The thing to look at is motherboard chipset drivers.

Basically "PCIe bad, AGP good" as far as Windows 98 is concerned.

Then for 2007-2008 you want the highest possible CPU support on such chipsets. That points you towards Asrock, with things like:
- AM2NF3-VSTA - nForce3 board that supports Phenom II quadcores up to the X4 BE 970
- ConRoe865PE - fastest Intel chipset board, supports up to C2Q Q6600/QX6700. Limited by FSB (1066MT/s max)
- 4CoreDual-SATA2 - fastest Via chipset board. Similar CPU support to the above, slightly lower performance, but you get a PCIe 4x (physical 16x) slot for more versatility under XP.

Given that Phenom II X4 BE 965 beats the pants off a C2Q Q6600 (although at 25% more power draw...) that combined with the AM2NF3-VSTA would be my suggestion for this build. Note that nForce3 driver support ended very quickly, so you can't run newer Windows on it. If you want to be able to go up to Windows 10, one of the Intel options might be better.

In any event, pair it up with an ATi Radeon HD4670 or HD3850 AGP, the two fastest AGP platforms out there.

I've been doing a bunch of research lately into the feasibility of multi-boot Win 9x / Win XP setups. For any system trying to cover a broad range of years of gaming, there are always trade-offs between performance and compatibility.

The primary challenge is a motherboard and GPU combination.

For late 2000's era games you will want higher performance, but will involve GPUs that likely don't have drivers for Win 9x. And even cards with drivers (e.g. GeForce 6800 Ultra) may still have performance or combability issues under Win 9x, while at the same time not being as performant for late 2000's games.

One option is go multiple video cards such a fast AGP or PCI-e card for WinXP and then a regular PCI card (e.g. Voodoo3, GeForce FX, etc.) for Win9x. While I've experimented with AGP and PCI GPU combos, I haven't tested PCI-e and PCI GPU combinations. Not sure how practical the latter is.

You also need a motherboard capable of supporting both OS's with drivers, etc. And for Win 98, you'll need to apply unofficial patches to get around things like RAM limitations.

It's do-able, but it will involve careful selection of hardware, a lot of testing and some compromises.

What's the favored software solution for dual booting 98/XP? I'm thinking of doing this myself soon. 😀

anne wrote on 2024-02-17, 17:25:

What's the favored software solution for dual booting 98/XP? I'm thinking of doing this myself soon. 😀

AFAIK, no special bootloader is needed for dual booting XP and 98.

If you install Windows 98 and then Windows XP (on separate partitions), it should add a boot menu automatically.

pote2639 wrote on 2024-02-17, 16:30:

I'[m currently planning to scrap my P3 Build and going to build a Rig that can play games from 1996 to 2008 seamlessly ( I was planning to play some kind of all GTA, Sims 1, old Hitman and Tom Clancy games from that era)

Not sure if it's even possible since The Spec that can play 2007-2008 games might not be compatible on Windows 98 at all. But I'm planning to get a Core 2 Duo and maybe a Geforce 6800 ultra but then the GPU might be the bottleneck for the game that's around 2007-ish.

I'm kind of stuck here, any suggestion? thanks in advance!

How far along is your P3 project? What parts do you have, where have you gotten, etc?

My view - give up on dual-booting 98SE and XP, finish your P3 project for games up to ~2001 or so, then build yourself a PCI-E C2D/C2Q/etc with a nice late XP-era video card.

Or... if you still want to do this, you'd need a C2D/C2Q-capable i865 board, the best AGP cards supported in 98SE, etc, and those will cost you dearly compared to two systems.

I’m currently working on 2 Pentium 4 waiting for a floppy drive to arrive so I can try installing win98
Just recently managed to reinstall xp on a partition as the previous xp partition was locked in activation mode and unusable and only had win7 available but it’s not the os I want to use
The other one I’m still struggling with the sata drivers unable to get any installation to work

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-17, 17:17:

One option is go multiple video cards such a fast AGP or PCI-e card for WinXP and then a regular PCI card (e.g. Voodoo3, GeForce FX, etc.) for Win9x. While I've experimented with AGP and PCI GPU combos, I haven't tested PCI-e and PCI GPU combinations. Not sure how practical the latter is.

This is what I was going to write. It is a very interesting idea. With a total lack of ISA and sb link I would go for a sound card like the cmedia. Probably can't run every dos game but most. Of course nothing speed sensitive. 😀

I'm tempted to do this actually..

i used to dual boot win9x and winxp, but after playing around with it for awhile i didn't see the point anymore. i replaced winxp with a lightweight debian distro (q4os) and built a separate win7 box to play my xp games. after running win7 for awhile i didn't see the point of that and upgraded to win10 which i eventually regretted because of microsoft "updates". i then installed play4linux (wine) on my win9x/linux system and was finally happy.

VivienM wrote on 2024-02-17, 17:45:

How far along is your P3 project? What parts do you have, where have you gotten, etc? […]
Show full quote

pote2639 wrote on 2024-02-17, 16:30:

I'[m currently planning to scrap my P3 Build and going to build a Rig that can play games from 1996 to 2008 seamlessly ( I was planning to play some kind of all GTA, Sims 1, old Hitman and Tom Clancy games from that era)

Not sure if it's even possible since The Spec that can play 2007-2008 games might not be compatible on Windows 98 at all. But I'm planning to get a Core 2 Duo and maybe a Geforce 6800 ultra but then the GPU might be the bottleneck for the game that's around 2007-ish.

I'm kind of stuck here, any suggestion? thanks in advance!

How far along is your P3 project? What parts do you have, where have you gotten, etc?

My view - give up on dual-booting 98SE and XP, finish your P3 project for games up to ~2001 or so, then build yourself a PCI-E C2D/C2Q/etc with a nice late XP-era video card.

Or... if you still want to do this, you'd need a C2D/C2Q-capable i865 board, the best AGP cards supported in 98SE, etc, and those will cost you dearly compared to two systems.

I’ve just rechecked my P3 build and now it won’t POST at all, tired everything and still no avail. One of my reason why I want to build a “new” one instead as I’m suspecting that my P3 Mobo’s capacitors has gone bad and I’m trying to avoid the capacitors plague as well.

However you might be true on finding these late-2000 AGP compatible mobo as I saw the price and jeez… I haven’t talked about the best AGP GPU yet as well.

I might ended up build a new WinXP - Vista Rig while maybe I’ll find a mobo replacement for S370 like you’ve suggested.

dionb wrote on 2024-02-17, 17:16:

The thing to look at is motherboard chipset drivers.

Basically "PCIe bad, AGP good" as far as Windows 98 is concerned.

That isn't exactly accurate. I've had success running win98se on i915 and i965 chipsets and PCI-E video cards like the 6600GT and X800.

dionb wrote on 2024-02-17, 17:16:

Then for 2007-2008 you want the highest possible CPU support on such chipsets. That points you towards Asrock, with things like: […]
Show full quote

Then for 2007-2008 you want the highest possible CPU support on such chipsets. That points you towards Asrock, with things like:
- AM2NF3-VSTA - nForce3 board that supports Phenom II quadcores up to the X4 BE 970
- ConRoe865PE - fastest Intel chipset board, supports up to C2Q Q6600/QX6700. Limited by FSB (1066MT/s max)
- 4CoreDual-SATA2 - fastest Via chipset board. Similar CPU support to the above, slightly lower performance, but you get a PCIe 4x (physical 16x) slot for more versatility under XP.

Given that Phenom II X4 BE 965 beats the pants off a C2Q Q6600 (although at 25% more power draw...) that combined with the AM2NF3-VSTA would be my suggestion for this build. Note that nForce3 driver support ended very quickly, so you can't run newer Windows on it. If you want to be able to go up to Windows 10, one of the Intel options might be better.

I've had stability issues with fast builds like this while running win98. I've attempted to build systems around the ConRoe865PE + P8600 and a Gigabyte GA-MF3 + Athlon64 6000+, both with similar results, witch are Windows XP running perfectly fine while win98 installing, but seemingly "degrading" after a couple of days of usage. Random freezing, blue screens, and general instability. I've tried everything - limiting ram to 512MB, using the memory patch for win9x, using older AGP video cards (radeon 9600, geforce FX 5900XT), SATA and IDE spinning disks, everything - the results were the same. The only way of getting the systems stable were dropping down to slow CPUs - an Athlon X2 4000+ for the GA-MF3+ and a E4500 for the ConRoe865 - that made the machines usable under win98.

dionb wrote on 2024-02-17, 17:16:

In any event, pair it up with an ATi Radeon HD4670 or HD3850 AGP, the two fastest AGP platforms out there.

As far as I know none of those video cards have win9x drivers, requiring a second PCI that do. Are there modded win98 drivers for these cards? That would be awsome.

pote2639 wrote on 2024-02-17, 16:30:

[...]

Not sure if it's even possible since The Spec that can play 2007-2008 games might not be compatible on Windows 98 at all. But I'm planning to get a Core 2 Duo and maybe a Geforce 6800 ultra but then the GPU might be the bottleneck for the game that's around 2007-ish.

I'm kind of stuck here, any suggestion? thanks in advance!

That's the problem. In therory it is possible to build such a PC using two video cards, one AGP or PCI-E for windows XP and newer games, one PCI for win9x titles (like a radeon 9200, FX 5200 or Voodoo 3 PCI), but all my attempts at such a buld have failed. My current fastest and 100% stable "combo 9x + xp build" is built around a a Gigabyte GA-MF3 and Athlon64 5000+, 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 in dual channel and a Geforce FX 6800XT AGP. It plays games up to 2006 very comfortably with most garphical settings maxed out, and even a limited selection of 2007-2008 games, but with limited resolution and graphical details. For win98 I installed patchmem and limited memory to 512MB. It also runs off a seperate 1GB partition and only has access to 32GB off the disks total of 500 (the other partitions are NTFS). I tried adding a voodoo 2 in for glide games but I've had issues with it and this PC. To make up for that I'm using dgVoodoo.

The PC does however play Far Cry, Doom 3, Quake 4, GTA San Andreas, Black and White 2, Homeworld 2, C&C3, and a plethora of other XP era games. It does fumble with newer titles like Crysis, and others like Fallout 3 run well enough but with reduced graphical settings.

Good luck with your build!

Socket3 wrote on 2024-02-18, 10:06:

[...]

I've had stability issues with fast builds like this while running win98. I've attempted to build systems around the ConRoe865PE + P8600 and a Gigabyte GA-MF3 + Athlon64 6000+, both with similar results, witch are Windows XP running perfectly fine while win98 installing, but seemingly "degrading" after a couple of days of usage. Random freezing, blue screens, and general instability. I've tried everything - limiting ram to 512MB, using the memory patch for win9x, using older AGP video cards (radeon 9600, geforce FX 5900XT), SATA and IDE spinning disks, everything - the results were the same. The only way of getting the systems stable were dropping down to slow CPUs - an Athlon X2 4000+ for the GA-MF3+ and a E4500 for the ConRoe865 - that made the machines usable under win98.

That's the trouble with pushing the limits. Must say I'm tempted to see what I can (and can't) do on that AM2NF3-VSTA now. I had one for late AGP card testing (running Linux), but then figured out I wasn't actually interested in post 2001 stuff and it's been sitting in an antistatic bag on a shelf for the last few years.

[...]

As far as I know none of those video cards have win9x drivers, requiring a second PCI that do. Are there modded win98 drivers for these cards? That would be awsome.

No, I just had a bit of a mental block 😒 You're right, it's 6xxx / x800 max for Win98.

That's the problem. In therory it is possible to build such a PC using two video cards, one AGP or PCI-E for windows XP and newer games, one PCI for win9x titles (like a radeon 9200, FX 5200 or Voodoo 3 PCI), but all my attempts at such a buld have failed.

Rumour has it the 939Dual-eSATA2 - with double ULi chipsets - could do that. Never tried myself; I had the board back in the day when my daily driver was an Athlon64 X2, but sold it when I upgraded to C2D. Of course this limits you to So939 CPUs. There's also the ALiveDual-eSATA2 with a Frankenstein's monster of the ULi M1695 and nVidia nF3 on the same board. It could be worth a try, although something tells me it's likely to combine all the downsides of both parents.

For pci options is 8mb video card the best I can get for xp and win98 because all the cards I get referred to are either agp or pci-e x16
I have a P4 system

Something else that came to mind is screen resolution, aspect ratios, and monitor types.

Windows 9x gaming is firmly in the CRT era with common resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768. These are best served by a dedicated 4:3 CRT monitor.

Conversely, from about 2005 and onward games started supporting or were patched to support widescreen aspect ratios and resolutions like 1680x1050 or 1920x1200. These resolutions are better served by a 16:10 LCD monitor at its native resolution. Not to mention that widescreen games push more pixels and therefore need more GPU performance.

Doing a single monitor setup would involve some compromise with either sticking with 4:3 resolutions via a CRT or using a widescreen LCD with non-native 4:3 resolutions.

Dual video card / dual monitor could cover both ground, although as a physical set up it's less ideal than a single dedicated monitor.

Regardless of the option chosen there are going to be trade offs.

Socket3 wrote on 2024-02-18, 10:06:

That's the problem. In therory it is possible to build such a PC using two video cards, one AGP or PCI-E for windows XP and newer games, one PCI for win9x titles (like a radeon 9200, FX 5200 or Voodoo 3 PCI), but all my attempts at such a buld have failed. My current fastest and 100% stable "combo 9x + xp build" is built around a a Gigabyte GA-MF3 and Athlon64 5000+, 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 in dual channel and a Geforce FX 6800XT AGP. It plays games up to 2006 very comfortably with most garphical settings maxed out, and even a limited selection of 2007-2008 games, but with limited resolution and graphical details.

This is the general conclusion of my own recent research and testing into this.

Building a Win9x/XP system up to about mid-2000's is doable, but for late 2000's a dedicated XP machine is the way to go.