That sounds like a fantastic 9x system. Would it be advantageous to run 2x 256meg sticks and gain a dual channel ram configuration?

Alas, Socket 754 was single channel only. The funny thing is, I don't have any 256MB sticks of DDR1... I only have 512MB and 1GB sticks. So 1*512MB is nice in that it maxes out Windows 9x (without any need for patches).

I do have a Socket 939 motherboard but I'm using it with an Athlon 64 X2 under Windows XP.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-06-21, 03:04:

Would it be advantageous to run 2x 256meg sticks and gain a dual channel ram configuration?

Imho doubtful. W98 is the OS of an era which was dominated by single channel SD RAM that topped out at 133MHz. A 266MHz DDR1 already has the bandwidth of what would be dual channel from the former and this is DDR400 which is essentially triple-channel bandwidth.

I actually tested this, on both socket 939 and LGA775 PCs, and can confirm that (at least in Windows 98 games and benchmarks) there is no performance difference between single and dual channel memory.

PS: nice build, bZbZbZ 😀

I fully understand where you are coming from.
Sometimes its about the hardware and I'll play a game on something roughly from the same time period.
Other times its about the game and it look as nice as possible with no slowdowns on a much later system.

I'd agree WinME makes a lot a sense "hardware adjacent" builds. Only reason I don't is lack of nostalgia over technical reasons.

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-21, 05:38:

I actually tested this, on both socket 939 and LGA775 PCs, and can confirm that (at least in Windows 98 games and benchmarks) there is no performance difference between single and dual channel memory.

PS: nice build, bZbZbZ 😀

Wow, Windows 98 on a dual channel LGA775 system would REALLY be overkill! 😁

Thanks! I had 'rescued' this motherboard/CPU from a system at my parents' place at the same time as my Socket 939 (Athlon 64 X2) system a couple years ago. Of course the S939 system I restored as a Windows XP retro gaming PC. But this S754 system (which was running Windows XP also) had always been the weak counterpart. I left it on a shelf in my basement for a year before deciding to repurpose it for Windows 98. I was a bit hesitant because I wasn't sure that the nVidia nForce chipset would play nice with Windows 9x, especially using a SATA hard drive. But surprisingly... it worked fine.

I certainly won't claim that Windows ME is better than 98... I just wanted to have some variety! Different icon pack, system sounds, default color scheme, etc... I also figured I'd leave any DOS dabbling to the 440BX + CRT...

Socket 754 is fantastic for old rigs, as is socket 478. They support fast CPUs with SSE2, AGP 8x, SATA. Socket 754 was used mostly in cheap builds with Semprons, not heavily used, boards will have good caps. You can use modern quiet coolers with it.

The main woe of socket 939 and 775 is they usually come with PCIe which is bad for win9x. Instead of 939 you could just go for AM2+ or AM3+ for PCIe build as they will also come with the same limitations (win9x support) but have more punch.