More important then the CPU is the motherboard chip set and how well that works with Win98 and your chances are slim at best.

I know this is a different system to yours but is recent so fresh in my mind and gives an idea what your up against.
Troubleshoot Windows 98! Freezes at desktop, safe mode fine. Too much GPU VRAM?

WinXP you have a better chance but does that offer you anything Win7 doesn't?

Yes the motherboard's chipset is what determines the windows support the most. Hence we had to have few machines to cover the areas. DOS for pentium or 486 using ISA or PCI video, WIndow 98se for 440BX/815/865 and some socket 462 boards and mostly are AGP. XP can span from fastest P3, P4 and Core 2 duo and up to Ivy Bridge CPUs, XP is more of best fit for PCIe cards.

Cheers,

Velociraptor wrote on 2020-04-26, 10:05:

Is it all a terrible idea and I should stick to running this stuff that i can't in an emulator through DOSbox etc?

If everything runs exactly how you want it in DOSBox already, and you're actually interested in playing games, then yes, why the heck wouldn't you do that!?

If there's something specific you want to do that doesn't work in DOSBox for some strange reason, then build a machine that does the specific thing you want to do.

If you want to fill your living space with dusty components and spend hour after hour mucking with hardware configurations in desperate pursuit of some heady and undefined sense of nostalgia, all so you can have a computer capable of running all sorts of things that you'll never actually get around to ever running, then no discussion of technical merits is necessary.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-04-26, 22:34:

If you want to fill your living space with dusty components and spend hour after hour mucking with hardware configurations in desperate pursuit of some heady and undefined sense of nostalgia, all so you can have a computer capable of running all sorts of things that you'll never actually get around to ever running, then no discussion of technical merits is necessary.

I think you just summarized what most people on vogons would consider the meaning of life .

darry wrote on 2020-04-27, 00:42:

Jorpho wrote on 2020-04-26, 22:34:

If you want to fill your living space with dusty components and spend hour after hour mucking with hardware configurations in desperate pursuit of some heady and undefined sense of nostalgia, all so you can have a computer capable of running all sorts of things that you'll never actually get around to ever running, then no discussion of technical merits is necessary.

I think you just summarized what most people on vogons would consider the meaning of life .

I take issue with this - none of my components are dusty, and I play them every day.

Well thank you very much for the replies!

I've now decided that Win98SE will be done through emulation in 86box/PCem or through period hardware, or not at all.

>If you want to fill your living space with dusty components and spend hour after hour mucking with hardware configurations in desperate pursuit of some heady and undefined sense of nostalgia, all so you can have a computer capable of running all sorts of things that you'll never actually get around to ever running, then no discussion of technical merits is necessary.

I moved house last year and one of my requirements/plans was to have a retro room. I now have a room which has 6 separate areas in it.

1) 21" CRT Trinitron and MiSTer - for arcade games
2) 17" CRT Microvitec 1701 plus Atari ST and Amiga
3) 14" CRT CTM644 with CPC664 and Specky +3
4) 14" CRT 1084S with C64 and Apple IIc
5) 35" ultrawide LCD with Modern 9900K PC
6) 21" CRT monitor with beige desktop sleeper DOS PC (really it's the 1100t Thuban)

I like playing around with the hardware, but more importantly I don't like playing games in emulation, I much prefer feeling like I'm playing the real thing. It doesn't matter quite so much to me if it's emulation under the hood so long as it feels right, but it's still better to have the real thing.

Based on what you've said about Win98SE and my own memories of bluescreens etc... period hardware has to be the answer to it.

I've been looking into Voodoo stuff because I never had one, and the result seems to be that it mattered for the period I can emulate, but once you get to the point where I can't comfortably emulate then Voodoo wasn't that important. And there's nGlide as well.

So I'll continue to use my "DOS" machine to emulate whatever I need up to early Pentium. I will also use it to run DOSbox. Also in windows 7 it may be possible to run some games directly. I know that Steam and GoG games sometimes have modern patches etc.

However someone has offered to sell me their K6 machine which they're not using, and I'm very tempted to get it and put as good a PCI GPU and ISA sound card (it has no AGP slot) in as I can and use that to bridge the gap between emulation and stuff that runs under windows 7. I'll need to do some research to make sure it's actually fit for that purpose. In my head I thought AGP was standard for that era, and I'm not sure if PCI can cut it or not.

Again though thanks for the help!

Velociraptor wrote on 2020-04-28, 11:56:

so long as it feels right

If you're aiming for "feelings", there doesn't seem to be much point in debating whether one component or another is necessarily "better".

Based on what you've said about Win98SE and my own memories of bluescreens etc... period hardware has to be the answer to it.

I hope you're not thinking that Win9x didn't bluescreen (or worse) even on "period hardware".

Jorpho wrote on 2020-04-28, 15:17:

Velociraptor wrote on 2020-04-28, 11:56:

so long as it feels right

If you're aiming for "feelings", there doesn't seem to be much point in debating whether one component or another is necessarily "better".

I think that's a bit too reductive, and presented out of context that phrase leads to the wrong conclusion.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-04-28, 15:17:

Based on what you've said about Win98SE and my own memories of bluescreens etc... period hardware has to be the answer to it.

I hope you're not thinking that Win9x didn't bluescreen (or worse) even on "period hardware".

What I mean is that it bluescreened plenty on period hardware that I don't want to introduce even more to the mix and make it worse.

I think I was using win98/win98se for about 5 years back in 1998-2003. My computer was running 24/7 usually and I remember I had to reboot the pc every few weeks because it became unstable and I was also forced to do a clean install of win98 about once a year for the same reason. Stability probably depends a lot on what software you use, but I don't think it was a very stable OS. I only switched to winXP when I upgraded to Athlon64 pc in 2004 or so.