Around year 2006 I had a setup quite similar to the one you are building. Athlon XP 2400+, Radeon 9700 Pro, SoundBlaster Audigy with EAX, 2 GB Ram. Obviously I did not have an SSD, but I had a pretty fast 7200 RPM hard drive.
I think you might struggle maintaining high framerates on "ultra" details with that high (1600x1200) screen resolution. Are you using a CRT? I used to play on 1280x960 and had consistently high framerates. However, if you are running the resolution that high, you can forgo Anti-Aliasing altogether, which will bring the framerate back up!
Congrats on your hardware, I am looking forward to how this turns out.

I have the exact same motherboard and CPU as you. Looks like you got a great deal on the parts... A working Radeon 9700/9800/Pro isn't that easy to obtain these days.

Yes, you should be able to install Win98 on the SATA SSD when the SATA controller is in IDE mode. I'm running a similar nForce 3 system (socket 754) in that exact configuration. If I recall correctly the nForce3 boards might not have supported AHCI anyway. On newer boards with AHCI mode, installing Windows XP becomes trickier (you need to load the AHCI driver via floppy, or slipstream... which the Integral Edition might take care of for you). But I believe Win98 doesn't play nice with AHCI.

Win98 is not heavy on storage speed anyway so the performance loss of IDE mode is insignificant. Especially since the Vertex 2 SSD you're using isn't particularly fast. In fact many people find Win98 runs fine off an SD card which is far far slower than an SSD. Personally I find dual booting XP+98 to be somewhat precarious... I suggest considering the use of separate drives can make it easier to deal with any finicky Win98 issues down the line. Up to you of course...

bZbZbZ wrote on 2024-03-26, 21:45:

Personally I find dual booting XP+98 to be somewhat precarious

What issues did you have? I find it pretty stable as long as you don't do crazy things like change drive/partitions around after the install.
but do agree with everything said.

I was using a different motherboard with different chipset but what I did was assign one of the SATA ports to RAID and installed the RAID driver rather then the AHCI in XP.
You can still run a single disk in a raid.
Is it necessary? no, does it offer any benefit, doubt it but it just felt cleaner then running everything in IDE mode

Back in the day, we used to use Norton Ghost and Partition Magic frequently. Mostly because I would find odd ways to bork my Win9x install (modded drivers, questionable software from the internet, etc). I think I also had some legacy FAT16 partitions (which were only 2GB) since the drive was originally in a Win95A system before being upgraded to Win98 and dual booted with XP. I would do really il-advised things like installing programs/games onto a common 3rd partition TWICE (in both 9x and XP) and trying to get both OS's to share the same install data. So there was a mixture of FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS partitions on this drive and when I tried to resize them it was absolute chaos. Maybe it's not such a big deal these days because as retro enthusiasts we are far wiser (right???). But I still like to have different operating systems on different drives... Most computer cases have room for lots of drives and I have so many leftover "small" SATA SSDs that aren't great for modern systems...

What does RAID mode actually do? I was under the impression that for mid-2000's era motherboards that support IDE, RAID, and AHCI... the "RAID" is actually IDE RAID. As in, you don't get the benefits of AHCI (native command Queuing, SSD TRIM). Furthermore with a single disk in RAID you're not getting the benefits of RAID (striping or redundancy), but are getting the downsides of RAID (overheads which might be minimal, and portability issues). The thing that worries me about RAID is that the motherboard's implementation might be unique which could prevent the drive from being read in a different system. Back in the day, amidst our OS shenanigans, we'd be rescuing data off our drives periodically...

ah so yes you were doing crazy things 😉

As for what raid actually does in a setup like this, either way you're losing the benefits of AHCI but this gives you the satisfaction your XP install isn't stuck using IDE mode and I doubt much else.
No practical reason to do it though just feels less of a legacy setup (like having unknown devices in device manager annoys me as well)

So we may be wiser now and know what we are doing is a bad idea, but we are still no smarter and still like to over complicate things!

That said I actually have raid on most my PC's that support it now.
The slight performance hit is outweighed by the fact my PC's are over spec for the games anyway and I still have a stock of spinning rust, So if a drive does die I have a bit of a safety net.

Update: the 9800 pro seems to be DOA. Either that or a dead agp slot since the pc won’t post with it in but it posts with a pci Radeon 7000. Any thoughts on this?
I managed to snag a 7900gtx pci-e for $12 shipped after tax. Will a nforce 4 mobo work in 98? If not then Is there any 939 pci-e that will? Otherwise I suppose I’d like to go e8600 if I can’t do 939.

Also, yes. I’m using a CRT. A Sony trinitron 17” that does 1600x1200 @ 75hz

Sorry to hear about your 9800 Pro. I guess on the bright side you got it in a bundle for a good price.

My original Raeon 9700 (which I bought new back in the day) died after a few years of use. Recently I bought a 2nd hand Radeon 9800 Pro which worked perfectly for a year or so then died. On the 9800 Pro I was careful to replace the cooler with a larger one, and ensure good contact between the die and cooler (with fresh Arctic MX4 paste too). I even put heatsinks on the RAM chips. And it still died. I'm not sure why but there is something in those chips which wears itself out... which is unfortunate because it was such a killer product versus its competition.

I believe the number of PCI-e graphics cards that work in Win9x is quite limited. They exist, but they're not terribly common. GeForce 6 series... some 7 series (sometimes requiring hacked drivers), Radeon X800 series...

bZbZbZ wrote on 2024-03-29, 03:32:

Sorry to hear about your 9800 Pro. I guess on the bright side you got it in a bundle for a good price.

My original Raeon 9700 (which I bought new back in the day) died after a few years of use. Recently I bought a 2nd hand Radeon 9800 Pro which worked perfectly for a year or so then died. On the 9800 Pro I was careful to replace the cooler with a larger one, and ensure good contact between the die and cooler (with fresh Arctic MX4 paste too). I even put heatsinks on the RAM chips. And it still died. I'm not sure why but there is something in those chips which wears itself out... which is unfortunate because it was such a killer product versus its competition.

I believe the number of PCI-e graphics cards that work in Win9x is quite limited. They exist, but they're not terribly common. GeForce 6 series... some 7 series (sometimes requiring hacked drivers), Radeon X800 series...

The 9800 pro even has an aftermarket cooler and heatsinks on the ram chips. So it being dead is extra disappointing. Comparable agp cards are crazy pricey. 9700, 9800, fx 5900, fx 5950 are all really overpriced. I suppose 6600GT could be an option. 7900gtx does seem to work with hacked drivers in 98 and the more reviews I read, the more I feel its horsepower is probably helpful to get the 1600x1200 75fps my monitor is capable of in more recent titles.

7900gtx is a good choice, i picked up a 7950gt 512mb pci-e some years ago for a 98 build, really wasnt expecting much considering its an old card from 2006, yet im using it with win98 upto win11, it will also run some games released current year tho they may not be graphical masterpieces, still impressive none the less, latest ones i've tried were Yatagasaru Enter the Eastward and Under Night in Birth II Sys:Celes, i had to turn off a few settings for this one but at 720 it ran 60fps, not bad for a directx 9 gpu thats nearly 20years old.

if your installing on 98 theres at least two hacked drivers and if i remember correctly only one actually works properly, it should say tweaked drivers in white writing when starting the installer, the problem is since the driver doesnt officially support these cards it wont detect it and the setup will not continue.

the other way to install the driver is to extract the exe to a folder then go through control panel and tell it to search for the drivers there, i'd advise against this way as it just wont
work right and it can cause any number of problems from not having all available resolutions or being able to change to 32bit colour, or being able to change it then having it revert on reboot, the strangest one i've had is after installing and rebooting my desktop would flash up for a fraction of a second then my monitor would go out of range, after restarting a bunch of times and staring really hard at the screen i noticed the mouse cursor was rotated 90 degrees, well actually the whole desktop was? there have been times where it seemed to all work ok, though installing this way will only install the card and not the nvidia control panel which is essential.

the solution is simple though it didnt occur to me at first 🤣, if it wont install with a card it doesnt recognise intall it with a card it will, lucky i had an old 6200 pci-e which i use to run the driver once its finished it will reboot, when it posts before win 98 boots, i power off and switch for the 6200 for 7950 and it should detect the card and install it on booting win98, and you will also have the nvidia control panel, since this board wont do sound in dos i dont bother with Rloews NVSIZE patch, it works fine with 512 mb Vram.

Specs

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L rev2.0 (using LoneCrusaders Chipset Drivers for ICH7)
CPU: Core2Duo E5400 2.6GHZ OC@3.25GHZ (did upgrade to Q9450 but went back)
GPU: Nvidia Asus en7950gt 512mb ddr3 256bit PCI-E
Memory: 4GB DDR2 800mhz (x2 2GB) UC @ 667mhz for stability with overclock
Sound: Creative Soundblaster Live CT4760 (Liveware 3.0 CD)
Storage: 80GB 2.5" Hitatchi Travel star for win98 at the moment
PSU: Thermaltake TR2-550 PP
Media: Sony Optiarc AD-7241S Sata DVD burner (only drive i have that will burn cdrs as low as x8)
OS: Windows 98SE upto Win11 mainly Win7 SP1 x64 (Nvidia 309.08 for win 7/10/11 and KXaudio driver for win 7 & win10 version also for win11, i think it also has audigy support)

since this board wont do sound in dos so i have another that i use, originally it was a 478 socket pentium 4 2.8ghz Asus board with an 865 chipset paired with an nvidia fx5200, and onboard AC97, a solid choice for win98 for a first time build so dont discount it, it may not scream performance but in terms of driver support and out the box compatibility which is guaranteed, it cant be beat, also most intel pcs sold from 2002-2005 used this socket/cpu/gpu combo so parts will be plentiful and cheap, i did upgrade to an MSI 775 socket with a VIA chipset which i picked up on a whim for the bargain price of £2, i then spent £20+ to replace all the shitty 6.3v caps that were leaking, since its got official driver support for win95 upwards i thought it was worth it.

Specs

Motherboard: MSI PM8PM-V - MS-7222 ver2.0 (LGA775 + VT8237R Plus)
CPU: Celeron D360 3.46GHZ (Netburst, Cedar Mill-512, Single core with x64 Support)
GPU: MSI MS-8917 rev2.10 (Nvidia FX5200 128mb 64bit AGP)
Memory: 2GB DDR2 667mhz (x2 1GB)
Sound: Creative Soundblaster Live CT4620
Storage: 80GB IDE Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 & 80GB IDE Maxtor DiamondMax 20
PSU: Generic WinPower 450W
Media: LG Super Multi DVD rewriter GSA-H55N IDE
OS: Dualboot 98se & XP home SP3

this build works great for dos/98 games as well as games upto XP era on lower resolutions, ive also had it running 95 up to win10 x64. anyway as for playing at 1600x1200 at 60fps on ultra i think you'll struggle even with a 7900gtx which as far as im aware is the most powerful card thats win 98 compatible, i tried hitman contracts recently on both builds, graphic settings have no impact on fps only resolution does, on the 7950gt at 1280x1024 it was around 75fps if i remember right tho it would drop below 60 at times, on the fx5200 at 800x600 for the most part it was mostly always 30fps and it looked good and played great at that, some areas might see more fps, i tried Doom 3 on the 7950gt with the patch for 1280x720 and everything else on max, and it wasnt quite making 60fps i think it was 50-55. Prince of Persia Two Thrones from 2005 at 1280x720 made around 50-55fps, you may have some luck it depends on game and how well its been optimised, anyway good luck with your build lut us know how it goes!

sgdude wrote on 2024-03-18, 17:01:

I am trying to build a Windows XP gaming machine that also will be able to dual boot with Windows 98SE. I'm trying to use somewhat era appropriate hardware

The non-miserable XP gaming experience begins with Intel 865 or via kt400.
Meanwhile 98 has official drivers until Intel 925 or via 890.

I have decided to take a slightly different approach and will just do 2 builds due to some cheap parts I acquired and my 9800 Pro not working.
Windows 98 Build - "Time Machine":
Athlon 64 3000+, FX5700LE 256MB/128bit, 2x256mb DDR400, 90GB OCZ Vertex II SSD

Windows XP Build - "Period Correct"
Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 7900 GTX, 4x1GB DDR400, Audigy 2ZS, 250GB Crucial MX500 SSD

I acquired the following parts since my first post (prices include shipping and tax):
7900GTX $12.16
Asus ABN32-SLI $29.39
FX5700LE 256mb/128 bit $26.63 -> seems kind of overpriced for what it is but I believe it should max all era-appropriate games especially if I overclock it to non-LE speeds.
2x256MB DDR400 $7.58
Crucial MX500 250GB $18.40

FX5700LE is not a great choice neither in compatibility nor in speed and it’s definitely not worth what you paid.

From my understanding on the 5700LE, most of the bad reviews are for a 64bit version. The 128bit version seems to be just a downclocked 5700, so I imagine I should just be able to flash it to a non-LE or just up the clocks with riva tuner. My understanding was that FX series have better driver support in 98 than the 6000 series. Additionally, it looks like Nglide requires a DX 9 compatible GPU so it seems like the optimal Windows 98 GPU is a Geforce FX card.

sgdude wrote on 2024-04-05, 15:23:

From my understanding on the 5700LE, most of the bad reviews are for a 64bit version. The 128bit version seems to be just a downclocked 5700, so I imagine I should just be able to flash it to a non-LE or just up the clocks with riva tuner. My understanding was that FX series have better driver support in 98 than the 6000 series. Additionally, it looks like Nglide requires a DX 9 compatible GPU so it seems like the optimal Windows 98 GPU is a Geforce FX card.

My reasoning exactly! And I bought an FX 5500 256MB / 128bit PCI.
Nvidia's naming scheme was all over the place wiht the Geforce FX Series. A Geforce FX 5700 LE could be eihter 64-bit or 128-bit, same with an FX 5500, as well as with the 5200. The important thing is to avoid the bandwith-starved 64-bit variants. They are good for only MS-DOS, and DirectX 5 - 6 era games.