If nothing else P4's do make good general dogsbody retro PC. For Dos, yes you really want ISA, for XP something bit faster is nicer. It is a cheap way to test the waters before realising your more of a dosbox person then a mess round with hardware person.
I had a P4 which I picked up for free, paired with an Audigy2 ZS it was my XP/98/DOS PC for network games if anyone ever fancied a game and did the job well till building up my PC collection. Even now sitting in a corner, ready to be plugged in at a moments notice

alexanrs wrote:

Oh, and you probably don't need an IDE CD/DVD drive if you stick to running things from Windows 98. You can enable digital CD audio on PCI sound cards and be good to go.

This option is greyed out on my system Do I need a SATA DVD-RW to use this function?

That is... weird... Maybe it needs a WDM sound driver? (Are the Vortex2 drivers VxD?)

alexanrs wrote:

That is... weird... Maybe it needs a WDM sound driver? (Are the Vortex2 drivers VxD?)

Not sure. It's not a big deal though, I picked this drive because it has analogue CD out 😀

I have p4 stuff laying around but for some reason i like the athlon xp better. I don't know why, but the p4 has no retro feel for me for some reason.
Maybe the fact that the underdog Amd was king for a while back then makes me like it better.

Isa slots are a big bonus on any board but for me a 3,3v compatible agp slot is a must on any board, and that rules out the intel p4 chipsets.

I found the 1.5V AGP slot to be perfectly fine. Just look at the wide range of cards I was able to use 😀

You can then play with image enhancing options like AA and AF and get a nicer image.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Could you please explain what this setting does?

0 = uses 2 depending on a compiled vertex array extension if detected, picks 1 if it doesn't. sometimes does not detect
1 = multiple glArrayElement
2 = single glDrawElements
3 = multiple glColor4ubv + glTexCoord2fv + glVertex3fv - manual feeding for conformance testing, slowest, and will result in corrupt graphics on newer cards
4 and above = absolutely draws nothing!!! DO NOT ATTEMPT

tl;dr: 2 is fastest and Q3 is sometimes dumb and doesn't use it in the fear of poor OpenGL ICDs of the late '90s

> 1. Cheap

Would be nice to count concrete average price on today (clean and +shipping in USA). Same for other retro builds you make.

philscomputerlab wrote:

I found the 1.5V AGP slot to be perfectly fine. Just look at the wide range of cards I was able to use 😀

All AGP Voodoos are excluded (except the reference 3dfx Voodoo4 but I never seen one). This is the main (and only?) negative side of the 1.5V AGP slot in I845/I865/I875 motherboards. The other is no AGPPro but these videocards are so rare...

Gamecollector wrote:

philscomputerlab wrote:

I found the 1.5V AGP slot to be perfectly fine. Just look at the wide range of cards I was able to use 😀

All AGP Voodoos are excluded (except the reference 3dfx Voodoo4 but I never seen one). This is the main (and only?) negative side of the 1.5V AGP slot in I845/I865/I875 motherboards. The other is no AGPPro but these videocards are so rare...

Yes that's true. Another card that wouldn't work is the Diamond TNT2. I believe it's just that Diamond model and other brands / models should work just fine.

Is it possible to setup Windows XP 32-bit for DOS gaming the same way Windows 98 is setup, or does XP lack compatibility?

Windows 98 runs on top of DOS. In a lot of ways it is closer to Windows 3.11 than it is to XP. XP does not have DOS underneath so it relies in emulation (NTVDM).

Well... I won't say that it is running on top of Dos.
It has a lot of old MS-Dos technology integrated into the windows part, yet as a product per se', it is Windows98.
As far as I was told, back in the 90's, Windows98 makes use of MS-Dos system during the boot procedure.
When stuff like virtual devices are loaded, the Windows kernel takes over and the Dos are not used in the Windows part
from this point and onwards. (yes. The windows-windows-part not win-dos-part)
It does however make use of Dos, whenever an old Dos game or program is required.
Yes. You can load clean Dos. In other words. You just boot into MS-Dos 7, hence not loading Windows.

As I understand it. Windows98 is not running on top of dos. It is the Dos support that runs on top of Windows.
This is why I am firm on asking everybody, if they mean MS-Dos-6.22 or Win98, when they have trouble running something
from dos (setting up SB etc.) So much confusion out there. So much... 🤣
(Talking product-name here, not technologies)

johnnynismo wrote:

Is it possible to setup Windows XP 32-bit for DOS gaming the same way Windows 98 is setup, or does XP lack compatibility?

No is the short answer 😀

That's why most of us here built separate Windows 98 / DOS machines. On fast machines, there is always the excellent DOSBox to the rescue.

My new baby ... waiting for the case

Pentium 4 2800 @ 3200 under Thermaltake Water 3.0 custom grip
512 DDR 3200 / 400 MHz
Asus P4S333-VM s478
Voodoo 5 5500 with ZM80A-HP - custom setup
Audigy - SB0570
Windows 98SE
Travelstar 80 GB 42000 rpm 2.5" via adapter
Crap power supply (waiting for a Corsair V550)
No case (waiting for Cooler Master 631 elite)

That looks cool!

What hardware are you using?

I've updated 😀

CPU - AIO - water cooler custom grip pics 😀

Very nice!

I think I've got the same board because of the universal AGP of the SIS chipset 😀

Yep amazing board - I managed to get a good 3dmark score for v5 5500 😀

This is all looking nice and dandy. Love it. Though P4 is still a matter of taste. 🤣 🤣
If the PSU i found dumpster diving today is working without any issues, then I will start building my top-dog.
I have the Motherboard, CPU, GFX, Ram, HDD, Soundcard and a temporary case.