I have a Gigabyte K8NS-939 as my primary system 😀 (same as K8NS, but Socket 939). It's nForce 3 based and there are no W98 drivers for it. I use it with a A64 3000+. It's not the best quality motherboard - it won't allow me to run 4 DIMMs at full speed (400 MHz DDR) - only 2 will work fine.

I can't comment much on Win98 on such a system, I never tried it. Might be worth looking at the MSFN forums, though, there's still a pretty big community providing updates, including driver support for some newer hardware.

As far as the hardware itself, it's decent, there's not much I can say beyond that. GL1zdA, your problems with the memory probably aren't the fault of the board, I bet you have an old Winchester core A64, which only supports DDR333 speeds with 4 DIMMS. A newer chip with the revised Venice core would take care of that.

With regards to that Sempron, they aren't appreciably slower clock-for-clock than the Athlon 64's. Cache size just doesn't make a huge difference on that architecture. Rather than hunting down a new CPU, I'd just overclock the Sempron you have. You can likely get 2.4-2.5ghz out of it, perhaps more, and that'll be as fast as an A64 3700+.

When I upgradedmy XP Barton (later called Semprons) o/c at 2.2 to a A64 o/c at 2.4 I didn't see the big performance increase like you would by going up a GPU generation.

If you have the Sempron now I would shoot for a better video card. The 6800gtx would be a good match but not ultimate. 😁 I have a FX5200 128mb in my HTPC and it's an absolute dog at games, but does everything else just fine with the Barton chip paired with it.

Does PCI-E work with win98?

Yeah, Win98 works with PCI-e, as long as it's a supported chipset. Here's something to peruse, to get an idea what sorts of things will work.

Very quick update: the 6800 card arrived. It's a GT model. It seems to work OK - I used the win9x "61 72" drivers. I've just done one benchmark for now, using the free download utility called 3DMark2001 second edition. This benchmark ran its default 17 tests, and gave me a score of 18868, which is a large number! Very quick impressions - the card seems fast, but the stock cooler is loud, and the general overall image quality (on 3DMark2001) just seemed average to me. The bright sunlit areas on some of these tests looked too bright.

Just tried Quake 3, and the game's splash screens appear as a "slide show", and the machine locks up. Hmmm, this is weird - Quake 2 and Jedi Academy do the same thing as well! I'll probably spend some time messing about with it...

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

As far as the hardware itself, it's decent, there's not much I can say beyond that. GL1zdA, your problems with the memory probably aren't the fault of the board, I bet you have an old Winchester core A64, which only supports DDR333 speeds with 4 DIMMS. A newer chip with the revised Venice core would take care of that.

I've forgotten that the A64 takes care of CPU - Memory communications. Yes, I have a Winnie 3000+, so it's probably his fault.

retro games 100 wrote:

First mistake: I didn't realise "Sempron" means "budget". I also didn't realise Athlon 64s existed, until I checked the CPU support list for the Gigabyte mobo. Oh well. Time to get an "Athlon 64" CPU...

Sempron is not a bad word! It's a perfectly fine CPU, you don't need to get an Athlon 64.

Fixed! I uninstalled the "61 72" drivers, and installed the "60 86" drivers instead. Now Quake 2, 3, and Jedi Academy work properly.

Edit: I've noticed something interesting with Might and Magic 6 and 7. Running these 2 games on this Gigabyte board (with either the 6800 card, or the GF 4-series 440 card), the "game mechanics" goes wrong. The peasants walking about in the very first village get stuck, and walk "on the spot". Perhaps the Sempron 3400+ CPU is too fast for the game's logic, and is confusing it?

Edit 2: Now the "60 86" drivers have been installed, the PC thinks the card is a Riva TNT. 😕

Edit 3: Bloody hell! 30 seconds of Quake 3, and the 6800's GPU temp is 124C! 😳

well i wouldn't go over 6xx to 7xx mb of ram with out msfn fix for it but, i guess you knew that. 124C come one now did you forget you cooler, thermal paste, maybe plug in the cooler fan? you can Fup games with to fast a cpu. In street rod 2 i couldn't even beat one drag race the ai has incredibly fast launch times (take off speed) turns out that by lowering the cycles every thign was hunky Dorey.

Perhaps try the 71.89 drivers, they were pretty good on performance and stability. I'm not positive they work with 98, but I think I've installed them on an ME machine before.

You should probably check out your CPU cooler just for good measure, but I doubt you were actually getting 124C on the CPU. What were you using to find the temps? Go into BIOS and check the CPU warning and shutdown temps, enable those options if they aren't already. Generally speaking, you don't want those A64-based chips to go over 60C for any extended length of time.

My fastest Win 98se box consists of the following:

Intel Pentium 4 - 2.66ghz CPU (socket 478 Northwood)
Asrock P4i65GV micro ATX motherboard (Intel 865GV chipset, socket 478).
2 x 256mb Hynix dual channel DDR400 (win98 does not like memory over 512mb!).
40gb WD IDE hard drive.
Pioneer slot loading DVD/CD drive.
Onboard C-media 9739A audio and Intel Extreme 2 graphics (will upgrade graphics to a low profile Geforce 6200 soon).
Generic low-profile Flex/Micro ATX case with 300W PSU.

I found that win 98se would not work with more than 512mb RAM.... even after i edited the Vcache setting in the system.ini file it would recognise the full 1gb RAM but was quite unstable! So i now just stick with 512mb for Win 98se which is more than enough.

PowerPie5000 wrote:

My fastest Win 98se box consists of the following: […]
Show full quote

My fastest Win 98se box consists of the following:

Intel Pentium 4 - 2.66ghz CPU (socket 478 Northwood)
Asrock P4i65GV micro ATX motherboard (Intel 865GV chipset, socket 478).
2 x 256mb Hynix dual channel DDR400 (win98 does not like memory over 512mb!).
40gb WD IDE hard drive.
Pioneer slot loading DVD/CD drive.
Onboard C-media 9739A audio and Intel Extreme 2 graphics (will upgrade graphics to a low profile Geforce 6200 soon).
Generic low-profile Flex/Micro ATX case with 300W PSU.

I found that win 98se would not work with more than 512mb RAM.... even after i edited the Vcache setting in the system.ini file it would recognise the full 1gb RAM but was quite unstable! So i now just stick with 512mb for Win 98se which is more than enough.

Windows 98 unofficial service pack will solve your "above 512mb RAM problems"
http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

retro games 100 wrote:

The CPU support list includes an Athlon 64 3700+, which sounds like it could be fast!

I found the A64 3700+ (San Diego core) to be faster than any Pentium 4 chip.... it is quite fast 😀

Amigaz wrote:

PowerPie5000 wrote:

My fastest Win 98se box consists of the following: […]
Show full quote

My fastest Win 98se box consists of the following:

Intel Pentium 4 - 2.66ghz CPU (socket 478 Northwood)
Asrock P4i65GV micro ATX motherboard (Intel 865GV chipset, socket 478).
2 x 256mb Hynix dual channel DDR400 (win98 does not like memory over 512mb!).
40gb WD IDE hard drive.
Pioneer slot loading DVD/CD drive.
Onboard C-media 9739A audio and Intel Extreme 2 graphics (will upgrade graphics to a low profile Geforce 6200 soon).
Generic low-profile Flex/Micro ATX case with 300W PSU.

I found that win 98se would not work with more than 512mb RAM.... even after i edited the Vcache setting in the system.ini file it would recognise the full 1gb RAM but was quite unstable! So i now just stick with 512mb for Win 98se which is more than enough.

Windows 98 unofficial service pack will solve your "above 512mb RAM problems"
http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

Great! Thanks Amigaz 😀 i've never seen this pack before.... although i'm now thinking is there any need for more than 512mb ram with Win 98se?

Sorry: I meant to say - the 6800's GPU temp is 124C!

Not - the CPU temp is 124C

I had a 6800gt when they were popular, a good bang for the buck card when the 6800gtx was a little faster but was much more moola.

I can't remember the 6800gt's running that hot, but my BFG card did have a big copper heatsink with 2 fans.

I removed the "fan + shield thing" that sits on top of the graphics card, and found a very thick layer of dust between the fan and the main heatsink. This was causing the GPU to register temps of approx 120C at desktop idle. I have now temporarily rested a case fan against the heatsink, and the desktop idle temp is now about 68C.

68C on idle is still a bit high... Maybe pull the whole heatsink assembly off the card and replace the thermal compound, see what effect that has. I'm not sure exactly what the 6800 is like, since I've never had one of those specific cards, but most other Nvidia cards I've had stayed around 50C at idle with stock coolers.

My 6800gt idles pretty high - lately around 71 because it's full of dust but it's usually about 66 I think. Never seen it much lower than that.