RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-02, 08:25:

Hard drive: why not just get a big one over two smaller?

LBA support concerns for massive data loss is a possibility. With large 120gb+ drives, It only feels safe starting from XP.

Regressed93 wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:24:

I am yet to make a list of all my Dos, 95,98 games. […]
Show full quote

I am yet to make a list of all my Dos, 95,98 games.

Bit I will say this, I have ISO's of All Doom games up to Doom 3,
I have ISO's of All Quake games up to Enemy Ter.........Enemy Ter.........I cannot bring myself to mention that abomination of a Quake Game.
ISO's Of Duke Nukem 3D, plus all the add-ons and shovelware
ISO's of all the Doom and Quake Shovelware,

Hey I love ID Software, I got ISO's of 90% of their 90's games.

Yeah, but you won't play Doom 3 or Quake 4 on this W98 machine so why store them there? The Geforce 4 is way too underpowered for these games and the amount of RAM necessary is also an issue. Also I'm not sure if Quake 4 even runs on W98. The box says W2000/XP and I never tried Doom 3 either. For a PC on this performance level I wouldn't recommend going past 2002 games. Leave those to a much faster XP rig.

If you have that many ISOs, you might need a dedicated drive for them. I have most of my games on original discs.

leileilol wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:33:

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-02, 08:25:

Hard drive: why not just get a big one over two smaller?

LBA support concerns for massive data loss is a possibility. With large 120gb+ drives, It only feels safe starting from XP.

I don't know how many of us stores important data without backup on retro gaming PCs with 20+ years old hard drives. Imho data loss is a non-issue at best and an inconvenience at worst.

I like that idea and I can relate, too.
In essence, it's both an experiment and about nostalgia.
- What would it feel like if I had got all the good stuff when it was new? 🙂

Not sure, if I can be helpful here, though, since I was still into DOS/Win3.1 gaming at the turn of the millennium.
My family and me had got a quick Pentium III in 2000/2001, however.
It ran at 733MHz, had got Windows 98SE, a Geforce MX (?) AGP, 20GB IDE HDD, 256MB RAM, 17" CRT..

Of course, the memory seemed a bit little when we got XP, roughly two-three years later or so.
(That's why I secretly installed a total of 768MB a bit later 😉 )

Anyway, I hope that helps a bit.

If it had been my personal computer, I likely would have done one of these modifications when it was new:

a) install a second HDD, to make a RAID configuration

b) replace the IDE drive by an SCSI controller and an SCSI drive

c) use an IDE caching controller (Tekram etc)

Because, at the time, the HDD was often the bottleneck.
Not so much in terms of speed, but in access time.
A RAID or caching controller will make access more immediate, more smooth.
And the more intelligent SCSI did feature things like NCQ years before SATA..

Speaking of SCSI.. I was using an SCSI controller and a 2GB drive in my Pentium 166 MMX at the time.
I don't remember it being slow, the PC ran XP ok, too.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:44:

Regressed93 wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:24:

I am yet to make a list of all my Dos, 95,98 games. […]
Show full quote

I am yet to make a list of all my Dos, 95,98 games.

Bit I will say this, I have ISO's of All Doom games up to Doom 3,
I have ISO's of All Quake games up to Enemy Ter.........Enemy Ter.........I cannot bring myself to mention that abomination of a Quake Game.
ISO's Of Duke Nukem 3D, plus all the add-ons and shovelware
ISO's of all the Doom and Quake Shovelware,

Hey I love ID Software, I got ISO's of 90% of their 90's games.

Yeah, but you won't play Doom 3 or Quake 4 on this W98 machine so why store them there? The Geforce 4 is way too underpowered for these games and the amount of RAM necessary is also an issue. Also I'm not sure if Quake 4 even runs on W98. The box says W2000/XP and I never tried Doom 3 either. For a PC on this performance level I wouldn't recommend going past 2002 games. Leave those to a much faster XP rig.

Obviously I won't play games better suited for XP on 98, Stuff like Doom, Doom II: Hell On Earth, Final Doom: TNT Eviloution, Final Doom: The Plutonia Experiment, all of Doom's "Commercial Add-Ons"(Shovelware), Quake, Quake's Mission Packs, Quake's "Commercial Add-Ons", Quake II, Quake's 2 Mission Packs, Quake II's "Commercial Add-Ons"(Shovelware), Quake III, Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem 3D's Expansion Packs, Duke Nukem 3D's "Commercial Add-Ons"(Shovelware), Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, etc would be the games I play on this machine once it's built.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:44:

If you have that many ISOs, you might need a dedicated drive for them. I have most of my games on original discs.

I am working on that over time, along with the other millions of things I am working on over time.

I think you are overthinking a little bit how this BB-code thing works 😁
Use the preview button if you want to check if it looks the way you imagine it looks before sending the comment 😉

Regressed93 wrote on 2022-03-02, 10:46:

[...]

Would this be better: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/275162622487?hash … BgP1tm#shpCntId

Yep, and a far better price. Still no Platinum though.

[...]

Would a SATA HDD and Optical Drive IDE be a better choice?

Personally I'd use a SATA SSD, but period-correct would be a SATA HDD. However SATA vs PATA is far less significant than actual speed of the drive itself.

[...]

Would 80gb be enough?

Also when did 7,200rpm HDD's first come onto the market for consumers.

Much earlier. There was a great Australian site for this, but it seems offline now. Fortunately Archive.org has it backed up.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140712040301/ht … ///////d/77.php

The Seagate Medalist Pro was the first consumer-level (IDE) 7200rpm drive in... 1998. They didn't become standard until a few years later, but by the time you were running >3GHz P4, 5400rpm was a decidedly low-end choice and it was mainly the size of the disk cache that differentiated the 7200rpm models. WD mostly used 8MB, but I remember the performance increase when I upgraded to a 16MB one.

As for size: that's entirely up to you. Any motherboard at this time would support pretty much any non-gpt drives (i.e. <2TB) out there. I thing 80GB would be about correct for the CPU/motherboard you are considering - but if you don't care about being period-correct, just go for an SSD. I use 32GB SSDs in my P3-era stuff and 80GB '00 systems.

[...]

In the State of Queensland, dumping things on the the roadside is an illegal and fineable offense, but in other states, you can dump away with no consequenses, if you can haul it, you can have it.

The point isn't the specific location, it is that P4-C2D systems have almost no value at this point in time (too old to be useful as daily driver, too new to be collectable) so are being discarded in whatever way legal/feasible for nothing. There's no need to pay over the odds for this kind of system.

[...]

I checked Craigslist, no one in Australia selling a Windows 98 Computer.

Given you hadn't specified AU and only said "$" I assumed US, where Craigslist is generally a good option. I'm not up to speed on what's best in AU in general and Queensland specifically, there will be something similar near you - but one thing is clear anywhere: just looking once at a site isn't how to find stuff, let alone good stuff cheap. You need to find a good site, and then watch it like a hawk. There are even really good deals on eBay Buy It Now. Why don't you usually see them? Because someone else did first and bought it first. What you are left with at any random moment are the bad deals. Don't buy them. Time invested to find the good ones pays off.

Also, you're not looking for a Windows 98 system, you're looking for a solid Windows XP system that you happen to want to install Windows 98 on. But mainly you're looking for "old crap pc found in grandpa's attic". Information contains value. If someone knows exactly what they have, they will ask more for it than if they don't. Best situation is someone who does take the trouble to let the PC boot and take a pic of the POST screen and says it doesn't boot further. That tells you most of the relevant specs and the only thing wrong with it is dead/missing HDD or messed-up boot sector.

Look in places like vcfed.org and amibay.com for much better prices.

I will, thanks

Still a good idea, but vcfed is mainly US and Amibay mainly AU. Still can give you better deals than some of the stuff you posted, but postage will hurt.

[...]

Then you are more thrifty than I am.

No, if I was I would seriously offer it 😉

The point was you don't need to be particularly thrifty to do so much better with a system from this era. It's not like you're trying to put a Voodoo5 PCI on a Cx5x86-133 with AdLib Gold, Gravis Ultrasound Extreme and Roland SCC-1....

On a very unrelated note, at a Bar/Pub/Tavern here in Australia the average cost for one bottle of beer is $6AUD(Here in Australia, we call a bottle of beer a "Stubbie")

Owch. Was a lot less when I was there 25 years ago. Wouldn't have been able to get half as blotto in Cairns if it had 😜

"Operating System and Core Programs Drive: Samsung 60GB 5400rpm IDE, ATA, PATA Internal Hard Disk Drives - $8.67

>My inner modern PC Builder Instincts were figting so hard when choosing this, I know for a solid fact that PATA/IDE is far slower than SATA, and even in the HDD space 5400rpm is slow compared to 7500rpm, but this is where my lack of knowledge in Old-School PC Hard Drives really shows.

Video Games Drive: Samsung HM121HC 2.5 120 GB /5400RPM/8M/IDE-PATA Hard Drive For laptop HDD - $26.99

>I like having my games all installed for convenience so I doubled up on the boot drives Storage."

If you want period-correct high-end storage, SCSI is where it's at. It's a (very little) bit more work, but you'll get a real performance boost. A sample part list:

Adaptec 2940U2W PCI SCSI controller: $20 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/224862328825?hash=it … s8AAOSwknNiHi1T)
15,000 RPM Ultra-320 HDD: $40 (example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/264679134949?hash=it … 0IAAOSw4rZee3kI)
68-pin internal SCSI cable: $30 (https://www.amazon.com/Generic-device-Ribbon- … s/dp/B01LZJ5QJF)
SCSI terminator: $20 (https://www.amazon.com/Active-SCSI-3-68-Pin-T … 9&s=electronics)

So, for ~$110 you'll have a storage subsystem that will absolutely outperform any period-correct IDE drive. Individual drives up to 146GB are easy to find, and SCSI will handle up to 15 drives with the right cabling (4 with the cable I posted). There are even faster SCSI standards & controllers out there, but the 2940U2W is suppported OOTB by Win98 and every other version of Windows post-NT 4.0, so I'd stick with that if you're new to SCSI. If you want to futz with drivers a bit, you could jump up to an Adaptec 39160 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/304378822129?hash=it … rUAAOSwI6ViHmlm). Drivers for the entire Adpatec line are still avaialble online here: https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/support/scsi

SCSI is a bit different, but if you want the best of the early 2000's, it's a strong option.

Regressed93 wrote on 2022-03-02, 10:23:

In my effort to quote replies, I have fucked up hardcore, whoops.

Moderator here... You can say that again.... just fixed them all for you tho!

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-02, 12:07:

I think you are overthinking a little bit how this BB-code thing works 😁
Use the preview button if you want to check if it looks the way you imagine it looks before sending the comment 😉

I fixed it for him. Definitely not the only person here to have ever screwed up quoting BBCode though, so let's not give him a hard time. 😀

Jo22 wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:53:

I like that idea and I can relate, too. In essence, it's both an experiment and about nostalgia. - What would it feel like if I […]
Show full quote

I like that idea and I can relate, too.
In essence, it's both an experiment and about nostalgia.
- What would it feel like if I had got all the good stuff when it was new? 🙂

Not sure, if I can be helpful here, though, since I was still into DOS/Win3.1 gaming at the turn of the millennium.
My family and me had got a quick Pentium III in 2000/2001, however.
It ran at 733MHz, had got Windows 98SE, a Geforce MX (?) AGP, 20GB IDE HDD, 256MB RAM, 17" CRT..

Of course, the memory seemed a bit little when we got XP, roughly two-three years later or so.
(That's why I secretly installed a total of 768MB a bit later 😉 )

Anyway, I hope that helps a bit.

If it had been my personal computer, I likely would have done one of these modifications when it was new:

a) install a second HDD, to make a RAID configuration

b) replace the IDE drive by an SCSI controller and an SCSI drive

c) use an IDE caching controller (Tekram etc)

Because, at the time, the HDD was often the bottleneck.
Not so much in terms of speed, but in access time.
A RAID or caching controller will make access more immediate, more smooth.
And the more intelligent SCSI did feature things like NCQ years before SATA..

Speaking of SCSI.. I was using an SCSI controller and a 2GB drive in my Pentium 166 MMX at the time.
I don't remember it being slow, the PC ran XP ok, too.

I remember reading online somewhaere that SCSI, unlike Good old PATA/IDE was more of a pain to setup where PATA/IDE was pretty much Plug 'N' Play, SCSI was like"Plug In, Set it up, do some things in the bios, do some other things and now your good to go.

I mean in Comparison to SATA, SCSI and IDE are definitely slow, but c'mon, everyone knows that.

lawyerpepper wrote on 2022-03-02, 13:39:

"Operating System and Core Programs Drive: Samsung 60GB 5400rpm IDE, ATA, PATA Internal Hard Disk Drives - $8.67 […]
Show full quote

"Operating System and Core Programs Drive: Samsung 60GB 5400rpm IDE, ATA, PATA Internal Hard Disk Drives - $8.67

>My inner modern PC Builder Instincts were figting so hard when choosing this, I know for a solid fact that PATA/IDE is far slower than SATA, and even in the HDD space 5400rpm is slow compared to 7500rpm, but this is where my lack of knowledge in Old-School PC Hard Drives really shows.

Video Games Drive: Samsung HM121HC 2.5 120 GB /5400RPM/8M/IDE-PATA Hard Drive For laptop HDD - $26.99

>I like having my games all installed for convenience so I doubled up on the boot drives Storage."

If you want period-correct high-end storage, SCSI is where it's at. It's a (very little) bit more work, but you'll get a real performance boost. A sample part list:

Adaptec 2940U2W PCI SCSI controller: $20 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/224862328825?hash=it … s8AAOSwknNiHi1T)
15,000 RPM Ultra-320 HDD: $40 (example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/264679134949?hash=it … 0IAAOSw4rZee3kI)
68-pin internal SCSI cable: $30 (https://www.amazon.com/Generic-device-Ribbon- … s/dp/B01LZJ5QJF)
SCSI terminator: $20 (https://www.amazon.com/Active-SCSI-3-68-Pin-T … 9&s=electronics)

So, for ~$110 you'll have a storage subsystem that will absolutely outperform any period-correct IDE drive. Individual drives up to 146GB are easy to find, and SCSI will handle up to 15 drives with the right cabling (4 with the cable I posted). There are even faster SCSI standards & controllers out there, but the 2940U2W is suppported OOTB by Win98 and every other version of Windows post-NT 4.0, so I'd stick with that if you're new to SCSI. If you want to futz with drivers a bit, you could jump up to an Adaptec 39160 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/304378822129?hash=it … rUAAOSwI6ViHmlm). Drivers for the entire Adpatec line are still avaialble online here: https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/support/scsi

SCSI is a bit different, but if you want the best of the early 2000's, it's a strong option.

When Mid 2023 Rocks around and I'm ready to buy the parts, I might just consider giving SCSI a try, as a newbie, any advice you have on what NOT to do when building the PC?

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:44:

leileilol wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:33:

LBA support concerns for massive data loss is a possibility. With large 120gb+ drives, It only feels safe starting from XP.

I don't know how many of us stores important data without backup on retro gaming PCs with 20+ years old hard drives. Imho data loss is a non-issue at best and an inconvenience at worst.

Drives larger than 127 GB are not correctly recognized by Windows 98. Using one will result in data corruption over time.

Which is why many of us here use 120 GB SSDs with SATA to IDE adapters on our retro rigs.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-03-02, 20:24:

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:44:

leileilol wrote on 2022-03-02, 11:33:

LBA support concerns for massive data loss is a possibility. With large 120gb+ drives, It only feels safe starting from XP.

I don't know how many of us stores important data without backup on retro gaming PCs with 20+ years old hard drives. Imho data loss is a non-issue at best and an inconvenience at worst.

Drives larger than 127 GB are not correctly recognized by Windows 98. Using one will result in data corruption over time.

Which is why many of us here use 120 GB SSDs with SATA to IDE adapters on our retro rigs.

Yeah, I'm aware, just got a bit confused. We were discussing whether a 60GB drive like the one I use is enough or OP needs a bigger one. He was thinking about 80 and 120GB drives.

From what I remember the hot setup in about 2002-2003 was two IDE 36GB Raptors in RAID 0 plus a WD160BB (capped) for main storage.

SCSI, (scuzzy) in general:

IDE limits you to two drives per channel and a very finite number of channels. Usually around two.

SCSI has a long cable and a number of drives more closely approaching n.

IIRC,
Each drive will have to be jupered to an ID - like master or slave with IDE, but for more entities than in American society.
And the last drive on the cable will also need a "terminator" activated or added to the end of the cable. That's living tissue over a metal endoskeleton, much like with thin ethernet coax LAN.

There is, among many other things, SCSI, SCSI-2, wide SCSI, ultra wide SCSI, ludicrous SCSI and plaid SCSI. Each comes with a gigantic tapeworm of a cable and connectors imported from the 3rd moon of Neptune, costing a thousand dollars each, wholesale.

Apart from the higher number of drives, it was known to put less strain on the CPU, doing more on it's own.
Which is why I got a very inexpensive SCSI-2 controller for my first CD-ROM and -toaster combination.
Since I managed to set that up back in 1999, it can't be too hard as long as you're drunk.
But SCSI-2 with two drives really is for starters.

Of course, there even is "serial attached SCSI" (sacsuzzy) around, for modern times.

I have at least one VLB and one PCI SCSI controller with RAM banks back on the heap, that once cost someone's firstborn, but no intention of using it any time soon. Too much of a rabbit hole.

But since you asked - you don't have swag until you have SCSI.

SCSI in 4 easy steps...

Step 1: Own a number, n, boxes of SCSI bits, cables, drives, terminators, interface cards, adapters.
Step 2: Determine that the number of boxes of of SCSI stuff you have to go through testing everything that plugs into anything else to get a complete SCSI setup is n+1
Step 3: Acquire additional box lots of SCSI equipment, cables etc.
Step 4: Go to Step 1.

Regressed93 wrote on 2022-03-02, 20:24:

[...]

When Mid 2023 Rocks around and I'm ready to buy the parts, I might just consider giving SCSI a try, as a newbie, any advice you have on what NOT to do when building the PC?

Complexity.

For your first build, keep it simple. Aim at one target (i.e. late Windows 98 on overpowered hardware), don't also try to make it do DOS, WinXP and the kitchen sink. It can be fun to see how broad you can go, but that's for later.

Also, don't over-obsess over specific parts unless you have a very strong sentimental reason. That massively drives up price and time involved, when it really doesn't matter usually- compared to anything new, your vintage system will be incredibly slow, and say the difference between a Gf4Ti 4600 unobtainium vs a Gf4Ti4200 is utterly negligible in comparison (as it was back in the day too, I went for a nice cheap Ti4200 and overclocked it a bit 😉 ), let alone one specific brand/model.

Finally, once you have the hardare, don't forget drivers. Windows 98 is pretty unforgiving there. First of all you need chipset drivers (including storage!), then VGA drivers, after that the rest one by one. Installing VGA before chipset or totally forgetting chipset is asking for poor performance and/or an unstable system.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-02, 21:14:

SCSI in 4 easy steps... […]
Show full quote

SCSI in 4 easy steps...

Step 1: Own a number, n, boxes of SCSI bits, cables, drives, terminators, interface cards, adapters.
Step 2: Determine that the number of boxes of of SCSI stuff you have to go through testing everything that plugs into anything else to get a complete SCSI setup is n+1
Step 3: Acquire additional box lots of SCSI equipment, cables etc.
Step 4: Go to Step 1.

😀, but it's not really that bad. I provided a complete BOM for a basic SCSI storage subsystem with links, and it's not really any harder than dealing IDE primary/secondary channle, master/slave/cable select, UDMA/PIO mode, CHS/LBA addressing limits, etc. It's just a bit different. For a little bit of learning, you will end up with a faster disk i/o system with far fewer addressing-mode limits since SCSI has been LBA since day one.

lawyerpepper wrote on 2022-03-02, 21:39:

[...]

😀, but it's not really that bad. I provided a complete BOM for a basic SCSI storage subsystem with links, and it's not really any harder than dealing IDE primary/secondary channle, master/slave/cable select, UDMA/PIO mode, CHS/LBA addressing limits, etc. It's just a bit different. For a little bit of learning, you will end up with a faster disk i/o system with far fewer addressing-mode limits since SCSI has been LBA since day one.

SCSI itself: yes. But there are definitely card ROMs out there that can't handle big disks. A year or so ago I did a comparison of two different AHA-2940U (probably the commonest PCI SCSI card) revisions and multiple BIOS versions. Early BIOS didn't work with drives over 8GB...

If you have to have a mechanical hard disk, SCSI is one of the options, but tbh, we're talking '00s here and a board with SATA. I'd sooner recommend a WD (Veloci)Raptor disk, i.e. the innards of a fast SCSI disk with a SATA interface. No need for a separate SCSI host card, no issues with temperamental cabling and termination (or indeed figuring out SCSI IDs etc) and still at least the same performance.

OP did say he wanted "consumer" stuff though. SCSI isn't really that and neither are the Raptors. But then again, your average consumer didn't buy a Gf4Ti4600 either...

dionb wrote on 2022-03-02, 23:28:

SCSI itself: yes. But there are definitely card ROMs out there that can't handle big disks. A year or so ago I did a comparison […]
Show full quote

lawyerpepper wrote on 2022-03-02, 21:39:

[...]

😀, but it's not really that bad. I provided a complete BOM for a basic SCSI storage subsystem with links, and it's not really any harder than dealing IDE primary/secondary channle, master/slave/cable select, UDMA/PIO mode, CHS/LBA addressing limits, etc. It's just a bit different. For a little bit of learning, you will end up with a faster disk i/o system with far fewer addressing-mode limits since SCSI has been LBA since day one.

SCSI itself: yes. But there are definitely card ROMs out there that can't handle big disks. A year or so ago I did a comparison of two different AHA-2940U (probably the commonest PCI SCSI card) revisions and multiple BIOS versions. Early BIOS didn't work with drives over 8GB...

If you have to have a mechanical hard disk, SCSI is one of the options, but tbh, we're talking '00s here and a board with SATA. I'd sooner recommend a WD (Veloci)Raptor disk, i.e. the innards of a fast SCSI disk with a SATA interface. No need for a separate SCSI host card, no issues with temperamental cabling and termination (or indeed figuring out SCSI IDs etc) and still at least the same performance.

OP did say he wanted "consumer" stuff though. SCSI isn't really that and neither are the Raptors. But then again, your average consumer didn't buy a Gf4Ti4600 either...

Sure, if you’ve got SATA, just do that. Pretty much all the IDE cruft is out of the picture there. Kinda boring IMHO, but easy and reliable to be sure.

lawyerpepper wrote on 2022-03-02, 23:58:

[...]

Sure, if you’ve got SATA, just do that. Pretty much all the IDE cruft is out of the picture there. Kinda boring IMHO, but easy and reliable to be sure.

OP is new to the game and has selected a motherboard with two SATA ports. So boring, easy and reliable would be the way to go IMHO. Once he's confident with that he can always look at less straightforward things.