VivienM wrote on 2023-08-27, 18:19:

Oh well, this is a long term project. Let's just focus on acquiring some good flexible parts first... and I think that starts with an Audigy 2 ZS...

If you're thinking about sound cards, also give the Aureal Vortex 2 sound cards some consideration. They supported A3D 2.0 which offered superior 3D positional sound for that era.

VivienM wrote on 2023-08-27, 17:54:

dormcat wrote on 2023-08-27, 17:38:

Could this one be yours or similar to yours? Picked up by an YouTuber 9 years ago from e-waste.

While only had AGP 1.0 (2x), it did have an ISA slot, as well as Voyetra Turtle Beach 64 Voice Montego II as the default sound card. Hope you didn't recycle it together with the system......

Mine had an SB Live Value, not a Turtle Beach card.

I'm trying to remember what the other options when I ordered that machine were. I feel like there was a Turtle Beach option but I don't remember the Montego name. My T700r would have been one of the last ones ordered; the 4100 with the i815 chipset came out maybe a week or two after I ordered mine. Makes me wonder if the Montego (which Dell appears to have been using in 1998) might have been replaced with a newer Turtle Beach option by late June 2000.

This was peak old-fashioned Dell, though, I'm pretty sure they had 4-5 options for sound cards. I think there might also have been a different motherboard option with something onboard. Dell was amazing back then - order a system on Thursday and on Tuesday mid-day, your custom-built system turned up in Ottawa, ON. And their machines were so much better than anything else a teenager could convince parents to drop thousands of dollars on...

I remember deliberately picking the Creative card though. I was coming from an IBM-nee-Acer Aptiva with a very lousy Crystal something, and I was hanging out on IBM Aptiva newsgroups at the time where people with real IBM machines were regularly complaining about the disaster known as Mwave (and getting money from IBM to buy a real sound card), so... something just convinced me the Creative card was the safe bet.

Lovely card. It was amazing hearing ICQ/AIM sounds while playing MP3s, which the Crystal piece of garbage could not do...

Roman555 wrote on 2023-08-27, 18:23:

VivienM wrote on 2023-08-26, 14:43:

So... for some strange reason, I am intrigued by the idea of building a Win98 SE box. I think I've been lurking here too long.

In an ideal world, I'd probably get an Asrock 775i65g, but those no longer seem to exist. i865/ICH5 AGP/DDR1 boards with, ideally, support for 45nm processors (I have both a Q8300 and an E5200 sitting around) but even 65nm are... again, rather hard to find. I would really rather avoid going 90nm Pentium 4/Ds (although I did impulsively buy a very cheap 945 on eBay last week).
...

Some i945 motherboards do support 45nm Wolfdale CPU. What 's the model and hardware revision of yours?

Sorry, I meant a 945 Pentium D CPU. Not sure why I bought it really other than it was really really cheap and I figured that if I was going to end up doing something with hotburst P4s, the 945 is probably among the least bad. 65nm (probably a problem for motherboard compatibility though... but the universe of i865 boards that support 65nm hotbursts is broader than the universe that supports 45nm C2Ds/C2Qs), much less dreadful power consumption than the earlier 90nm ones, etc.

It was an impulse purchase really - I was looking at Wikipedia's charts of hotburst specs, the 945 stood out, I put in the newest stepping code in eBay, and something very cheap (from a Canadian seller - always good to avoid international shipping) turned up. Which seemed surprising because normally, eBay tends to have a big premium for the most desirable CPUs of any generation... but I guess we're talking hotbursts and the 945 isn't technically the 'best' of the 9xx hotbursts, just the one of the newest.

VivienM wrote on 2023-08-27, 18:41:

Sorry, I meant a 945 Pentium D CPU.

I really misunderstood. But 65nm Pentium D is not so hot. Especially for Win98 where only one core is used.

I had another idea - was looking at some Shuttle small-factor Socket 462 systems, but to be honest... I'm finding shopping for a Windows 9SE rig utterly depressing. Seems like I'm 3 years late to the party. Athlon XPs of any reasonable speed cost about what I paid for a C2Q Q9650 (and that one was at a premium price because it's the fastest of that generation). A GeForce 4 Ti4200 costs more than what I paid for a 7970. Almost nothing from North American sellers on eBay, at least North American sellers that will ship to Canada.

Just seems like there are still tons of reasonably priced, high-performing options for an XP machine whether 45nm LGA775 or Ivy Bridge (the only two I've looked at at all), but everything Win98-friendly and highly regarded around here has become seriously scarce. I guess everybody had a 98SE pandemic project...

VivienM wrote on 2023-08-30, 00:58:

I guess everybody had a 98SE pandemic project...

In addition to more time staying at home, the pandemic also promoted a wave of new computers (laptops with long battery lives and hi-rez webcams in particular) so many people would retire their old (but working) computers of P4 / Core 2 era.

I put together a similar system with GA-G31M-ES2L + C2D E8500+ Radeon X600 and Windows 98SE works perfectly, no problems.

VivienM wrote on 2023-08-30, 00:58:

Just seems like there are still tons of reasonably priced, high-performing options for an XP machine whether 45nm LGA775 or Ivy Bridge (the only two I've looked at at all), but everything Win98-friendly and highly regarded around here has become seriously scarce. I guess everybody had a 98SE pandemic project...

You may be interested in a Phil's video about Windows 98 on similar hardware. I mean what you'll get if you build a cheap LGA775 system.
https://youtu.be/eDqDIY5NrIA?si=a-krlZGWNwGezPvS

Roman555 wrote on 2023-08-31, 11:06:

VivienM wrote on 2023-08-30, 00:58:

Just seems like there are still tons of reasonably priced, high-performing options for an XP machine whether 45nm LGA775 or Ivy Bridge (the only two I've looked at at all), but everything Win98-friendly and highly regarded around here has become seriously scarce. I guess everybody had a 98SE pandemic project...

You may be interested in a Phil's video about Windows 98 on similar hardware. I mean what you'll get if you build a cheap LGA775 system.
https://youtu.be/eDqDIY5NrIA?si=a-krlZGWNwGezPvS

I wonder if I watched it already or not, I've watched a lot of his videos (in fact, I had a browser tab sitting neglected with one of his socket 754 videos). And actually... I wonder if this video might have been part of the inspiration for my original idea of a G41/ICH7 board.

It's not clear to me what south bridge he's running on there, I think I saw something indicating it's a G31 so I'm going to assume it's an ICH7.

I'm very curious why he went with a PCI video card rather than a PCI-e card, which I am pretty sure he's used in other Win98 videos.

He mentions a P43 motherboard in this video, I presume he's done another video with that one (and I may have watched it). That intrigues me very much because, assuming that I manage to buy my friend's ivy bridge box and turn that into my XP box, I already have a P43/ICH10R full system I can play with. I even have a 30 gig SSD that I was planning to e-waste, but... knowing Win98 SE likes drives under 32 gigs, I might as well try to reuse it instead. But I need a 98SE-friendly video card first and foremost to experiment with that...

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-01, 00:08:

I wonder if I watched it already or not, I've watched a lot of his videos (in fact, I had a browser tab sitting neglected with o […]
Show full quote

Roman555 wrote on 2023-08-31, 11:06:

VivienM wrote on 2023-08-30, 00:58:

Just seems like there are still tons of reasonably priced, high-performing options for an XP machine whether 45nm LGA775 or Ivy Bridge (the only two I've looked at at all), but everything Win98-friendly and highly regarded around here has become seriously scarce. I guess everybody had a 98SE pandemic project...

You may be interested in a Phil's video about Windows 98 on similar hardware. I mean what you'll get if you build a cheap LGA775 system.
https://youtu.be/eDqDIY5NrIA?si=a-krlZGWNwGezPvS

I wonder if I watched it already or not, I've watched a lot of his videos (in fact, I had a browser tab sitting neglected with one of his socket 754 videos). And actually... I wonder if this video might have been part of the inspiration for my original idea of a G41/ICH7 board.

It's not clear to me what south bridge he's running on there, I think I saw something indicating it's a G31 so I'm going to assume it's an ICH7.

I'm very curious why he went with a PCI video card rather than a PCI-e card, which I am pretty sure he's used in other Win98 videos.

He mentions a P43 motherboard in this video, I presume he's done another video with that one (and I may have watched it). That intrigues me very much because, assuming that I manage to buy my friend's ivy bridge box and turn that into my XP box, I already have a P43/ICH10R full system I can play with. I even have a 30 gig SSD that I was planning to e-waste, but... knowing Win98 SE likes drives under 32 gigs, I might as well try to reuse it instead. But I need a 98SE-friendly video card first and foremost to experiment with that...

Yes, both G31 and G41 based systems are always coupled with ICH7.
What about PCI graphics FX5xxx - IMO because it's PCI card so definitely it's win9x-compatible (an interface and a driver) and it can be purchased new on ebay or ali.
I suppose the main problem for any wn9x PCI-e system is to find a working PCI-e win9x-compatible graphics. NVidia's GF6xxx or GF7xxx chips have well known flaw with their compound.
Bumpgate: The destroyer of GeForce 7000/8000 series cards?

Roman555 wrote on 2023-09-01, 08:41:

What about PCI graphics FX5xxx - IMO because it's PCI card so definitely it's win9x-compatible (an interface and a driver) and it can be purchased new on ebay or ali.

I'd have my doubts about those "new" PCI cards. They often turn out to be Frankenstein cards.
ATI Radeon 7500 PCI not working
China makes a lot of these. Though most often they make fake modern graphics cards with couple of years EOL GPUs and modified BIOS.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-09-01, 08:58:

I'd have my doubts about those "new" PCI cards. They often turn out to be Frankenstein cards. ATI Radeon 7500 PCI not working Ch […]
Show full quote

Roman555 wrote on 2023-09-01, 08:41:

What about PCI graphics FX5xxx - IMO because it's PCI card so definitely it's win9x-compatible (an interface and a driver) and it can be purchased new on ebay or ali.

I'd have my doubts about those "new" PCI cards. They often turn out to be Frankenstein cards.
ATI Radeon 7500 PCI not working
China makes a lot of these. Though most often they make fake modern graphics cards with couple of years EOL GPUs and modified BIOS.

They also have PCI color of MATROX G450 😉

Bought two PCI-E cards for W98SE system, ATI X700PRO died after some weeks, second GF7600GS still alive so far, but want buy another X700 (unlucky non PRO only) as backup. Some GF 6xxx, 7xxx or ATI X3xx up to 8xx are still available and work in W98 (yes, GF7xxx line with modded drivers only). So, is´nt impossible to make build with PCI-E GFX on W98.

Ydee wrote on 2023-09-01, 11:09:

Bought two PCI-E cards for W98SE system, ATI X700PRO died after some weeks, second GF7600GS still alive so far, but want buy another X700 (unlucky non PRO only) as backup. Some GF 6xxx, 7xxx or ATI X3xx up to 8xx are still available and work in W98 (yes, GF7xxx line with modded drivers only). So, is´nt impossible to make build with PCI-E GFX on W98.

What chipset is your motherboard running?

It's not Intel, it's AMD - but it's also officially unsupported, no W98/ME drivers. It's AMD 780 (renamed AMD760G) on https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/K8A780LM/ .
Only ACPI support needed to be turned off when installing W98SE (switch /p i). For SATA HDD (640GB dualboot W98SE/WXP), I used patches from R.Loew, as well as for 2GB DDR SDRAM. Onboard LAN Realtek has a driver for the W98 official.
Audio is nuts, there is no driver for W98 for VIA HD Audio VT1708, but I turned the codec off and use SB Live! in the PCI slot. There's still a problem with not supporting audio in DOS (emulation of SB16 doesn't work), but I only use this system for 98/XP games, so it doesn't matter.

If you use a graphics card with a driver for W98, you won't have any problem with the Intel chipset you're thinking of. For PCI-E, it's the GF6xxx and 7xxx series, with ATI's X300, X600, X700 and X8xx.
GeForce 7xxx have an unofficial modified driver, and installation is sometimes a little more complicated, but nothing major. Series 6xxx and all ATI have drivers official.

Because I have a soft spot for ATI, the X700 was my first choice (the X8xx are rarely on offer and expensive in the area where I live), I bought the Pro version for $15. Unfortunately, after a few weeks she died. Now I've got a GF 7600GS for $5 and there's another X700 on the way, only basic model, not PRO. You can see the performance of both cards in 3DM2001 on the photo.

I just wanted to let you know that even on unsupported hw it is possible to install and use W98 OS without issues.

Ydee wrote on 2023-09-02, 09:22:

It's not Intel, it's AMD - but it's also officially unsupported, no W98/ME drivers. It's AMD 780 (renamed AMD760G) on https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/K8A780LM/ .

Just curious, would you please post a pic of your device manager? How many devices do you have with exclamation marks?

mockingbird wrote on 2023-09-08, 14:22:

Just curious, would you please post a pic of your device manager? How many devices do you have with exclamation marks?

If it's of interest, I just completed my new Win98SE build using a LGA775 motherboard with PCIe graphics and only have a single exclamation mark in device manager. Details here.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-09-08, 14:56:

mockingbird wrote on 2023-09-08, 14:22:

Just curious, would you please post a pic of your device manager? How many devices do you have with exclamation marks?

If it's of interest, I just completed my new Win98SE build using a LGA775 motherboard with PCIe graphics and only have a single exclamation mark in device manager. Details here.

I am very tempted to try following your instructions on my own P43 board. I guess I just need a video card, that's the real problem... and I am a bit hesitant to spend eBay money on one of these cards unless I am confident it works.

That being said, I should be able to at least get 640x480 on a much newer card, right? Enough to know the rest of the board runs 98SE fineish...

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-08, 18:06:

I am very tempted to try following your instructions on my own P43 board. I guess I just need a video card, that's the real problem... and I am a bit hesitant to spend eBay money on one of these cards unless I am confident it works.

As long as your motherboard has a free PCI slot, you can just stick a cheap S3 Virge or something in there and it will work fine for any 2D games under Win9x.

As for PCIe cards, I was lucky enough to get my X800GTO for just 15 EUR locally. Try your local classifieds from time to time and see what pops up.

mockingbird wrote on 2023-09-08, 14:22:

Ydee wrote on 2023-09-02, 09:22:

It's not Intel, it's AMD - but it's also officially unsupported, no W98/ME drivers. It's AMD 780 (renamed AMD760G) on https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/K8A780LM/ .

Just curious, would you please post a pic of your device manager? How many devices do you have with exclamation marks?

Of course I can, here they are. I only have one exclamation mark there, and that's for the SB16 emulation, which unfortunately can't be activated because of the lack of chipset support, no support for DDMA or TDMA, only PC/PCI (missing header), LPC or F type DMA are supported.
When the emulation driver is installed, the OS gets stuck and after a while refuses to proceed, reporting that it stopped responding when the device is installed and that the driver will not be installed or something similar.

Strange, because with the same DDMA not supporting nForce3 chipset, the SB16 emulations for both Audigy1 and 2 and Live! work without problems. But as I wrote, I only use this build for W98 games (with OS W98) and so the missing audio at DOS doesn't bother me.