If you want to play old DOS games on a relatively modern machine, why not use an emulator like DOSBox?

It should be serviceable. You can check in the BIOS how much you can slow down the Celeron D just in case (a sentence I never expected do write down 😁 ).
The FX5200 supports all the features and paired with the Celeron D you have reasonable chance of using Glide wrappers. If the FX5200 is 128 bit, it's decent upto 2000/2001.
SSDs with IDE adapters work (depending on the adapter).

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-01-29, 10:36:

It should be serviceable. You can check in the BIOS how much you can slow down the Celeron D just in case (a sentence I never expected do write down 😁 ).
The FX5200 supports all the features and paired with the Celeron D you have reasonable chance of using Glide wrappers. If the FX5200 is 128 bit, it's decent upto 2000/2001.
SSDs with IDE adapters work (depending on the adapter).

Thank you Stranger.

Yes, during my limited research, the Celeron D has been given a spanking, but they didn't have my particular use case in mind back then....in this case, slow is good.

Yes, the 5200 is a 128 bit version. I'm surprised it is only good up to 2000/2001, as I was using an original Geforce during those years without any issues. Looks like another case of a pos that might be good for this special use case. If so, it will fit well with the Celeron D. Two failures, working together for victory. Anything after '01 hasn't had a problem on XP so far....fingers crossed.

Anyway, I will give it a go and see how it pans out. Thanks for the suggestion for the IDE adapter as well. I might format an SSD on the XP machine in Fat32 (it was Fat32, right? And was the top something like 128gb for a drive? It's been a while...) and grab one of the adapters off the net, see how we go. Anyone have a preference for adapters? Or is it a 'suck it and see' thing with these?

dominusprog wrote on 2024-01-29, 10:17:

If you want to play old DOS games on a relatively modern machine, why not use an emulator like DOSBox?

I use dosbox for the golden oldies, though I would like a 386 again....

The machine in question is for Windows 98 games, maybe some 95 games as well. Anything below that is pretty much out, though I have to say, I did install Dark Heart of Uukrul on my XP machine out of morbid curiosity, and it works perfectly! haha! Probably because it doesn't use any sound, and whoever programmed it, was smart enough to not tie it to the machines clock speed, which I remember always being a problem with many games after leaving my 386 behind.

Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 11:21:

dominusprog wrote on 2024-01-29, 10:17:

If you want to play old DOS games on a relatively modern machine, why not use an emulator like DOSBox?

I use dosbox for the golden oldies, though I would like a 386 again....

The machine in question is for Windows 98 games, maybe some 95 games as well. Anything below that is pretty much out, though I have to say, I did install Dark Heart of Uukrul on my XP machine out of morbid curiosity, and it works perfectly! haha! Probably because it doesn't use any sound, and whoever programmed it, was smart enough to not tie it to the machines clock speed, which I remember always being a problem with many games after leaving my 386 behind.

Good luck and remember that the Gigabayte motherboards usually have an "advanced" menu which can be activated by pressing Ctrl+F1.

Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 11:17:

Thanks for the suggestion for the IDE adapter as well. I might format an SSD on the XP machine in Fat32 (it was Fat32, right? And was the top something like 128gb for a drive? It's been a while...) and grab one of the adapters off the net, see how we go. Anyone have a preference for adapters? Or is it a 'suck it and see' thing with these?

This board has SATA, but who knows how nicely SATA on it would play with 98SE. SATA seems to work fineish on ICH5 boards that have the ability to remap the SATA controller's memory addresses, while it is dreadfully temperamental or worse on, say, Via 8237+ (I speak from experience on the latter). You may want to do some searching around here to see what luck people have had with this SiS chipset and SATA. But... my suggestion, just for your sanity, would be to plan for an all-PATA system.

I've used now the Startech SATA to IDE adapter; it costs quite a bit, but seems to be what Phil's Computer Lab and others recommend, and at least you can get it boxed up from major retailers instead of gambling on direct-from-China eBay mysteries.

I was going to suggest you look at a processor upgrade (although looking on eBay, higher-speed Preshot 90nm processors cost more than I was expecting), but honestly, that Deleron is so excessively powerful for 98SE that it doesn't make any sense to go to something hotter-running...

Seeing how you stuck an inappropriate amount of RAM in that XP machine... do not do a similar thing with the Win98 box. Even if the board supports it, the OS sure doesn't, and will break in surprising ways. Stay at at 512MB or lower. (There are ways to have more, but don't make it harder than necessary on yourself. Keep it simple while you're still starting out with that machine.)

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-29, 14:41:

This board has SATA, but who knows how nicely SATA on it would play with 98SE. SATA seems to work fineish on ICH5 boards that ha […]
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Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 11:17:

Thanks for the suggestion for the IDE adapter as well. I might format an SSD on the XP machine in Fat32 (it was Fat32, right? And was the top something like 128gb for a drive? It's been a while...) and grab one of the adapters off the net, see how we go. Anyone have a preference for adapters? Or is it a 'suck it and see' thing with these?

This board has SATA, but who knows how nicely SATA on it would play with 98SE. SATA seems to work fineish on ICH5 boards that have the ability to remap the SATA controller's memory addresses, while it is dreadfully temperamental or worse on, say, Via 8237+ (I speak from experience on the latter). You may want to do some searching around here to see what luck people have had with this SiS chipset and SATA. But... my suggestion, just for your sanity, would be to plan for an all-PATA system.

I've used now the Startech SATA to IDE adapter; it costs quite a bit, but seems to be what Phil's Computer Lab and others recommend, and at least you can get it boxed up from major retailers instead of gambling on direct-from-China eBay mysteries.

I was going to suggest you look at a processor upgrade (although looking on eBay, higher-speed Preshot 90nm processors cost more than I was expecting), but honestly, that Deleron is so excessively powerful for 98SE that it doesn't make any sense to go to something hotter-running...

Startech, I will try and hunt one down.

I have hit a snag; This board is a 1.2A version, which doesn't really have much in the way of win98 drivers....do you think I could use the win98 drivers for the 1.1 version of this board and get away with it? I might give it a shot and see, otherwise it's only any use as an "early" XP AGP machine.

elszgensa wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:05:

Seeing how you stuck an inappropriate amount of RAM in that XP machine... do not do a similar thing with the Win98 box. Even if the board supports it, the OS sure doesn't, and will break in surprising ways. Stay at at 512MB or lower. (There are ways to have more, but don't make it harder than necessary on yourself. Keep it simple while you're still starting out with that machine.)

No fear, I only exceeded the ram amount in the XP machine because I read it didn't matter, and I only had two sticks of 4gb, and wanted the dual memory bonus.

Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:22:

Startech, I will try and hunt one down.

I have hit a snag; This board is a 1.2A version, which doesn't really have much in the way of win98 drivers....do you think I could use the win98 drivers for the 1.1 version of this board and get away with it? I might give it a shot and see, otherwise it's only any use as an "early" XP AGP machine.

Ultimately, motherboard manufacturers' drivers don't really matter - the motherboard manufacturer is just redistributing drivers from the various chips' manufacturers. So the question is whether all the chips support 98SE or not...

Is there a difference between the 1.2A and 1.1 revisions in terms of chips? Different north/south bridge, different audio chip (though, really, that should be disabled), different network chip, etc? Or, as was common with LGA775 boards in this era, the newer revision is mostly a change to allow CPUs with different power consumption needs (e.g. 65nm hotbursts, early C2Ds, later C2Ds, etc) to work?

Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:24:

elszgensa wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:05:

Seeing how you stuck an inappropriate amount of RAM in that XP machine... do not do a similar thing with the Win98 box. Even if the board supports it, the OS sure doesn't, and will break in surprising ways. Stay at at 512MB or lower. (There are ways to have more, but don't make it harder than necessary on yourself. Keep it simple while you're still starting out with that machine.)

No fear, I only exceeded the ram amount in the XP machine because I read it didn't matter, and I only had two sticks of 4gb, and wanted the dual memory bonus.

... and perhaps dual-boot?

I have a feeling that there are tons of over-RAMmed retro XP machines (including mine!) out there, simply because they're machines that were originally 7 or even 10 machines that have found a new life as retro XP machines and, well, never lost the RAM that they already had from their days running 64-bit OSes. Especially true for DDR3 machines that could easily have a dual-channel 2x4GB configuration like yours...

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:54:

I have a feeling that there are tons of over-RAMmed retro XP machines

...which is perfectly fine, since NT will just ignore what it can't use. So, afaik, will DOS and Win3x. It's just the 9x series that you need to watch out with.

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:48:

Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:22:

Startech, I will try and hunt one down.

I have hit a snag; This board is a 1.2A version, which doesn't really have much in the way of win98 drivers....do you think I could use the win98 drivers for the 1.1 version of this board and get away with it? I might give it a shot and see, otherwise it's only any use as an "early" XP AGP machine.

Ultimately, motherboard manufacturers' drivers don't really matter - the motherboard manufacturer is just redistributing drivers from the various chips' manufacturers. So the question is whether all the chips support 98SE or not...

Is there a difference between the 1.2A and 1.1 revisions in terms of chips? Different north/south bridge, different audio chip (though, really, that should be disabled), different network chip, etc? Or, as was common with LGA775 boards in this era, the newer revision is mostly a change to allow CPUs with different power consumption needs (e.g. 65nm hotbursts, early C2Ds, later C2Ds, etc) to work?

Ok, so the chipsets themselves are the same.

https://www.ecs.com.tw/en/Product/Motherboard … 1/specification
https://www.ecs.com.tw/en/Product/Motherboard … A/specification

The differences I can spot are;

version 1.1 has a different onboard GPU

Aaand that's it. Unless I am blind, that is the only difference.

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:54:

Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:24:

elszgensa wrote on 2024-01-29, 15:05:

Seeing how you stuck an inappropriate amount of RAM in that XP machine... do not do a similar thing with the Win98 box. Even if the board supports it, the OS sure doesn't, and will break in surprising ways. Stay at at 512MB or lower. (There are ways to have more, but don't make it harder than necessary on yourself. Keep it simple while you're still starting out with that machine.)

No fear, I only exceeded the ram amount in the XP machine because I read it didn't matter, and I only had two sticks of 4gb, and wanted the dual memory bonus.

... and perhaps dual-boot?

I have a feeling that there are tons of over-RAMmed retro XP machines (including mine!) out there, simply because they're machines that were originally 7 or even 10 machines that have found a new life as retro XP machines and, well, never lost the RAM that they already had from their days running 64-bit OSes. Especially true for DDR3 machines that could easily have a dual-channel 2x4GB configuration like yours...

You know, a Linux dual booted on this might be a good idea. It would make it easy to download stuff for the XP partition instead of constantly requiring flash drives and DVD's/CD's.

Sapper77 wrote on 2024-01-29, 16:19:

You know, a Linux dual booted on this might be a good idea. It would make it easy to download stuff for the XP partition instead of constantly requiring flash drives and DVD's/CD's.

Maybe this isn't the greatest idea in the world, but you should be able to get an XP machine on a network and able to download files from a NAS, etc just fine, with perhaps a little fiddling. (Getting XP to talk to my Synology NAS requires changing some group policy stuff about NTLM authentication... and yes, I'm changing settings on the XP side, not making the NAS less secure)

And... this sounds like heresy I know, but since I am a bit short on switch ports, I've even run some of my XP machines on wifi using a Linksys 802.11ac USB adapter. I forget the model number - it's one of those models where there's a v1 and a v2 of the same model and the v2 uses a different chip with no XP support.

I also distinctly remember that there's some kind of retro NAS software out there - basically a Linux OS that will serve up stuff in various legacy protocols. Haven't looked at it yet, though since Synology is EOLing their AFP support, it may be necessary for OS 9 Macs soon...

Where I draw the line is web browsing. Other than using Legacy Update to patch things, no running web browsers on XP machines. Although I suppose there are probably safeish modern retro browsers for XP, I just haven't had a reason to look for them...

(Now, if you wanted to really be serious about this, you'd put the retro machines on a separate VLAN with no access to the Internet...)

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-29, 16:32:

I also distinctly remember that there's some kind of retro NAS software out there

RetroNAS

If your network is behind NAT, which almost all are, the old stuff can use the internet just fine.