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Advice on retro gaming Windows 98 build

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Reply 60 of 454, by DustyShinigami

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Pity you can't edit posts... No, looks like the original is from 2000. Either way, not a priority.

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Pentium III Katmai 450MHz (SL35D)/Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: SK Hynix 128MB 100MHz/Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/Geforce 128MB 4 MX 440
Motherboard: MSI-6156/Abit BE6-II

Reply 61 of 454, by DustyShinigami

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CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2024-10-12, 06:06:
dormcat wrote on 2024-10-12, 05:11:

Joseph_Joestar pointed out that OP's list of games had a very large gap of fourteen years. Should OP decide to split that list for two computers then a (Super) Socket 7 build would be very fitting for the older half.

OP has lately pointed out that he probably should focus his build better and mainly towards the late 90s windows gaming and build the system based on that. It is IMO a good decision and with a system like that he can have also very good DOS compatibility with ISA sound card and slowing down the system when needed.

SS7 is a good option like I said, or tried to say, but IMO something like 440BX is better. Better mobo availability, more CPU options and availability. better performance and SS7 mobos are often more expensive. Thus and especially for the first build I wouldn’t put SS7 on top of the list.

Okay, I'll take a look into the 440BX. I *think* I actually picked that for setting up a test build in 86Box.

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Pentium III Katmai 450MHz (SL35D)/Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: SK Hynix 128MB 100MHz/Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/Geforce 128MB 4 MX 440
Motherboard: MSI-6156/Abit BE6-II

Reply 62 of 454, by DustyShinigami

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This is where I get very overwhelmed and confused... ^^; Looking at all the different machine and CPU types on 86Box, I really don't know what's what and what to pick. The 440BXs I see listed, are all listed as 'i'440BX. And there's a lot of them, too. And it looks like they can only be picked from [1997] Slot 1 machines. Only Pentium IIs are listed as well; haven't seen an option for III.

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Pentium III Katmai 450MHz (SL35D)/Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: SK Hynix 128MB 100MHz/Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/Geforce 128MB 4 MX 440
Motherboard: MSI-6156/Abit BE6-II

Reply 63 of 454, by myne

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By p3 you're basically talking directx 7.
Ie, a fairly modern and mature suite, and well supported today.

There's little to no reason to emulate a base machine that any modern machine can just simply run the software for or virtualise it without issue.

Also, the faster the base machine, the more power the host requires to emulate it exactly - and this is what those emulators try to do. Cycle accurate reproduction of the original hardware.

A p2 500 with a voodoo in x86 box could easily require the equivalent of 7ghz to run (spread across multiple cores and threads).

So... Yeah. The p3 doesn't exist because there's basically nothing quirky about the mature software apis of the time, the hardware was standardised around the apis, it would require too much power right now, and it'll all run fine enough in any generic virtualised environment.

It's just not special enough. Yet.

I built:
Convert old ASUS ASC boardviews to KICAD PCB!
Re: A comprehensive guide to install and play MechWarrior 2 on new versions on Windows.
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Re: The thing no one asked for: KICAD 440bx reference schematic

Reply 64 of 454, by VivienM

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DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-12, 12:12:

This is where I get very overwhelmed and confused... ^^; Looking at all the different machine and CPU types on 86Box, I really don't know what's what and what to pick. The 440BXs I see listed, are all listed as 'i'440BX. And there's a lot of them, too. And it looks like they can only be picked from [1997] Slot 1 machines. Only Pentium IIs are listed as well; haven't seen an option for III.

The 440BX (which may technically be called i440BX) is a chipset for Pentium 2/3 machines. Theoretically it could be paired with socket 370 CPUs as well, but in practice, that's relatively unusual except for some late high-end boards designed to run overclocked with a 133FSB Coppermine socket 370 processor. Vast majority of 440BX boards out there will be slot 1.

I haven't looked at this recently, but I thought 86box's developers were of the view that around a 450MHz CPU was the fastest they could emulate with modern hardware. If that's the case, that'd explain why they don't have any PIIIs.

Reply 65 of 454, by DustyShinigami

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VivienM wrote on 2024-10-12, 13:07:
DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-12, 12:12:

This is where I get very overwhelmed and confused... ^^; Looking at all the different machine and CPU types on 86Box, I really don't know what's what and what to pick. The 440BXs I see listed, are all listed as 'i'440BX. And there's a lot of them, too. And it looks like they can only be picked from [1997] Slot 1 machines. Only Pentium IIs are listed as well; haven't seen an option for III.

The 440BX (which may technically be called i440BX) is a chipset for Pentium 2/3 machines. Theoretically it could be paired with socket 370 CPUs as well, but in practice, that's relatively unusual except for some late high-end boards designed to run overclocked with a 133FSB Coppermine socket 370 processor. Vast majority of 440BX boards out there will be slot 1.

I haven't looked at this recently, but I thought 86box's developers were of the view that around a 450MHz CPU was the fastest they could emulate with modern hardware. If that's the case, that'd explain why they don't have any PIIIs.

Okay, thanks for clarifying. 😀

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Pentium III Katmai 450MHz (SL35D)/Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: SK Hynix 128MB 100MHz/Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/Geforce 128MB 4 MX 440
Motherboard: MSI-6156/Abit BE6-II

Reply 66 of 454, by DustyShinigami

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So, just to clarify, the Super Socket 7 motherboards will take a Pentium III CPU...? The ones I've seen listed say AMD K6-2...? The Pentium III CPUs listed on eBay UK are very cheap, which is good. 😀

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_ … katmai&_sacat=0

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Pentium III Katmai 450MHz (SL35D)/Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: SK Hynix 128MB 100MHz/Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/Geforce 128MB 4 MX 440
Motherboard: MSI-6156/Abit BE6-II

Reply 67 of 454, by VivienM

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DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-13, 11:31:

So, just to clarify, the Super Socket 7 motherboards will take a Pentium III CPU...? The ones I've seen listed say AMD K6-2...? The Pentium III CPUs listed on eBay UK are very cheap, which is good. 😀

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_ … katmai&_sacat=0

No, Pentium IIIs are slot 1 and socket 370. Generally speaking, 100MHz FSB Slot 1 chips are much pricier than socket 370 133MHz FSB chips.

There's a long history with chipsets, etc that explains that:
- 440BX is the original chipset, typically paired with slot 1, only supports up to 100MHz FSB. And generally comes with ISA.
- there's a chipset from VIA. VIA, enough said.
- i820 is RDRAM and best forgotten about
- i810 is low-end, does not offer AGP, only the first and lousiest Intel on-chipset graphics solution
- i815 was solid back in the day, supports 133MHz FSB, but almost no i815 boards have ISA and you want ISA for DOS-friendly sound cards, so i815 stuff is much less prized in the retro world

Reply 68 of 454, by DustyShinigami

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Hmm. Okay. Are there any other alternative mobos that support Pentium IIIs, are Slot 1, and are socket 370s? Looking at the 440BX, they're £100+. Just want to see my options and, obviously, get the best/cheapest deals I can. If not, would a Pentium II and a corresponding mobo be suitable?

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Pentium III Katmai 450MHz (SL35D)/Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: SK Hynix 128MB 100MHz/Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/Geforce 128MB 4 MX 440
Motherboard: MSI-6156/Abit BE6-II

Reply 69 of 454, by VivienM

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DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-13, 12:51:

Hmm. Okay. Are there any other alternative mobos that support Pentium IIIs, are Slot 1, and are socket 370s? Looking at the 440BX, they're £100+. Just want to see my options and, obviously, get the best/cheapest deals I can. If not, would a Pentium II and a corresponding mobo be suitable?

Pentium IIs are also 440BX and probably going to be about as scarce. If you want to save money, give up on DOS ISA sound cards, and get an i815 + socket 370 PIII. You'll get more MHz too...

Reply 70 of 454, by DudeFace

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DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:37:
Oh man, now you're asking... :P […]
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myne wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:00:

My advice is to put together a list of what you actually want to play.

Oh man, now you're asking... 😜

Let's see...

  • Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
  • Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror
  • The Secret of Monkey Island
  • Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
  • The Curse of Monkey Island
  • Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
  • Half-Life
  • Doom
  • Doom II
  • Blood
  • Indiana Jones and the Emporer's Tomb
  • Under a Killing Moon
  • The Pandora Directive (crashes in DOSBox at a specific area)
  • Tex Murphy: Overseer (a pain to get working and even then has issues)
  • Titanic: Adventure Out of Time
  • Dust: A Tale of the Wired West (unavailable to buy digitally)
  • Dr. Drago's Madcap Chase (unavailable to buy digitally and doesn't appear to work on modern OS)
  • Tomb Raider 1-5
  • Max Payne
  • Max Payne II: The Fall of Max Payne
  • Unreal
  • Wolfenstein 3D
  • Super Bubsy (unavailable to buy digitally and a pain to get working right, if at all)
  • Quake
  • Quake II
  • Possibly the Zork series
  • Theme Park
  • Theme Hospital
  • RollerCoaster Tycoon
  • Little Big Adventure
  • Little Big Adventure 2
  • Realms of the Haunting
  • Sam & Max Hit the Road
  • Day of the Tentacle
  • Full Throttle
  • Possibly Toonstruck
  • Possibly Sanitarium
  • Metal Gear Solid 1-2
  • Resident Evil 1-3
  • Possibly Alone in the Dark 1-3
  • Beneath a Steel Sky
  • Severance: Blade of Darkness
  • Blade Runner
  • Possibly Deus Ex 1-3
  • Discworld
  • Discworld 2
  • Discworld Noir (this one is unavailable to buy digitally and I'm not sure it works on modern OSs)
  • The Longest Journey
  • Duke Nukem 3D
  • Possibly Earthworm Jim
  • Outlaws
  • Final Fantasy VII
  • Gabriel Knight: SIns of the Fathers
  • Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within
  • Grim Fandango
  • Heretic
  • Hexen
  • Hexen II
  • Hogs of War (unavailable to buy digitally and I'm not sure whether it works on modern OSs)
  • Possibly I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
  • Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
  • Mafia
  • Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey
  • Oddworld: Abe's Exodus
  • Painkiller
  • Phantasmagoria
  • Psychonauts
  • Possibly the original Prince of Persia
  • Simon the Sorcerer (this and the sequel were played back in the day we had Windows 95, so - memories)
  • Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe
  • Sonic 3D
  • Possibly the Serious Sam games
  • Silent Hill 2 - Director's Cut
  • Silent Hill 3
  • Possibly Silent Hill 4: The Room
  • Possibly Shadow Warrior
  • Possibly South Park - the one from the PlayStation and N64
  • Possibly Starship Titanic
  • System Shock
  • System Shock 2
  • Possibly The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
  • The Simpsons Hit & Run (not available to buy digitally)
  • The Settlers III
  • The Sims
  • Thief: The Dark Project
  • Thief 2: The Metal Age
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Those are the main ones that come to mind anyway. 😀

I'd suggest an ipxe bootable lan card. Either an Intel e100? or realtek 8139. They were common as dogshit. Intel was better, but […]
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I'd suggest an ipxe bootable lan card. Either an Intel e100? or realtek 8139. They were common as dogshit. Intel was better, but whatever.
Ipxe means zero fucking around with cds and floppies.

Hdd absolutely use an SSD. Compact flash or ide disk-on-module will be the least likely to cause headaches. Ide-to-sata adapter if you must.
Don't worry about it having cache ram. It'll be plenty fast without.

That, above should run everything from win95 through to windows 7.

I'm not familiar with an ipxe bootable lan cards, if I'm honest. ^^; That'll be uncharted territory for me 🤣.

these are my kind of games, aside from deus ex3 all are do-able on 1 system no problem, there have been some good suggestions here to build two systems, but based on your requirements there are more suitable options. im also in the UK and finding old parts is near on impossible most shops for parts have all but vanished, and gumtree rarely turns up old computers, and local recyling centres are now a no-go thanks to the council striking a deal with tech recyling companies that are interested in crushing everthing for precious metals, your only option is car boot sales or paying extortionate prices from scalpers on ebay.

im like you in the regard i dont have a lot of space to set up multiple systems, i planned on having one system to do it all, but for the games i'm playing i have two builds, not including my main system, the other issue is available funds to spend on old parts as i have other things that take priority at the moment, especially considering the absolute state of scammers asking a fortune for old parts, i was just looking at a socket 7 board i have on ebay (asus sp97-xv) theres a few ranging from £270-£460, absolute joke!

im all for doing things on the cheap, with functionality and compatibility being the important factor, i think i can advise on a cheap reliable build for the games you have in mind, and it should cover at least 95% or more of the games on your list, like with most systems you will have to make some compromises, that being lower graphic settings in later games as well as resolutions of 800x600. i only have a few AMD pc's so cant really advise on that, ive always been an intel fanboy so thats what ill be talking, be a bit of a long read but ill try to cover everything.

for motherboard go for a 478 socket with an intel chipset, these are common in the UK and were found in most pcs sold from 2001-2005 so should be plentiful and also cheap, they will also be win 98 compatible out of the box also go for one that has AGPx8 for best performance (you can check specs on the manufacurers website or on "theretroweb" site), for cpu go for a pentium 4 the common ones found in these boards were either 2.6 or 2.8ghz, if you can find one thats 3ghz or more even better.

for GPU go for an nvidia fx 5 series, even an fx5200 128mb 64bit will serve you well, and this is where purists will probably disagree with me, ill prove them wrong. 😉
heres my bench mark for the fx5200 im using under win xp, win98 returns a slightly higher score, so long as you pair it with a half decent cpu it will return a respectable score.
Re: 3dmark99 MegaThread

here is another users benchmark with a core2duo E7500 and a Voodoo 5 5500,with a better cpu his score beats my single core and fx5200 by only 72 points.
Re: 3dmark99 MegaThread
11784 3dmarks with a voodoo 5 5500.
4coredual-sata 2 with C2D E7500

this is my same system under windows 98 ,with a slightly higher score of 12054

3dmark99 - Celeron D 360 FX5200 - MSI -Win98.jpg
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and another user with an Athlon XP 2.13Ghz & Voodoo3 2000, with a score thats nearly half that.
Re: 3dmark99 MegaThread
6291 3DMarks
32288 CPU 3DMarks

the only thing with the fx5200's is to avoid the ones with the gimped 166mhz memory, and make sure to get one thats at least 200mhz, the 5200's are common as muck, so cheap and plentiful, if you can afford to spend a bit extra then anything higher like a 5500,5600,5700 or even the top 5900's, even better. the fx 5 sereis has great dos compatibility as well as support for 8 bit paletted textures and table fog, also it runs direct X 8&9 games better than a geforce 4 or a radeon 92xx, if you need support for 3DFX games nGlide works well, also having driver support from windows 95 upto windows vista is a plus, also the vista driver works on win7 under compatibility mode.
as long as you've got an AGPx8 motherboard you will have a decent amount of enjoyment for a small amount of cash, and it will run most if not all the games on your list, aside from deusex 3 🤣.

for RAM i always install and run win98 with a single 1GB stick and i've never had any problems, tho depending on mother board or certain games it may give you some issues, its always a good idea to have a spare 512mb stick handy or even a 256mb, you can swap out if needed. if you go above 1GB then you will need patches.

as for sound card there are many options, some on ebay are going for ridiculous prices, so go for something thats common and cheap, in that regard i recommend a pci sound blaster live, i have 2 i use in my retro systems and they sound great in dos and windows, theres really no need to get an ISA card unless you specifically want a certain sound, the next step up from a sound blaster is an Audigy, under dos you wont notice any difference in sound and also the audigy doesnt have a gameport so you will need the daughterboard for that, if you chose a sound blaster live go for an earlier model (non 5.1) that starts with the model numer "CT" (i use a CT4620 and a CT4760) avoid the ones that start with the "SB" model number as some of these were made by Dell, which use a diiferent chip and are basically shite compared to the genuine Creative cards.
for drivers on win9x iuse the liveware 3.0 cd for simplicity, for later Os's like win 7/10/11 there are the kx drivers, this is what i like about these cards, not only do they sound great they are probably the only cards you can have working in Dos and windows 95 upto windows 11.

if you want a step up from a 478 socket then, you'll need to find a 775 board with a win98 compatible chipset, that would be the intel 865 chipset, these are early 775 boards and are the most sought after so will be harder to find and pricey, the alternative is a 775 board with a VIA chipset, there are many, the board i use is an MSI PM8PM-V and it works perfectly (this replaced my 478 socket pentium4 2.8ghz with an 865 chipset) there arent any of these boards currently on ebay, but they do have the MSI PM8PM-IL, these come from germany and most likely came from medion pc's with medion bios, i also have one which i flashed with a stock MSI bios from "soggis" site, i havent tried win98 on this board yet but its the same spec as the PM8PM-V im using so should work just the same, they also support upto core2duo E6700 or X6800's.

Edit: One thing i forgot to mention is for optical drive go for an IDE drive as you will want the connection to plug audiocd into your sound card

this is the spec for my main Dos/98/xp build, everything worked off the bat with standard drivers, i only had to patch for the ram as i went over 1GB.

Motherboard: MSI PM8PM-V - MS-7222 ver2.0 (LGA775 + VT8237R Plus)
CPU: Celeron D360 3.46GHZ (Netburst, Cedar Mill-512, Single core with x64 Support)
GPU: MSI MS-8917 rev2.10 (Nvidia FX5200 128mb 64bit AGP)
Memory: 2GB DDR2 667mhz (x2 1GB)
Sound: Creative Soundblaster Live CT4620
Storage: 80GB IDE Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 & 80GB IDE Maxtor DiamondMax 20
PSU: Generic WinPower 450W
Media: LG Super Multi DVD rewriter GSA-H55N IDE
OS: Dualboot 98se & XP home SP3

This is the spec for my higher 98 build, problem with this one is it needed unofficial drivers and patches to get working and the chipset wont give me working sound in dos without a specific sound card even then compatibility will be flakey, so i just use this for windows 98 upto Windows 11, mainily windows 7, it will also play some games released current year, tho most of the games i play on this will work on a modern system, so this kind of build is not really necessary and should be avoided as it will involve alot of trial and error and be a headache to get working

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L rev2.0 (using LoneCrusaders Chipset Drivers for ICH7)
CPU: Core2Duo E5400 2.6GHZ OC@3.25GHZ (did upgrade to Q9450 but went back)
GPU: Nvidia Asus en7950gt 512mb ddr3 256bit PCI-E
Memory: 4GB DDR2 800mhz (x2 2GB) UC @ 667mhz for stability with overclock
Sound: Creative Soundblaster Live CT4760 (Liveware 3.0 CD & KXaudio driver for win 7 + win10 version also for win11)
Storage: 80GB 2.5" Hitatchi Travel star for win98 at the moment
PSU: Thermaltake TR2-550 PP
Media: Sony Optiarc AD-7241S Sata DVD burner (only drive i have that will burn cdrs as low as x8)
OS: Windows 98SE upto Win11 mainly Win7 SP1 x64 (Nvidia 309.08 for win 7/10/11)

anyway hope this give you a good idea of the specs needed to run all the games on your list on a tight budget.

Reply 71 of 454, by jtchip

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DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-13, 12:51:

Hmm. Okay. Are there any other alternative mobos that support Pentium IIIs, are Slot 1, and are socket 370s? Looking at the 440BX, they're £100+. Just want to see my options and, obviously, get the best/cheapest deals I can. If not, would a Pentium II and a corresponding mobo be suitable?

There is an MSI-6166 Slot-1 motherboard on eBay UK (not affiliated with the seller, just seeing what's available for Slot-1 and not VIA), which has an i440ZX chipset (a cut-down i440BX), on-board Rage 128VR, and on-board ES1373 PCI sound. The listing doesn't say how much RAM the on-board graphics has, I don't see any unpopulated pads so perhaps it could be the full 16MB.

Upgradability is limited as there is no AGP slot (occupied by the on-board Rage 128VR) and it probably tops out at a PIII-550. Otherwise it's a starter system for 90s games, the graphics is only DX6 and limits you to pre-2000 games and upgrades will require a PCI graphics card but you'll still be limited by the CPU. The latest BIOS is from 1998 so I don't think it'll support a Coppermine CPU. The ES1373 gives you SB16-compatiblity in DOS and a choice of General MIDI with the Creative drivers, or OPL3 with SBEMU (OPL3 with the Creative drivers is... interesting). If neither works (for some games), just get an ISA sound card.

Reply 72 of 454, by Joseph_Joestar

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DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-13, 22:55:

these are my kind of games, aside from deus ex3 all are do-able on 1 system no problem

I guess "doable" differs from "playable" in your example. A few months ago, I tried Vampire Bloodlines on an Athlon 64 3400+ with an X800 XT PE and got around 30 FPS on average, with drops to the mid 20s in more complex areas. Another user here tried it with an even faster CPU and a GeForce 6800 Ultra while getting similar results. Granted, that game is extremely demanding due to poor optimization, but it's still a valid example.

Now, can a Slot 1 system run that? Possibly. Will it be playable? Not likely.

Last edited by Joseph_Joestar on 2024-10-14, 01:36. Edited 1 time in total.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Core 2 Duo E8600 / Foxconn P35AX-S / X800 / Audigy2 ZS
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 73 of 454, by Shponglefan

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VivienM wrote on 2024-10-13, 12:58:

If you want to save money, give up on DOS ISA sound cards, and get an i815 + socket 370 PIII. You'll get more MHz too...

If that's the case, might as well go with a Pentium 4 Northwood or Athlon XP build...

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 74 of 454, by VivienM

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Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-14, 01:32:
VivienM wrote on 2024-10-13, 12:58:

If you want to save money, give up on DOS ISA sound cards, and get an i815 + socket 370 PIII. You'll get more MHz too...

If that's the case, might as well go with a Pentium 4 Northwood or Athlon XP build...

How plentiful is Athlon XP? I've gotten the impression that most socket 462 motherboards were lost to capacitor failures long ago, perhaps more than any other platform (for enthusiast-grade boards).

A P4 does make a ton of sense, although I admit that I have some difficulty imagining P4s as 98 machines. But they are 98 machines at least in their AGP flavours.

Reply 75 of 454, by Shponglefan

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VivienM wrote on 2024-10-14, 01:38:

How plentiful is Athlon XP? I've gotten the impression that most socket 462 motherboards were lost to capacitor failures long ago, perhaps more than any other platform (for enthusiast-grade boards).

That's true, Athlon XP motherboards seem to have been hit particularly hard from the capacitor plague. I have a bunch of them, but most are in need of capacitor replacement.

A P4 does make a ton of sense, although I admit that I have some difficulty imagining P4s as 98 machines. But they are 98 machines at least in their AGP flavours.

IMHO, Pentium 4's make for great Win 98 machines. My main 98 machine is a 3.4 GHz Cedar Mill Pentium 4 and it's probably the best 98 system I've ever had.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 76 of 454, by VivienM

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Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-14, 02:04:

IMHO, Pentium 4's make for great Win 98 machines. My main 98 machine is a 3.4 GHz Cedar Mill Pentium 4 and it's probably the best 98 system I've ever had.

i865 board?

I'm sure I've said this before, but I had a friend who had an i865 board with a Cedar Mill or Presler (I forget how many cores, this was a low-budget upgrade from a socket 462 he did in late-2006), he also had a 1GHz titanium PowerBook G4, and an Ivy Bridge i5-3570k. Once I discovered the retro significance of those, I was kinda amazed that he had all of those - sadly, the first two were e-wasted long, long, long ago, although I did buy his ivy bridge 😀

Reply 77 of 454, by DudeFace

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VivienM wrote on 2024-10-14, 01:38:
Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-14, 01:32:
VivienM wrote on 2024-10-13, 12:58:

If you want to save money, give up on DOS ISA sound cards, and get an i815 + socket 370 PIII. You'll get more MHz too...

If that's the case, might as well go with a Pentium 4 Northwood or Athlon XP build...

How plentiful is Athlon XP? I've gotten the impression that most socket 462 motherboards were lost to capacitor failures long ago, perhaps more than any other platform (for enthusiast-grade boards).

A P4 does make a ton of sense, although I admit that I have some difficulty imagining P4s as 98 machines. But they are 98 machines at least in their AGP flavours.

probably not a lot of them ive got a Foxconn WinFast K7S741MG-6L, with a 462 socket i got from my grandad about 2 years ago, he bought it back round 2001/2002, it was running NT4.0 and win98 and was still in use until he gave it to me, no problems with it and still works after 20years of continuous use, maybe only certain makes with bad caps, theres only 2 of these boards on ebay at the moment one at £90 and the other £190, there are lot of cheaper options for a win98 build, i havent tried it out so dont know how well it performs, i expect a pentium 4 will perform the same if not better, my nan also game me her pc she got around the same year, that was a 478 socket ECSL4S8A2, pentium 4, i put win98/XP on it for my dad to play all the command and conquer games, that also has an fx5200 128mb 64bit, works great for all those games, tho later games like generals/c&c4/redalert3 run at 30fps or less, tho they are more graphically demanding and theres a lot going on on screen, its mainly for the 98/first decade versions, was thinking of upgrading him to a 775 socket so i can have the board as it looks like its got an sb-link header 🤣

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-14, 02:04:

IMHO, Pentium 4's make for great Win 98 machines. My main 98 machine is a 3.4 GHz Cedar Mill Pentium 4 and it's probably the best 98 system I've ever had.

i agree, they perform great for anything 9x, my build also uses a 3.4ghz cedar mill tho a celeron, in terms of compatibilty everything just works, in that sense its also probably the best 98 system i've had, well leaving aside my gpu, but hey it serves its pupose well 😀

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-14, 02:38:

i865 board?

I'm sure I've said this before, but I had a friend who had an i865 board with a Cedar Mill or Presler (I forget how many cores, this was a low-budget upgrade from a socket 462 he did in late-2006), he also had a 1GHz titanium PowerBook G4, and an Ivy Bridge i5-3570k. Once I discovered the retro significance of those, I was kinda amazed that he had all of those - sadly, the first two were e-wasted long, long, long ago, although I did buy his ivy bridge 😀

my cedar mill celeron came from an 865 chipset out of a packard bell from 2005/2006, the board died years ago and ive had the cpu since, it served me well for many years and now it live on in my 98 build, also the 865 board was an ECS RC415ST, 775 socket with pci-e, now i've said it watch them all disappear off ebay.🤣

Reply 78 of 454, by Shponglefan

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VivienM wrote on 2024-10-14, 02:38:

i865 board?

Yup, a it's running on a DFI ITOX G7S620-N-G (865G).

I'm sure I've said this before, but I had a friend who had an i865 board with a Cedar Mill or Presler (I forget how many cores, this was a low-budget upgrade from a socket 462 he did in late-2006), he also had a 1GHz titanium PowerBook G4, and an Ivy Bridge i5-3570k. Once I discovered the retro significance of those, I was kinda amazed that he had all of those - sadly, the first two were e-wasted long, long, long ago, although I did buy his ivy bridge 😀

At least one of those got saved. Though it's funny how at the time we couldn't imagine these things having retro usage, but in hindsight.

I'm starting to look at collecting Haswell and Skylake setups next.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 79 of 454, by DudeFace

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-14, 01:29:
DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-13, 22:55:

these are my kind of games, aside from deus ex3 all are do-able on 1 system no problem

I guess "doable" differs from "playable" in your example. A few months ago, I tried Vampire Bloodlines on an Athlon 64 3400+ with an X800 XT PE and got around 30 FPS on average, with drops to the mid 20s in more complex areas. Another user here tried it with an even faster CPU and a GeForce 6800 Ultra while getting similar results. Granted, that game is extremely demanding due to poor optimization, but it's still a valid example.

Now, can a Slot 1 system run that? Possibly. Will it be playable? Not likely.

as i said it will cover at least 95% of the games on his list, there maybe the odd few that will be unplayable, i've never tried any of the vampire masquerade games so cant comment on those, but as i said he will have to compromise when it comes to graphical settings and resolutions, he wont be playing maxxed out especially on later games,

i've found the main thing that kills performance aside from resolution is any kind of shadow settings, even on my more powerful 7950gt those settings are turned right down or even off, for me personally if a game runs on mid settings at 800x600 (leaving aside widescreen games), looks good and runs smoothly at a minimum of 30fps and can be enjoyed, for me gets a pass.

alot of the games his list are dos/point and click and 3d games from the late 90's, so that spec will cover him for the majority of those at a decent speed/resolution on a tight budget, and is not a bad place to start for a first time build

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-14, 01:29:

Now, can a Slot 1 system run that? Possibly. Will it be playable? Not likely.

according to pcgamingwiki it can (1.2ghzcpu and 64mb of vram), but like most games requirements they are never accurate, to be decently playable you need hardware a few years later, i think a few of the games on his list will struggle on a pentium3, which is why i recommended a 478 socket pentium 4 as a minimum, if bloodlines struggles to run on a cpu more than twice the speed and a gpu with 4x the vram, that may be one he has to cross off his list

Last edited by DudeFace on 2024-10-14, 03:30. Edited 1 time in total.