The 865g is a great chipset. I would go with the AsRock.

I currently have that exact Asrock mainboard in my Retro rig. A very nice piece of hardware.
I recommend installing windows without ACPI (setup.exe /p i) as with Support, my system sometimes did not boot up properly into windows.

TheRoss wrote on 2021-06-18, 05:30:

I currently have that exact Asrock mainboard in my Retro rig. A very nice piece of hardware.
I recommend installing windows without ACPI (setup.exe /p i) as with Support, my system sometimes did not boot up properly into windows.

I'm leaning towards that one as well. Are you using the integrated sound card or do you have a dedicated one? Because I'm getting this weird sound glitch on the integrated one when gaming that the sound works fine for like 10 mins and then some effects stop being played (like only a half of stereo but it's not tied to left or right channels it's like only "half" of the sound is being played) or sound stops working altogether. Closing and running games again fixes it for another 10 mins or so. I have yet to source a soundcard for the system so I'm stuck with the integrated one. I just hope it's a driver issue and not a sign of the MOBO on it's last breath

I don‘t think it is a board issue. Rather drivers and/or ram constellation?
How much ram are you running and what patches do you have installed?
I did get a audigy ZS2 because I needed the dos drivers and emulation running. Something which can’t be achieved with the onboard sound.
Ok what Games are you having this issue? I could try to replicate it with my system by enabling the onboard sound and taking out the audigy

TheRoss wrote on 2021-06-18, 07:48:

I don‘t think it is a board issue. Rather drivers and/or ram constellation? How much ram are you running and what patches do you […]
Show full quote

I don‘t think it is a board issue. Rather drivers and/or ram constellation?
How much ram are you running and what patches do you have installed?
I did get a audigy ZS2 because I needed the dos drivers and emulation running. Something which can’t be achieved with the onboard sound.
Ok what Games are you having this issue? I could try to replicate it with my system by enabling the onboard sound and taking out the audigy

I'm running a gig of ram without patches 🤣 so that might be the issue (I also plan to run XP on the same machine so that's why). The games I've played on it so far are Colin McRae Rally 2.0, WoW 1.12 (a.k.a. vanilla), Hidden&Dangerous 2 and all have the same issue.

I might try it with CMR2, since I don’t have any connectivity on that machine.
You might want to try the patches and see how far you can go.
But most certainly you have another kind of patch already installed (else your 9x would not boot), and that will most probably not allow the patch from rloew to be installed.

Nevertheless when I didn’t have the sound card yet, the onboard sound worked perfectly and I didn’t have those weird sound glitches.
So go for it. That mobo is extremely rare to get nowadays.

Thx I'll try the patches and look into different driver versions if i can find it. But a soundcard is definitely on my shopping list nonetheless. But I swear I haven't installed any patches 😁 if they are installed they must've been "built in" my 98SE install disk without my knowlege.

the PATCHMEM from rloew seems to have fixed the weird soung glitch. At least in CMR2. I haven't tested the others.

Hm interesting. Win98 is a mistery.
Anyway, nice that it worked out for you with the mempatch 😀

potato(S)masher wrote on 2021-06-18, 08:16:

TheRoss wrote on 2021-06-18, 07:48:

I don‘t think it is a board issue. Rather drivers and/or ram constellation? How much ram are you running and what patches do you […]
Show full quote

I don‘t think it is a board issue. Rather drivers and/or ram constellation?
How much ram are you running and what patches do you have installed?
I did get a audigy ZS2 because I needed the dos drivers and emulation running. Something which can’t be achieved with the onboard sound.
Ok what Games are you having this issue? I could try to replicate it with my system by enabling the onboard sound and taking out the audigy

I'm running a gig of ram without patches 🤣 so that might be the issue (I also plan to run XP on the same machine so that's why). The games I've played on it so far are Colin McRae Rally 2.0, WoW 1.12 (a.k.a. vanilla), Hidden&Dangerous 2 and all have the same issue.

1 gig of ram will run if you don't use an AGP video card. As soon as you use an AGP video card you'll start seeing the "Windows Protection Error".

I've tried to get 98 systems stable with 1 gig of ram over the years, and had limited success with some modifications (limiting ram windows can see and sistem.ini editing) using ATi video cards, but never with nvidia cards (especially cards with over 64 mb of vram).

My advice is keep the ram to 768mb if using an ATi card or 512mb using an nvidia card. XP will run ok on 512mb as long as you don't try to browse the internet.

Socket3 wrote on 2021-06-19, 07:33:

1 gig of ram will run if you don't use an AGP video card. As soon as you use an AGP video card you'll start seeing the "Windows […]
Show full quote

potato(S)masher wrote on 2021-06-18, 08:16:

TheRoss wrote on 2021-06-18, 07:48:

I don‘t think it is a board issue. Rather drivers and/or ram constellation? How much ram are you running and what patches do you […]
Show full quote

I don‘t think it is a board issue. Rather drivers and/or ram constellation?
How much ram are you running and what patches do you have installed?
I did get a audigy ZS2 because I needed the dos drivers and emulation running. Something which can’t be achieved with the onboard sound.
Ok what Games are you having this issue? I could try to replicate it with my system by enabling the onboard sound and taking out the audigy

I'm running a gig of ram without patches 🤣 so that might be the issue (I also plan to run XP on the same machine so that's why). The games I've played on it so far are Colin McRae Rally 2.0, WoW 1.12 (a.k.a. vanilla), Hidden&Dangerous 2 and all have the same issue.

1 gig of ram will run if you don't use an AGP video card. As soon as you use an AGP video card you'll start seeing the "Windows Protection Error".

I've tried to get 98 systems stable with 1 gig of ram over the years, and had limited success with some modifications (limiting ram windows can see and sistem.ini editing) using ATi video cards, but never with nvidia cards (especially cards with over 64 mb of vram).

My advice is keep the ram to 768mb if using an ATi card or 512mb using an nvidia card. XP will run ok on 512mb as long as you don't try to browse the internet.

So far I have no trouble with windows stability with 1 gig of ram and a 128 meg nVidia card. This is why I love 98 😁 it's like a box of chocolates 😁

potato(S)masher wrote on 2021-06-17, 15:24:

Hi all!

I'm building a high end Windows 98 machine and have a choice between an AsRock 775i65g R2.0 or an MSI PM8PM-V (MS-7222 v2.0). Which one would you people prefer?

They both support Core 2 Duo CPUs. Almost everyone would pick the AsRock as it's a well known mainboard. But it's also interesting how the MSI will behave, isn't it?

I'd build both and see which works best for each of my target apps. Can never have too many retro PCs 😀

debs3759 wrote on 2021-06-19, 16:13:

I'd build both and see which works best for each of my target apps. Can never have too many retro PCs 😀

This is solid advice