Two popular RTS games at the time are Starcraft and the first Age of Empires which both works fine on a Pentium 200 CPU (coverage will be good up to 1998) and don't require 3D hardware capability to play them.

There's a few decent 3D RTSes around the turn of the millennium that's worth having that P4 for, like Empire Earth and Ground Control. WinXP reluctancy was a thing so the "98 period correct era" could potentially stretch up to 2006.

Indeed I didn't upgrade till end of 2005 but then I was till running a P2 400. RTS's that were starting to struggle were:

Empire Earth, System requirements P2 350, 8 MB video card
WW3 Black Gold, Recommend hardware P3 450, 64MB Ram
C&C Generals, Recommend hardware P4 1.8, 256MB Ram, GF3

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-05, 20:29:

I specify that I DO NOT like FPS games apart from DOMM 1&2 so I don't need 3D power for Unreal, Quake etc etc, I'm more into C&C style games. I searched for games popular in the W98 period and found no indication of the power required by NON fps games.

minimum requirements printed on game boxes are supposed to be that, but could often be really off the mark.

generally speaking, for 2D stuff, 8-bit color games will run fine on pentium-class machines save for the very last crop (aoe2, diablo2), while 16-bit color games at least need a p2 and often even benefit from fast p3s, as they also tended to up the resolution. tiberian sun was a hog that slows down a lot on fast p2s, but they still only printed a p166 requirement onto it.

I found my PIII 900 to be good enough until 2003 for all kinds of games - FPS, RTS, simulators, sports games. Also those late Windows 98 games were quite good unlike the early ones. Due to my own experience I would highly recommend one of PIII, Duron, Athlon (XP), P4 whatever is available to you. These are usually not powerful enough for mid-late Windows XP games but will do fine in Windows 98. I use PIII only because it also serves as my DOS rig. I have Athlon/XP sitting in drawer.

I have to specify why I was not clear. The Pentium 200/233 doesn't have to cover the entire gaming period of win98, I would like to use win98 because I find it more complete than w95, easier to install with all the drivers, including the USB ones. The P200/233 should primarily serve as a PC DOS where the DX4 can't get enough horsepower plus run the operating system to use it as a file manager, file copy, no hard work. It will actually have to run win9.x games up to about 1997/98 max. I have to make a boot menu as suggested by someone and use dos7 instead of 6.22 since I seem to have understood that it is even better. I'm just afraid that games like screamer2 or they work badly... For the very few titles that require high performance in win98 I would use the Pentium4, I just wanted to know if the P200/233 can cover that gaming range or if it already struggles with 1996 games .

pentium 200 doesn't struggle with 1996 games, unless you try to do things like run quake in high resolution modes.

Quake's out of the question though, it's Total Annihilation you should worry about. 😀

i've not tested much of the original TA, but a pii 300 seemed like it can deliver a quite playable experience in 1024x768 with everything on, while 640x480 felt like it scrolled way too fast. so i'm thinking a p200 should be able to play it in 640x480. now kingdoms bumped up color depth to 16-bit, while having some kind of strange setup with limited 3d acceleration for certain effects or something, so that one is a lot more intensive.

found a review from back in the day with some performance discussion: http://www.dansdata.com/tak.htm

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-06, 19:49:

I have to specify why I was not clear. The Pentium 200/233 doesn't have to cover the entire gaming period of win98, I would like to use win98 because I find it more complete than w95, easier to install with all the drivers, including the USB ones. The P200/233 should primarily serve as a PC DOS where the DX4 can't get enough horsepower plus run the operating system to use it as a file manager, file copy, no hard work. It will actually have to run win9.x games up to about 1997/98 max. I have to make a boot menu as suggested by someone and use dos7 instead of 6.22 since I seem to have understood that it is even better. I'm just afraid that games like screamer2 or they work badly... For the very few titles that require high performance in win98 I would use the Pentium4, I just wanted to know if the P200/233 can cover that gaming range or if it already struggles with 1996 games .

Do you have a P4-board with ISA-slot? You say you want to run DOS games on it when the DX4 is too slow, but that might be problematic without an ISA soundcard.

HanSolo wrote on 2023-01-07, 11:55:

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-06, 19:49:

I have to specify why I was not clear. The Pentium 200/233 doesn't have to cover the entire gaming period of win98, I would like to use win98 because I find it more complete than w95, easier to install with all the drivers, including the USB ones. The P200/233 should primarily serve as a PC DOS where the DX4 can't get enough horsepower plus run the operating system to use it as a file manager, file copy, no hard work. It will actually have to run win9.x games up to about 1997/98 max. I have to make a boot menu as suggested by someone and use dos7 instead of 6.22 since I seem to have understood that it is even better. I'm just afraid that games like screamer2 or they work badly... For the very few titles that require high performance in win98 I would use the Pentium4, I just wanted to know if the P200/233 can cover that gaming range or if it already struggles with 1996 games .

Do you have a P4-board with ISA-slot? You say you want to run DOS games on it when the DX4 is too slow, but that might be problematic without an ISA soundcard.

As I read it, he wants this P200 to run the fast DOS games, not the P4 😉

I'm not totally sure a P200 is fast enough to cover all of the last, fastest DOS games. I ran a similar setup but occasionally noticed thing slowing down, so I moved my late DOS setup to a P3-450. For old DOS I use a 486SX-33 (well, UMC U5S-33 actually) with turbo button. I find anything will run on one or the other. For Win98 I have a P3-1400S. Anything too demanding for that will run on my Ryzen 😉

Note that I'm not after 'period correct' in terms of speed. I lived through that period and was constantly frustrated by thing running too slowly and - worse - being unresponsive. No need for that anymore, which is why I run software on hardware a generation or two newer than would have been the case. If you do want the 'authentic' feel of being hardware-limited, by all means go for hardware that was contemporary to your software.

dionb wrote on 2023-01-07, 12:18:

As I read it, he wants this P200 to run the fast DOS games, not the P4 ;) […]
Show full quote

HanSolo wrote on 2023-01-07, 11:55:

AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-06, 19:49:

I have to specify why I was not clear. The Pentium 200/233 doesn't have to cover the entire gaming period of win98, I would like to use win98 because I find it more complete than w95, easier to install with all the drivers, including the USB ones. The P200/233 should primarily serve as a PC DOS where the DX4 can't get enough horsepower plus run the operating system to use it as a file manager, file copy, no hard work. It will actually have to run win9.x games up to about 1997/98 max. I have to make a boot menu as suggested by someone and use dos7 instead of 6.22 since I seem to have understood that it is even better. I'm just afraid that games like screamer2 or they work badly... For the very few titles that require high performance in win98 I would use the Pentium4, I just wanted to know if the P200/233 can cover that gaming range or if it already struggles with 1996 games .

Do you have a P4-board with ISA-slot? You say you want to run DOS games on it when the DX4 is too slow, but that might be problematic without an ISA soundcard.

As I read it, he wants this P200 to run the fast DOS games, not the P4 😉

I'm not totally sure a P200 is fast enough to cover all of the last, fastest DOS games. I ran a similar setup but occasionally noticed thing slowing down, so I moved my late DOS setup to a P3-450. For old DOS I use a 486SX-33 (well, UMC U5S-33 actually) with turbo button. I find anything will run on one or the other. For Win98 I have a P3-1400S. Anything too demanding for that will run on my Ryzen 😉

Note that I'm not after 'period correct' in terms of speed. I lived through that period and was constantly frustrated by thing running too slowly and - worse - being unresponsive. No need for that anymore, which is why I run software on hardware a generation or two newer than would have been the case. If you do want the 'authentic' feel of being hardware-limited, by all means go for hardware that was contemporary to your software.

Yes you hit the point, I'm in the same situation as you with a very similar setup. I spent almost all of my best time on the DX2 because I bought it right after it came out (huge amount of money) and kept it a little longer. The DX2 has been the fastest cpu for a longer period of time than the average of other cpu's, for this reason and the fact that I got it right away I don't have (at least at the beginning) any memories of slow games. That's why I wanted to recreate that experience by buying the IBM PC330 DX4, to have an original experience of the time in which I didn't suffer from slowdowns for a long time.

On the other hand, like many of us, we are now used to having very fluid games. For this reason I had also taken the Pentium200, unfortunately I don't remember exactly when I stopped playing "seriously" and for this reason I can't focus on a power limit in which I don't need any more power. I probably made a mistake in choosing the Pentium200 because clocked at 75 it is too close to the DX4 and POD83 and at higher frequencies "perhaps" it is not able to guarantee me all the power I need. I also bought the P4 (very cheaply) to remedy this, but the fact that it doesn't have ISA slots and seems too new doesn't make me happy with my choices. I could maybe sell the P200 (if someone could be interested, ask me) and maybe the P4 and get a Pentium III, obviously it looks like IBM since I collect them. The fact that I can't remember when I stopped playing and the fact that at the time we played jerky games has probably already made me make bad choices.

dionb wrote on 2023-01-07, 12:18:

I'm not totally sure a P200 is fast enough to cover all of the last, fastest DOS games. I ran a similar setup but occasionally noticed thing slowing down, so I moved my late DOS setup to a P3-450. For old DOS I use a 486SX-33 (well, UMC U5S-33 actually) with turbo button. I find anything will run on one or the other. For Win98 I have a P3-1400S. Anything too demanding for that will run on my Ryzen 😉

Note that I'm not after 'period correct' in terms of speed. I lived through that period and was constantly frustrated by thing running too slowly and - worse - being unresponsive. No need for that anymore, which is why I run software on hardware a generation or two newer than would have been the case. If you do want the 'authentic' feel of being hardware-limited, by all means go for hardware that was contemporary to your software.

i don't know how that UMC performs exactly, but all those bullfrog games like magic carpet would likely work badly on either PC - a tad too slow in VGA on one and too fast even in SVGA on the other. i'll always take a bit of slowdown but have a game work as intended over breaking on a too fast machine.

by the way, ut99 will hit over 100fps and break on a decent ~2.5ghz p4 and was probably a case of upgrading causing people some headaches back in the day, because i don't think capping was a thing before 3rd party renderers (that even later you had to know to download) and vsync being unattractive in a fast multiplayer title.

Ah I read it wrong I thought you were wanting the P200 to cover most of the 9x era due to space constraints.

You may get away with the P4 for dos, as you do have the 486 or P200 to fall back on for troublesome games that need something slower.
I'd just do a test install of Win98, install the games and quick test to make a list of what does and doesn't work. I suspect the majority that are too slow on the P200 will be fine on the P4 as even a P200 is fairly high in dos gaming world so would be very late dos titles.

If it works out then you can worry about what dos compatible sound card to use, I wouldn't start spending money just yet though.

But yes something like a P3 with ISA would be the ideal solution but I always say start with what you already have!

I did some quick tests and the games that started were very fast, even windows98 was very fast. now I have to see how to optimize it and run a sound card that I have installed which is PCI with ES1938S chip and I think it is compatible.

auron wrote on 2023-01-07, 05:46:

i've not tested much of the original TA, but a pii 300 seemed like it can deliver a quite playable experience in 1024x768 with everything on, while 640x480 felt like it scrolled way too fast. so i'm thinking a p200 should be able to play it in 640x480. now kingdoms bumped up color depth to 16-bit, while having some kind of strange setup with limited 3d acceleration for certain effects or something, so that one is a lot more intensive.

found a review from back in the day with some performance discussion: http://www.dansdata.com/tak.htm

It will depend a lot on what you will do with it.
If you play just the campaign, you will get away with way lower system requirements than if you try out a huge map with higher max unit limit in skirmish mode. The latter made my P2 350MHz with 128MB RAM crawl.
Tip: If you find you are lagging way too much, send a couple nukes it can improve FPS dramatically 😜

Btw, there are also a lot of awesome mods made for TA. If you're interested in stuff like maps and units and mods for TA you should check out tauniverse.com. That site has been around for ages.

TA will even get a modern computer on his knees if you play with 5k units or more per player on larger maps... (nothing 1k stealth fighters can't fix by flying over the enemies base).
Still play it with some mods and extra units today, but as Tetrium said the campaign will run well on P3 systems and up with higher resolutions.

I am using a deskpro 2000 with a 166mmx cpu at the moment for DOS and most games run really good.
My next step is 98/xp hybrid on a pentium 4 2,4. Those 2 cover so far every game.