vel" one is ddr1?

I do not have any pc s with SD ram. but i have the parts to build it 😀

How do you use it to run DOS games if it doesn't have an ISA slot? I'd imagine there would be issues with sound card compatibility. There's exactly one Socket A board listed in Retroweb that has both DDR1 and an ISA slot, if you do have that one you are quite lucky. 😀

I never play dos games in native dos. Only via Win 9x.

What is the point of playing via native dos?

I do however have a quite high end ABIT socket 370 mobo that has an ISA slot , I also have a ESS 1858f ISA and the 512 sdram + p3 intel , but it s up for sale on ebay as I don t need it. I see no point to pure dos. I know some people are nostalgic about it , but I am not , i was the generation of windows 95 , even back then , dos was ancient and was avoiding it. 😀

Some DOS games refuse to work or have bugs when run from 98. Terra Nova is one I played recently and it throws an error on launch unless you're running it from DOS. There's not that many I'm aware of though so I don't necessarily think you need to worry about it too much.

Fish3r wrote on 2026-08-06, 13:31:

Some DOS games refuse to work or have bugs when run from 98. Terra Nova is one I played recently and it throws an error on launch unless you're running it from DOS. There's not that many I'm aware of though so I don't necessarily think you need to worry about it too much.

I m not really... I agree there are a few games that work under native dos but cause issues under win9x , but those are very few. I personally never come across it.

X-Com Apocalypse works , that is probably the main dos game I play.

Fish3r wrote on 2026-08-06, 13:31:

Some DOS games refuse to work or have bugs when run from 98. Terra Nova is one I played recently and it throws an error on launch unless you're running it from DOS. There's not that many I'm aware of though so I don't necessarily think you need to worry about it too much.

That's a 1996 game and in the DOS to Windows migration period. That said it requires a Pentium 60 and recommends a Pentium 90. Not exactly a game that would benefit from a Ultimate 9X system.

A Pentium 233MMX or K6-2/3 system that can be software under clocked is generally enough to handled those games. A Voodoo 1 or 2 would be nice to have since GLIDE wrappers won't be usable if anything you are targeting are DOS mode 3D games.

SScorpio wrote on 2026-08-06, 14:20:

That's a 1996 game and in the DOS to Windows migration period. That said it requires a Pentium 60 and recommends a Pentium 90. Not exactly a game that would benefit from a Ultimate 9X system.

A Pentium 233MMX or K6-2/3 system that can be software under clocked is generally enough to handled those games. A Voodoo 1 or 2 would be nice to have since GLIDE wrappers won't be usable if anything you are targeting are DOS mode 3D games.

Usually the point of a high-end win98 system is that you can avoid having multiple retro-PCs. Of course DOS compatibility doesn't matter if you have a separate PC for running DOS, but at that point you might just as well skip the high-end win98 build and have a DOS/win9x build + an Windows XP build. Games from 2000/2001 onwards should work in Windows XP, unless I'm mistaken.

But yes, DOS compatible sound card doesn't matter if you don't care about the games that don't work from Windows 98.

Mike_ wrote on 2026-08-06, 14:43:

But yes, DOS compatible sound card doesn't matter if you don't care about the games that don't work from Windows 98.

True it seems pointless here. Especially if the focus is on running windows anyway.

Plus it's not like you absolutely need ISA slots, I use a Slot 1 board with an onboard ESS chip for DOS/Win98 and haven't run into any games that have issues with it.

Mike_ wrote on 2026-08-06, 14:43:

Usually the point of a high-end win98 system is that you can avoid having multiple retro-PCs. Of course DOS compatibility doesn't matter if you have a separate PC for running DOS, but at that point you might just as well skip the high-end win98 build and have a DOS/win9x build + an Windows XP build. Games from 2000/2001 onwards should work in Windows XP, unless I'm mistaken.

But yes, DOS compatible sound card doesn't matter if you don't care about the games that don't work from Windows 98.

Unless you are targeting a small number of years or certain games. There's no getting around having multiple PCs.

If you want DOS games, you will very likely need a DOS system. A high-end Win98 isn't running speed sensitive 286/386/486 games. That Pentium 233/K6-2 system would. But the fastest K6-2/3 systems can't make a high end Win 9X machine.

You could argue the DOS machine I'm talking about could also be a early Win95 system, and it could. But you aren't getting a 1Ghz Pentium 3/Athon or P4/AXP/64 and doing older all DOS games. If the stuff you want isn't speed sensitive? Awesome. But people seem to try building something that could play everything not just one or two games they'll end up actually playing.

SScorpio wrote on 2026-08-06, 15:06:

Unless you are targeting a small number of years or certain games. There's no getting around having multiple PCs.

If you want DOS games, you will very likely need a DOS system. A high-end Win98 isn't running speed sensitive 286/386/486 games. That Pentium 233/K6-2 system would. But the fastest K6-2/3 systems can't make a high end Win 9X machine.

You could argue the DOS machine I'm talking about could also be a early Win95 system, and it could. But you aren't getting a 1Ghz Pentium 3/Athon or P4/AXP/64 and doing older all DOS games. If the stuff you want isn't speed sensitive? Awesome. But people seem to try building something that could play everything not just one or two games they'll end up actually playing.

If I have understood correctly, you can make an Athlon XP quite slow by disabling L1 and L2 caches from BIOS, but I haven't tried it myself.

Anyways, while you are probably right that you can't get *all* DOS games to work on a high-end 9x build, with an ISA sound card it's still one of the best compromises for a wide range of years if you are space-constrained.