VOGONS


First post, by retroboy87

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I have an MSI MS-6590 motherboard, Athlon XP 3000+, and 3GB of DDR 400Mhz RAM (the max this motherboard supports).
At first I was going to make this an XP build, but I realized that it's underpowered on the CPU and GPU (AGP only) side for late XP era games, so I decided to make a Sandy Bridge XP build instead.

At first I was going to use the most powerful/recent AGP graphics card I could find for under $50, but now I've decided on the Geforce FX-Series, for maximum compatibility with pre-DX9 games (table fog and 8-bit palettized textures).
I bought an AGP FX 5500 on eBay for $25.

Should I make this a Windows 2000 or XP SP2 build, so I can use all of my RAM?
Or should I downgrade to 512MB-1GB and use 98SE?

Reply 1 of 13, by matze79

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NT4 and up fully support 3gb+

Why use 9x 😀
You can downgrade to 512Mb install 9x, install rloew memory patch and add 3gb back.
Then you can use all memory on 9x too.

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Reply 2 of 13, by shamino

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I think the decision really depends on what you want to run on it.
Based on what you said about the graphics card, it sounds like you're targeting older games that supported Win9x, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's required.
Do you have a specific list of games in mind for this PC? If so, people might have ideas of why one OS would be better than the other for running them.

Any chance you'll be using an Aureal Vortex2 or some other hardware that works better on Win98?
Win98 would give you DOS support but since this board doesn't have an ISA slot it probably wouldn't be much good for that. DOS likes ISA sound cards.

Reply 3 of 13, by retroboy87

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I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 4, which has drivers for every edition of Windows from 98 to 10.
DOS support is a bonus but not a necessity for me.
I want to play Win32 games ranging from Nightmare Creatures (1997) to Severance: Blade of Darkness (2001).
I don't plan on playing DX9 games on this PC.

Reply 4 of 13, by chinny22

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I like Win2k, its bit more 9x compatible then XP and a lot less resource hungry.
It's also 100 times more stable then even the most stable installation on 98.

A few games do refuse to work on anything but 9x though. For me this is Return Fire which is 3do port to Win95 (so ancient) and Need for Speed (But then I couldn't get the working in XP even though plenty of others have) but that's it. every other game I have works without needed to patch or run in compatibility or anything.

For those games I do have a copy of 98 installed as well, but I now try to do as much as I can in 2k/XP

Reply 5 of 13, by appiah4

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You can get 98SE to work with 2GB ram (I use it in my LGA775 system) but with 3GB - I don't think so..

Regardless, for these builds going with 2K is a good idea unless you need DOS compatibility.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 7 of 13, by chrismeyer6

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I've always had great luck with 2000 even when it was new. It's just a great OS and leaps and bounds more stable and useful than 9x is. With that cpu and ram 2000 will fly.

Reply 8 of 13, by BitWrangler

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I always heard it was inadvisable to fill the third DIMM on Via DDR boards, to maintain best stability. So personally I'd cap it at 2GB

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 9 of 13, by appiah4

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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-05-22, 22:03:

I always heard it was inadvisable to fill the third DIMM on Via DDR boards, to maintain best stability. So personally I'd cap it at 2GB

No, KT400 just won't work at 400MHz ram if you do that's all.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 10 of 13, by melbar

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Yes, this is valid for KT400 chipset. But actually there are these possible options:

KT400
- 2 DIMMs , with DDR400 but with FSB133 only
- 3 DIMMs , with DDR333 with FSB166

KT400A (this is on my example asrock board) , maybe it is possible with one more DIMM when 3 ram slots are available...
- 1 DIMMs , with DDR400 but with FSB166 only
- 2 DIMMs , with DDR333 with FSB166

KT600
- 3 DIMMs , with DDR400 with FSB200

Example MS6590 : It depends with revision you have:
v1.X = KT400
v2.X = KT600
MS-6590

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Reply 11 of 13, by nd22

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I think you should set the memory frequency to coincide with the CPU bus! That is: FSB/Dram = 1/1. It provides the highest performance on socket 462!
Example: Barton 3000 - 333mhz FSB works best with DDR333 and NOT with DDR400!

Reply 12 of 13, by appiah4

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nd22 wrote on 2021-05-25, 08:13:

I think you should set the memory frequency to coincide with the CPU bus! That is: FSB/Dram = 1/1. It provides the highest performance on socket 462!
Example: Barton 3000 - 333mhz FSB works best with DDR333 and NOT with DDR400!

This is the true true. Since there are, like, a total of only 3? SKUs with 400MHz FSB on Socket A and since other parts just won't overclock that far, DDR400 support is just a stupid bullet point for Socket A that nForce2 pushed.

By the way, FUCK nForce2.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 13 of 13, by H3nrik V!

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nd22 wrote on 2021-05-25, 08:13:

I think you should set the memory frequency to coincide with the CPU bus! That is: FSB/Dram = 1/1. It provides the highest performance on socket 462!
Example: Barton 3000 - 333mhz FSB works best with DDR333 and NOT with DDR400!

And that comes pretty much to show from CPUShack's newly published article:
http://www.cpushack.com/2021/05/14/first-last … -barton-part-1/

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀