I'd use Win95. You can always install both on different hdd and test what is the actual difference in real world usage.

Option 1. There's no software that needs 98 that would run on a 486 well.

I'm using a Pentium 100 with Windows 98 SE and MS-DOS 7.1. It takes a while to load up, but otherwise it's fine. 64 MB Ram in that machine.

I'd use Win98SE if i'm going to install KernelEx and torture it with far more modern things 😀

Get another harddrive, install both in dual boot, and just test it out.
For RAM questions, I actually don't have that much knowledge about stuff when running under or over clocked.
Wich in terms translates to, that I really can not say anything about what will run the best in this case.

Anywho, anyhow.....
Just try Win95 and Win98 out. I remember we used to run Win95 (back in 1995), using 16 megabyte top.
8MB was what rich people had running, 4MB was what ordinaery people was running and tech personal's + nerds/geeks had 16mb running.

For the times of 1996 to 1998, I actually secluded myself (socially-wise) from society and friends. And I really don't remember what people used to run.
(a really fuzzy time, that I really only remember as working, listening to heavy metal, drinking loads of coffee and fiddeling about with computers)
I remember that i used to have computers with a number of different memmory setups. (8MB, 16MB, 32MB and 64MB)

My main problem running Win98SE on my 486 was that I only had 16 MB of memory. Win95 worked quite a bit better with those memory requirements.
When you have 64 MB however, I don't think memory will be an issue anymore. I've run Win98SE just fine on Pentiums with 64 MB.
In fact, even WinNT4 should run fine, but not very interesting for games/3d.

So I would say Win98SE is the better choice then. It has more features, better driver support, and should be more stable. Perhaps it's even faster once you have enough memory.

64MB go with Win98SE for ease of use.
Anything else, I'd go with Win95 because it is way faster. Make sure you also use a "speedy" HDD, people usually don't pay attention to HDDs 😀.

hello guyz
i used system monitor to see amount of memory used and left free. as i said, on a 64mb rig there is only about 32~35mb left unused once win98 finished loading, which can be used up within 2~3 IE pages. this surely worries me.

Like any other "modern" OS, Windows 9X uses "virtual" memory - unused memory is saved to a file on HDD. 64MB is quite enough for Win9X. I used to run WinNT 4.0 IIS in 1997 with only 32MB on P-133.

Win98 also introduced "web desktop" and even file manager is way slower than in Win95.

Personally I would never use anything above Win95 on a 486, the newer explorer in 98 bogs things down to much.
I keep meaning to try out 98 lite http://www.litepc.com/preview.html which may offer best of both worlds

Your 486 is more than enough powerful for Win95 or Win98. Just go with 64MB of RAM fully cached.

Win98lite is a good suggestion!

I would also look into the storage solution. A newer fast IDE drive or SSD makes alot of difference!

noshutdown wrote:

which can be used up within 2~3 IE pages. this surely worries me.

So don't use IE on a 486. 🤣

noshutdown wrote:

and my purpose is to run some windows applications and games and see how far it can go. for example, running 3dmark99 with geforce2mx pci.

Both Windows 95 and Windows 98 would be equally suited for such limited purposes.

(I didn't know 486 boards could support something like a GeForce2 MX PCI.)

I always felt Windows 98 chugged on a 486. It never seemed to matter how much RAM I through at it, it felt demonstrably slower - mainly with shell dialogs. Which is ironic because I felt IE actually performed reasonably well on these same machines.

One option if you can live with the quirks and diminished program compatibility of using shell32 4.0 instead of 4.7x is to run 98SE and then use 98Lite to put back the 95 shell. Be aware that the shell 98Lite will rip off the 95 CD has several bugs - the latest hotfix version was 4.00.1112 (Q160807).

What are you after? Having a period correct system running everything that was available back then for a 486 and not trying to strech its capabilities, or using latest software that could run on it (browsers, etc...)
If it's the first, just stick to Win95. It's more than enough to offer all those and still not becoming a nerve-breaking retro pc. It is my opinion that (updated) Win98 were not performing well enough even on MMX's (basically on everything prior to PII's and equivalent), although we all had them installed on such PC's when they came out.

Of course if experimentation is what you're after then, well, you already know the answer 😀

95 will clearly be faster. But 98 should be satisfactory. I would try each and see.
I don't see what is wrong with 40MHz PCI. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It won't hurt to give it a try.

chinny22 wrote:

Personally I would never use anything above Win95 on a 486, the newer explorer in 98 bogs things down to much.
I keep meaning to try out 98 lite http://www.litepc.com/preview.html which may offer best of both worlds

This one works great to 'trim the fat' on Windows 98SE. You can even swap the shell with the Windows 95 one and it really works well for my needs.

I dare to bet that most new 98se systems came with 32 or 64mb installed, so it is enough.
486 will be slow so because of that 95 might be more enjoyable.

I ran some tests back in the day on my AMD 486DX4-100 (and even on my old Cyrix 486DLC-40) to determine which OS ran the best (Windows 95 or Windows 98).
WIndows 95 (without the Windows Desktop Update that is included with IE4) runs quite well on any 486 PC (provided you have enough memory) but, a faster 486 is recommended.
If you are installing IE4 (which includes the Windows Desktop Update), then you require a fast 486 for satisfactory performance. Windows 95 OSR 2.5 comes with IE4 and the installation of IE4 is automatically trigged after the initial installation of Windows 95 but, you can cancel the installation of IE4.
The benefit of having the Windows Desktop Update is that it looks very much like Windows 98 and includes nice features such as the Quick Launch and some enhancements to the Start Menu & Windows Explorer.
My experience has been that, despite installing Windows 95 with the Windows Desktop Update, it still ran faster and was more "responsive" than WIndows 98.
Considering that even Microsoft recommends a Pentium class PC for Windows 98 (especially once you install Second Edition), I would stick with Windows 95 if you are installing it on a 486 class CPU.