Yeah, that should allow for Morrowind to play comfortably at 800x600, maybe even 1024x768. It really depends on your definition of comfortable, man that game was demanding. 😜
I'm running my PIII Tualatin with 768MB RAM as well, no issues whatsoever using the unofficial SP2.1a 😉.

F2bnp wrote:

Yeah, that should allow for Morrowind to play comfortably at 800x600, maybe even 1024x768. It really depends on your definition of comfortable, man that game was demanding. 😜
I'm running my PIII Tualatin with 768MB RAM as well, no issues whatsoever using the unofficial SP2.1a 😉.

I was planning on 1024x768 (not bothered about FSAA etc.) at around 30fps. It's funny how demanding that game was considering the minimum and recommended requirements Bethesda gave it (minimum: PIII 500MHz, 128MB RAM and 32MB graphics ). I'd run it on my current PC, but it has issues with Windows 7 x64 and doesn't seem to support 1920x1080 resolution... I don't want to install mods as i want the game to look original (i will of course install patches for it's numerous bugs 🤣).

Did you have to tweak anything for Windows to recognize or even utilize 768MB RAM?

I don't want to install mods as i want the game to look original

That's actually too bad because that popular mod that makes all the models look more realistic, I forget the name, actually helps the game run better because the guy who did the models is so much better than Bethesda's guy at the time that his models look great and have a much lower polygon count!

Logistics wrote:

I don't want to install mods as i want the game to look original

That's actually too bad because that popular mod that makes all the models look more realistic, I forget the name, actually helps the game run better because the guy who did the models is so much better than Bethesda's guy at the time that his models look great and have a much lower polygon count!

I suppose i could install them if it actually improves the framerate and fixes bugs... I was more worried about mods completely bogging the system down, although i don't want it to look too different 😀.

Morrowind was a system killer back in the day and a Tually 1.4ghz + 4200 is just about cutting it. Installing mods would negate this straight away.

2002 was a quantum leap where system requirements just went loco, considering what most people were running. It made a fast 2ghz+ P4 de riguer overnight. You couldn't trust the game system requirements back then as they didn't want to scare off buyers.

BTW: Nice upgrades!

sgt76 wrote:

Morrowind was a system killer back in the day and a Tually 1.4ghz + 4200 is just about cutting it. Installing mods would negate this straight away.

2002 was a quantum leap where system requirements just went loco, considering what most people were running. It made a fast 2ghz+ P4 de riguer overnight. You couldn't trust the game system requirements back then as they didn't want to scare off buyers.

BTW: Nice upgrades!

The last system i played Morrowind on was a Dell Optiplex GX620 running WinXP. It had a Cedar Mill P4-HT 3.4GHz CPU (651), 2GB DDR2 667 RAM and a 256MB ATI Radeon X600 Pro... It ran perfectly with all bells and whistles turned on at 1280x1024 😀. I should have kept it as an XP gaming rig (it was quite a compact and neat looking system). I ended up selling it in the end as it wasn't getting much use 😐.

I remember playing Morrowind on Celeron 1700 + Radeon 8500, I had to turn visual range to like 25% of maximum to have a good framerate with all other settings at max (1024x768). Funny thing though, on my Core 2 Duo at max visual range the game still stutters on open and detailed areas!

There's Morrowind Overhaul if you have a powerful modern system. Quite demanding.
No I didn't have tweak anything, I just installed the unofficial SP2.1a and ticked the memory optimization box.
30fps at 1024x768 with a Tualeron 1400 and Ti 4200 is definitely a go with Morrowind. You will obviously need to turn the Draw Distance down a bit.

I just need to see if i have a PSU that's up to the task! The Suntek one that came with my new case *might* be ok (the specs definitely look better on paper than the old 200W Seasonic my PIII is currently using).

Seasonic (200W):

+3.3V = 14A
+5V = 20A
+12V = 8A

VS

Suntek (300W):

+3.3V = 22A
+5V = 30A
+12V = 16A

Will a GF4 Ti4200 draw much from the +12V rail? I'm not sure if AGP cards draw more from the 3.3v, 5v or 12v rails? I know it's all about the 12V rail with modern systems.

I'll keep my eyes peeled on ebay, but most of the older PSU's with fat 3.3v and 5v rails seem to be either cheapo units or way too expensive!

You'd best forget that Seasonic one. The Suntek should be ok, would have been more sure if it supplied 35A on the 5V rail.

And will i run into major issues with having more than 512MB RAM with windows 98se (with unofficial service pack installed)? I've heard that some people manage to run Windows 98se fine with more than 512MB RAM with no tweaking!

It requires tweaking, but not much.

Here is a very detailed and comprehensive article about the problem and the solution:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/109574-help-i … se/page__st__20

Basicly what it says is:

- While installing the OS, use something less than 512MB (like only one of your PC100 256MB modules)

- After installation is finished, open up "system.ini" in an edtor, add the line "MaxFileCache=131072" under section "[386enh]" (which limits the cache size to 128MB, and anything less than 512MB is most probably ok) and save.

- Shut down your computer, install the additional RAM in its slots, and reboot.

That's all!..😁

This is all ok up to 1GB, but sometimes an additional line, "MaxPhysPage=XXXXX" where XXXXX is a hex number denoting the max RAM amount that windows forced to think has been installed. It should be decided with trial and error - my 98SE and ME boots with "3C000" and 95 boots with "30000". If you try to go over 1GB of RAM, then the real fun starts (short version: it mostly does not work).

I didn't have any problem installing Win98SE with 768MB RAM. I have had problems with over 1GB though on a Pentium 4 system.

I didn't have any problem installing Win98SE with 768MB RAM. I have had problems with over 1GB though on a Pentium 4 system.

There are people (as far as I read from a certain forum) who run their 98 on a machine even with 32GB of RAM installed (third party updates, patches, hooplas, etc, etc....).

But most of the people has it. It is randomly and completely dependent on the system components used. Generally, you don't have any problem with 512-1024MB setups while running, providing that you used the maxfilecache trick. It's a real solution to a real problem from Microsoft.

Above 1GB is mostly problematic. I could not make any of the 8 different socket370 and PII/PIII slot boards that I had work with 1.5GB, with many different RAM sticks. 1GB worked on most of them, but some just refused to work anything above 512MB. And without the maxfilecache trick, none of them managed to boot after installation.

PowerPie5000, I run Win98SE in a Tualatin 1400-S i440BX win 768MB RAM without trouble. This is what I did:

1) Installed Win98 with just two sticks of RAM (512MB).

2) Once installed, edited SYSTEM.INI and added these lines:

1[386Enh]
2MaxPhysPage=30000
3
4
5[VCache]
6MaxFileCache=262544

The edited SYSTEM.CB and added these lines:

1[386Enh]
2MaxPhysPage=30000
3
4
5[VCache]
6MaxFileCache=65536

3) Turned off PC, installed the third RAM stick for 768MB, turned on PC, done.

Tons of info on running Win98 with over 512MB RAM.

PowerPie5000, I run Win98SE in a Tualatin 1400-S i440BX win 768MB RAM without trouble. This is what I did: 1) Installed Win98 wi […]
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PowerPie5000, I run Win98SE in a Tualatin 1400-S i440BX win 768MB RAM without trouble. This is what I did:
1) Installed Win98 with just two sticks of RAM (512MB).
2) Once installed, edited SYSTEM.INI and added these lines:
[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=30000
[VCache]
MaxFileCache=262544

The edited SYSTEM.CB and added these lines:
[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=30000
[VCache]
MaxFileCache=65536

3) Turned off PC, installed the third RAM stick for 768MB, turned on PC, done.

And in which way this is any different than what I already said?... ::lol:

Besides if you have only 768MB phsical memory installed, you have nothing todo with "MaxPhysPage=30000", 30000 means 768MB already, so you are limiting 768MB of your RAM to 768MB of RAM (in short, it simply not needed, your setup will still work only with maxfilecache string)... 😁

I'll just see what happens when i get the RAM... Win98se is already installed and setup with the unofficial service pack 2.1a. Hopefully i won't have to install everything again. I'm hoping i can just plug it in and it'll work (i'm being optimistic 😁).

I'll just see what happens when i get the RAM... Win98se is already installed and setup with the unofficial service pack 2.1a. Hopefully i won't have to install everything again. I'm hoping i can just plug it in and it'll work (i'm being optimistic ).

Before adding the RAM just do the system.ini modification. It's very easy, and quite guaranteed to work. Besides, no side effects.

If it does not work, then just pull the last 256MB stick out, windows will start working, no need to install it again. A mere 512MB is insanely huge amount of RAM for a Windows 9x system in anyway.... 🤣

tayyare wrote:

I'll just see what happens when i get the RAM... Win98se is already installed and setup with the unofficial service pack 2.1a. Hopefully i won't have to install everything again. I'm hoping i can just plug it in and it'll work (i'm being optimistic ).

Before adding the RAM just do the system.ini modification. It's very easy, and quite guaranteed to work. Besides, no side effects.

If it does not work, then just pull the last 256MB stick out, windows will start working, no need to install it again. A mere 512MB is insanely huge amount of RAM for a Windows 9x system in anyway.... 🤣

If it causes major issues then i'll just stick with 512MB... Hopefully Morrowind can cope with that 🤣. The 2.1a service pack claims to have addressed the >512MB issue anyway. Fingers crossed!

Even though I like to go for as much RAM as possible too, more than 512 MB is pretty useless for Win98 gaming. I think everyone here remembers how much RAM PCs had back then 😀 I have that amount in my machine (with the swap file disabled) and it never has ran out of memory so far and no tweaking is needed.