I believe operating systems in general don't care about such things. Also try A1/B1 slots.
Anyway, do some benchmarking to see if it makes any difference.

dominusprog wrote on 2023-09-09, 11:19:

I believe operating systems in general don't care about such things. Also try A1/B1 slots.
Anyway, do some benchmarking to see if it makes any difference.

I tried switching the memory around a couple days ago, I looked at the motherboard manual to make sure the memory was installed correctly. I think it may be a bug with windows 98se either not using dual channel memory or possibly the chipset drivers not using it. As for benchmarks I guess I could try to swap out the 2x 256mb sticks for a single 512mb stick and see if there is a performance difference.

I dont believe Win98 even understands the concept of dual channel memory much like it doesn't understand what dual core CPUs are, so long as the BIOS is reporting it as working I wouldn't worry too much about what Win98 is reporting.

The other point worth considering is that Win98 wouldn't see any benefit from dual channel memory, it also doesn't get any benefit from dual core CPUs the OS itself simply doesn't have the capability of supporting these features.

I also doubt very much that you will see any performance increase from dual channel over single under Win98, though it would be fun to see if there is any.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-09-09, 14:07:

I dont believe Win98 even understands the concept of dual channel memory much like it doesn't understand what dual core CPUs are, so long as the BIOS is reporting it as working I wouldn't worry too much about what Win98 is reporting.

The other point worth considering is that Win98 wouldn't see any benefit from dual channel memory, it also doesn't get any benefit from dual core CPUs the OS itself simply doesn't have the capability of supporting these features.

I also doubt very much that you will see any performance increase from dual channel over single under Win98, though it would be fun to see if there is any.

I'm looking through my parts to see if I have a 512mb stick of pc3200 ddr, I'm not sure if I do, but if I can find a stick I will do some benchmarks, any test you think I should try?

Maybe I'm completely wrong here, but I would have thought dual-channel memory is a memory controller/BIOS thing, not an OS thing. If, with the same BIOS settings, same memory, same everything, you boot a more modern OS, what does it say about your dual channel memory?

I would wonder whether the tools you are using to report on the memory controller status are actually able to report that under Win98.

Okay so, I tested PCMark2002 on the pc, I ran the test 3 times for both 2x 256mb and 1x 512mb. I'm not sure if this synthetic benchmark is accurate but it does show a performance difference between single and dual channel memory configurations. So according to this benchmark it is beneficial to run dual channel memory even if windows 98se doesn't show it utilizing it.

PCMARK2002 2x 256mb pc3200
Test 1:
CPU Score 6290
Memory Score 9075
HDD Score 308

Test 2:
CPU Score 6291
Memory Score 9062
HDD Score 3660

Test 3:
CPU Score 6292
Memory Score 9063
HDD Score 3644

PCMARK2002 1x 512mb pc3200
Test 1:
CPU Score 6277
Memory Score 7015
HDD Score 326

Test 2:
CPU Score 6273
Memory Score 7052
HDD Score 2803

Test 3:
CPU Score 6261
Memory Score 7075
HDD Score 2797

I have never noticed any performance increase in Win9x with Dual Channel. Some of my motherboards even performed better in Single Channel.

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-09, 16:13:

I would have thought dual-channel memory is a memory controller/BIOS thing, not an OS thing.

yes

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-09, 16:13:

I would wonder whether the tools you are using to report on the memory controller status are actually able to report that under Win98.

again very much yes, this is a bug/not implemented fully in CPU-Z Vintage Edition Need help to improve the support of 486/586/686 class CPUs in CPU-Z