t3f4l wrote:

Hi All […]
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Hi All

I've been lurking here for a while, reading lots of interesting posts and filling up with nostalgia for the games I grew up playing. This let me to buy an IBM Thinkpad T22 and start playing the old DOS Games and using Win98 again.
Now I kinda want to build a desktop so have rummaged through my storage and have found boxes of old parts which I could never bring myself to throw away.
I have an idea for a completely random build but honestly have no idea if it will work so could I get some input?

Heres the idea (I already have 80% of these parts, but am open to suggestions to changes etc)

Motherboard: AM2NF3-VSTA
Processor: Sempron 145
Ram: As much as I can get to work with W98, I believe there is a patch available that recognises 4gb???
Sound: SB Audigy
Graphics AGP: Radeon X1600 512mb
Graphics PCI: 2 off 3dfx Voodoo 2 12mb in SLI

For storage i'm proposing the use of CF-IDE Converters with a pair of 64GB Cards

So thats be barebones idea, networking cards etc can be added at a later date.

Thanks for the input in advance.

S145 is AM3 but board is AM2.
Phil's review deemed SB Audigy a bad performer.

AM3 works on AM2+ and that mother is AM2+...

512 mb ram is plenty for any w98 game, it's possible with the patch but I would advise against it (its no use on older games).
Soundcard:
For dos games I suggest a ISA soundcard, however your moBo has none (SB 16/32/64)
Other wise a SB Live! Is a great performer on PCI
Motherboard:
Your mobo has no official support for win 9x, keep this mind (still has floppy so that's np). The mobo is too new I suggest getting a pIII era computer ie. Slot 1/A socket 370/462 they support win98 and are cheap but require some care when handling them.

I have an SB Live so thats ok, the motherboard I also have, its got a Phenom in it at the moment (I think).
Nvidia Nforce 3 has windows 98 drivers so apart from the onboard sound etc which I plan to disable in the bios what wouldn't be supported under 98.
I understand the ram issue but as I have a box of ram seems a shame not to fit multiple sticks and install the patch?

As said before, no Win98 games require much RAM. If you are going to have dual boot with WinXP, then you should limit the available RAm in Win98 with HimemX. Do not spend money on the patch!

Living wrote:

AM3 works on AM2+ and that mother is AM2+...

I am just stupid 😵