I got this X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro (SB046A) for 20 EUR from my local classifieds. It was simply advertised as an "X-Fi PCI sound card", and the model number on the front was SB0460. However, inspecting the label on the back revealed SB046A in the serial number, which translates to the aforementioned Fatal1ty model per Creative's list. And sure enough, this card has 64 MB X-RAM on board (confirmed by Prey's console output) as well as the big LED in the shape of a stylized "F" which glows red when the card is powered on. Here's a period correct review of that particular model. BTW, I kinda dig the "golden" PCI bracket. 😀

Oh and, in case anyone's wondering about the blob of white paint in the bottom left corner, the card suffered some damage in that section, likely due to improper storage by the previous owner(s). From what I can tell, some electrolyte leaked onto that area of the PCB, probably from a different piece of hardware that was stacked on top of it. I didn't notice this in the seller's pictures, as the affected area is fairly small, but it was evident once I held the card in my hands. Fortunately, no traces have been severed and the nearby SMD components remain undamaged. Though I may need to reflow the solder of the nearest chip as it looks a bit dry. I cleaned up the damaged area with white vinegar and isopropyl alcohol, then painted over the exposed copper bits with some nail polish to prevent further corrosion. Not exactly pretty, but it does the job for now.

Anyway, I popped the card into this system today to try it out under WinXP. I've uninstalled the Audigy 2 ZS drivers on that OS and then used this driver CD to set up the X-Fi. Preliminary testing with Prey, Unreal Tournament 3 and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow indicates that everything is working fine, with full 5.1 surround sound being delivered. All in all, I'm pretty happy with this purchase. I think I might leave the X-Fi in this build, solely for WinXP gaming, while keeping the Audigy 2 ZS as a Win9x sound card.

P.S.

I'd really like to get the corresponding front panel for this X-Fi, but they seem to be very rare in my neck of the woods. On eBay, I did find a few of them offered together with the card, but the prices were too steep for my liking, especially when shipping and customs costs get added.

Chances are, you probably can get X-Fi Elite external console cheaper. It is compatible with all standard X-Fi PCI cards.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-12-27, 22:18:

Chances are, you probably can get X-Fi Elite external console cheaper. It is compatible with all standard X-Fi PCI cards.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that.

Is the AD_LINK pinout known, in case I run into an external console without the cable? I think I may have seen a few of those locally.

I'm currently experimenting with the various utilities that came on the X-Fi driver CD and demo disc. I've discussed the latter here and was pleasantly surprised with what it offered. In general, I find that these early PCI X-Fi discs had more interesting utilities and demos than the installation CDs of the later PCIe models, which offered just the drivers. For example, the 3D Midi Player looks fun:

It's amusing to hear the instruments swirl around you while playing, but I'm not sure what would be the practical application. A bit gimicky, but also kinda neat. Additionally, Creative shipped their 28MB soundfont on this driver CD. Too bad it's apparently broken in several ways.

Another utility of interest (which wasn't on the CD) is the ALCapsViewer:

I think it originally came from Creative's OpenAL website, but nowadays, it can be downloaded from here. Useful if you need to know the exact OpenAL device name of your card, i.e. for putting it inside the INI file of a game. I seem to recall either Mass Effect or Gears of War needing that under some circumstances.

Nice build! i also use the E8600 for my win98 system, really good single core performance!

Jackhead wrote on 2025-01-01, 14:42:

Nice build! i also use the E8600 for my win98 system, really good single core performance!

Thank you!

And yeah, it's great being able to play late Win9x games without worrying about the CPU being a bottleneck. For example, Deus Ex is notoriously CPU demanding, but it flies with the E8600 even on the largest outdoor maps.

some people say win98 over 2ghz cpu runs bad, but i never got any problems and even running on 4,5GHz. I playtrough some 3dfx games and got not a single crash or bluescreen.

Jackhead wrote on 2025-01-02, 08:32:

some people say win98 over 2ghz cpu runs bad, but i never got any problems and even running on 4,5GHz. I playtrough some 3dfx games and got not a single crash or bluescreen.

I haven't noticed any issues either, at least so far.

But then again, I mostly play Win9x games released during the 1999-2001 period on this system. It's possible that some older titles may behave differently.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-02, 09:27:

Jackhead wrote on 2025-01-02, 08:32:

some people say win98 over 2ghz cpu runs bad, but i never got any problems and even running on 4,5GHz. I playtrough some 3dfx games and got not a single crash or bluescreen.

I haven't noticed any issues either, at least so far.

But then again, I mostly play Win9x games released during the 1999-2001 period on this system. It's possible that some older titles may behave differently.

Have you tried Expendable, Viper Racing and Giants Citizen Kabuto? I had issues with those three on faster machines.

Expendable complains about the CPU I think. Viper racing I think the car wouldn't move, and Giants didn't respond correctly to the mouse.

Jackhead wrote on 2025-01-02, 08:32:

some people say win98 over 2ghz cpu runs bad, but i never got any problems and even running on 4,5GHz. I playtrough some 3dfx games and got not a single crash or bluescreen.

This only applies to Windows 95 and 98 FE without patches.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-02, 11:13:

Have you tried Expendable, Viper Racing and Giants Citizen Kabuto? I had issues with those three on faster machines.

Expendable complains about the CPU I think. Viper racing I think the car wouldn't move, and Giants didn't respond correctly to the mouse.

Don't have Viper Racing, and I can't remember if I ever tried Expendable on this system. I did briefly install Giants last year while doing some EAX testing. It was a very short test, and I didn't play for more than a few minutes, but I can't recall having any issues with the mouse.

If you want, I may be able to take another look at Expendable and Giants on this rig sometime next week.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-02, 12:30:

If you want, I may be able to take another look at Expendable and Giants on this rig sometime next week.

Don't worry, it was more of a question than a request. There may well be other causes for the issues I described.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-02, 11:13:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-02, 09:27:

Jackhead wrote on 2025-01-02, 08:32:

some people say win98 over 2ghz cpu runs bad, but i never got any problems and even running on 4,5GHz. I playtrough some 3dfx games and got not a single crash or bluescreen.

I haven't noticed any issues either, at least so far.

But then again, I mostly play Win9x games released during the 1999-2001 period on this system. It's possible that some older titles may behave differently.

Have you tried Expendable, Viper Racing and Giants Citizen Kabuto? I had issues with those three on faster machines.

Expendable complains about the CPU I think. Viper racing I think the car wouldn't move, and Giants didn't respond correctly to the mouse.

I have Giant Citizen Kabuto, will give it a try!

edit: installed with patch 1.4 ,i have no problems with the mouse so far.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-02, 12:42:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-02, 12:30:

If you want, I may be able to take another look at Expendable and Giants on this rig sometime next week.

Don't worry, it was more of a question than a request. There may well be other causes for the issues I described.

I had some time to test this today. Giants patched to 1.4 ran fine on my system, no issues with the mouse. Expendable crashed while loading the first level. I did a search on that and found this thread. As instructed there, I was able to get rid of the crash by creating a new shortcut to go.exe and running it with the -nocputest parameter. The game worked fine after that.

In other news, I had to pull the X-Fi from this rig. For some reason, its presence caused problems for the Audigy 2 ZS under WinME, making known good games like Baldur's Gate 2 stutter and crash. Removing the X-Fi (without changing anything else) solved the issue. I'm guessing having both sound cards installed at the same time overwhelmed the PCI bus on this particular chipset, or something like that.

mockingbird wrote on 2023-11-03, 14:40:

I ran some tests with an AMD Regor platform on an AMD chipset with Win9x. AMD seems unaffected by this oddity. The highest performance was with 2 x 1GB sticks, but performance was almost identical with 2 x 2GB sticks, and likewise with 2 x 4GB sticks, only declining by a few points (between 5-10fps) on Q3A DEMO001. I should point out that Win98 seems to max out at 3.2GB with RLOEW's Patchmem.

Regor seems on par with Wolfdale and the Regor platform doesn't have that odd behavior where Windows won't boot when a USB flash drive is plugged in. I think I may ultimately go with AMD on this build.

I have done further testing with Intel and have found that this is not strictly an AMD/Intel matter. I tested an Intel Wolfdale build today and it did not have the issue of the slowdown with more than 2GB of RAM. To confirm, I tested with both 3DMark2001SE and Quake3 1.32C (DEMO001, 1024x768 all options maxxed). With 3DMark I get a score of approximately 42,000, and with Q3A I get around 830FPS. The extra RAM did not affect the performance. This problem seems motherboard/BIOS dependent.

mockingbird wrote on 2026-03-06, 04:16:

mockingbird wrote on 2023-11-03, 14:40:

I ran some tests with an AMD Regor platform on an AMD chipset with Win9x. AMD seems unaffected by this oddity. The highest performance was with 2 x 1GB sticks, but performance was almost identical with 2 x 2GB sticks, and likewise with 2 x 4GB sticks, only declining by a few points (between 5-10fps) on Q3A DEMO001. I should point out that Win98 seems to max out at 3.2GB with RLOEW's Patchmem.

Regor seems on par with Wolfdale and the Regor platform doesn't have that odd behavior where Windows won't boot when a USB flash drive is plugged in. I think I may ultimately go with AMD on this build.

I have done further testing with Intel and have found that this is not strictly an AMD/Intel matter. I tested an Intel Wolfdale build today and it did not have the issue of the slowdown with more than 2GB of RAM. To confirm, I tested with both 3DMark2001SE and Quake3 1.32C (DEMO001, 1024x768 all options maxxed). With 3DMark I get a score of approximately 42,000, and with Q3A I get around 830FPS. The extra RAM did not affect the performance. This problem seems motherboard/BIOS dependent.

It looks it's something with the way MTRRs are set by BIOS / GPU drivers / whatever.
I found a workaround, which worked with my LGA1366 rig: Re: "Linux Daily Driver / Win98 overkill" LGA1366 build

After the MB went bust, I changed to LGA1155. The problem also exists there, but the workaround does not help anymore 🙁

Late to this party. Wanted to say I dig you e8600 build. Thrown a little bit by it running Win98, because I wouldn't have thought that possible. Nice work!

aroneox wrote on 2026-03-20, 04:11:

Late to this party. Wanted to say I dig you e8600 build. Thrown a little bit by it running Win98, because I wouldn't have thought that possible. Nice work!

Thanks! And yeah, getting Win98SE to run on this rig took quite a bit of effort. I documented the installation procedure in this post.

On the flip side, it has since become my go to system for Win9x gaming. Being able to run games from that era at 1600x1200 with AA/AF on top feels awesome.