DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-14, 02:44:

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 😀

Just curious: if you have a motherboard that supports both P4 Cedar Mill and Core2 Conroe, would you still pick up a Cedar Mill for a Win9x build? If so,why?

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-14, 03:17:

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

Yeah, minimum system requirements from that time were often too optimistic, and didn't really provide a playable experience.

Other than Bloodlines, another fairly demanding title from the OPs list would be Deus Ex 2: Invisible War. Again, it's a case of an unoptimized game which runs poorly even on much more powerful systems. Also, Morrowind can struggle in large outdoor areas, but it still runs better than the aforementioned games.

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, there have been some good suggestions he […]
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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

The attachment 3dmark99 - Celeron D 360 FX5200 - MSI -Win98.jpg is no longer available

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.

Wow. That's a lot to digest. But thank you for the suggestion. I may have to re-read the post again just to process it all 🤣.

But yeah, just to clarify, I'm really not too fussed about some of the later games on that list. I think my scope was a bit too optimistic. Apart from the odd game from 2000-2001, any games after that I'm not particularly bothered about. Such as Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. That game is an unoptimised and buggy mess anyway and kind of requires the fan patches to fix it. The 2000 game that comes to mind at the moment would be something like Escape from Monkey Island, but honestly - it's early to late 90s I'm bothered about. I'm nostalgic for the 90s and 90s gaming. 😀

Not sure about going for a Pentium 4. We'll see... If it is I have to pay £100+ for a 440BX, then so be it. But yeah - everything's still in the early planning and research stage at the moment, so the more options and possibilities, the better. I would prefer not skipping on an ISA sound card though, if that's recommended for DOS games.

I'm also open to the possibility of buying pre-built systems that someone is selling. Especially if the spec is suitable, comes with all the peripherals, and is a steal of a price etc.

For instance, what are people's thoughts on this...?

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/962 … dc-dbb1bc75afe2

It includes a Pentium III and 256MB RAM. Not clued up on the sound card, motherboard, or GPU though.

EDIT: Never mind. The one from that link has long since sold.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-14, 13:20:

I would prefer not skipping on an ISA sound card though, if that's recommended for DOS games.

The main reasons you need an ISA sound card is if:

a) You are booting directly to DOS and want guaranteed audio support (though some PCI sound cards will also work directly in DOS, but this can be motherboard/chipset dependent).
b) Want specific features besides generic Sound Blaster support found in certain ISA sound cards.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-14, 13:27:

I'm also open to the possibility of buying pre-built systems that someone is selling. Especially if the spec is suitable, comes with all the peripherals, and is a steal of a price etc.

IMHO, buying a pre-built system is a good way to go.

It can give you a fully working starting point to try out different games, and figure out what components do what you need versus things you might want to swap out.

And if nothing else, it can give you a bunch of spare parts which is never a bad thing when it comes to retro computers.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-14, 14:58:

IMHO, buying a pre-built system is a good way to go.

It can give you a fully working starting point to try out different games, and figure out what components do what you need versus things you might want to swap out.

And if nothing else, it can give you a bunch of spare parts which is never a bad thing when it comes to retro computers.

Yeah, agreed. It's just a matter of finding one that's a good price, has decent hardware, can be delivered, and ideally has all the peripherals. 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-14, 03:17:

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.

Well... I think the i865/Hotburst was the most unpredictable. And the thing is - I remember the world when he got it. If you had money or no spare DDR1/AGP cards, you bought a Conroe, a PCI-E graphics card, etc. If you had some of those parts floating around from, say, an aging 462 build, and you couldn't afford to toss them out, you bought the i865/Hotburst motherboard in late 2006 because i) it cost half or less as much as the Conroe, and ii) you didn't need a new video card, RAM, etc. If you had told me that i) the next generation of boards (supporting Conroes with i865) would turn out to be insanely in demand 15 years later, and ii) that demand would flow backwards and make the Hotburst-only late i865 boards also valuable, I would have thought you were insane.

The irony is that the 2006 65-nm Conroe with a 7900GT, say, is utterly forgettable for retro purposes - too new for 98SE, not a bad machine for XP but there's a lot better.

I think one key lesson here for vintage PC world, which is absolutely not true in Macland - it is sometimes, if not often, the newer, lower-end stuff that turns out to be more useful for retro purposes. Whereas the high end stuff doesn't have the backwards compatibility with one/two generations of OSes ago, and gets superseded quickly by better higher-end stuff with the same compatibility.

As for the titanium G4, I don't remember what condition it was in when he got rid of it (these were very fragile machines), but... the collectibility of that would have been more apparent. Last OS 9 machine, iconic styling, etc. Then again, it was also a time when Intel Macs were completely spanking PPC machines in performance, so...

(P.S. If you were local, I'm trying to get rid of a Haswell Dell SFF desktop, but... those things are at the absolute lowest value point - too new for retro XP, too old for anyone who knows/cares about the Win11 requirements, etc. My own view right now, and I may come to regret it in 10 years, is that I don't see much "NT 6.x" hardware as being worth collecting. Too much compatibility between 11 and Vista to justify keeping some post-XP hardware around for collecting's sake...)

dormcat wrote on 2024-10-14, 03:28:

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-14, 02:44:

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 😀

Just curious: if you have a motherboard that supports both P4 Cedar Mill and Core2 Conroe, would you still pick up a Cedar Mill for a Win9x build? If so,why?

i would and the reason is for single core use but it would depend on the cpu and more importantly price, most of the games im playing on this system are dos and windows games that predate the dual core so using one doesnt really make sense, even more so because the older less powerful gpu's used on these builds wont benefit from a dual core, and since my cpus at 3.46ghz stock, i think that abouts as high as you need to go for a single core, theres only one other cedar mill celeron above that which is the is the celeron D365 and the Pentium 4 661 both at 3.6ghz, (i wouldnt say no to one of those, but the one i've got is more than enough for what i need) seems due to problems with heat and cooling thats about the limit with these cedar mills, i think i read intel had one clocked at 3.8ghz but realised it wasnt a good idea, so overclocking is probably not advisable and also my board can only manage to clock 200mhz at most due to being a limitation with the VIA chipset. most of the games released 2004/2005 before the dual cores required between 2.4ghz and 3.2ghz, being over that at 3.46ghz is perfect also i've had this cpu pretty much 20 years,the board it was in died long ago, the cpu was kicking around in a box of parts for years (not protected in an anti-static bag) and its still going, which says a lot about its reliability.

also i decided if i was to switch to a dual core i'd want one as close to 3.46ghz as possible, the max this board and others of this era/spec can take is an E6700 at 2.6ghz or an x6800 at 2.93ghz, overclocking on this board is out of the question as at a 300mhz increase i get funny colours on the screen when the system post's (this was with a core2duo E5400/E3400), the only dual core which comes close is an E8600 at 3.3ghz since that cpu is 45nm and 65w like the E6700, i though the simple solution was just an update with the microcode for the 1067 cpuid, but i encountered the speedstep bug so cpu's would only run at half the multiplier, and it seems only deathbringer on bios-mods knows the solution to that, i also tried a Q9450 which is also 2.6ghz, also 45nm but 95w and it wouldnt even post. so for this build i decided to just stick with the single core as its more suitable for the spec.

as for getting another one i was looking for a celeron D 365 a few years back, but didnt manage to find one, i picked up another motherboard to replace my gigabyte/7950gt build, which was an MSI P4M900-M2 with a VIA chipset, which is the PCI-e equivelent of the PM8PM-V, i was hoping for a matching build with working sound in dos, i couldnt find the cpu for that and eventually gave up, its got a xeon 3070 in it so i've settled for that.

i also checked performance compared to a few other popular cpu's from around the same time on passmark, couldn't find the top cedar mill celeron D 365, but they had scores for the 360, i compared with a cedar mill Pentium 4 660/661, a later pentium 4 Extreme and a couple of popular AMD's, an Athlon 64 FX-55 and an Athlon 64 3200+.
score wise the athlon fx-55 came top, just behind is the pentium 4 extreme, and just under that is the celeron D360, next is the cedar mill Pentium 4 which is pretty much on par with the 3200+

in terms of singe thread rating surprisingly the celeron D 360 came out on top , followed by the 3200+, next was the Pentium 4 extreme, followed by the cedar mill Pentium 4, and last the high performance FX-55. very interseting if these numbers are anything to go by, the Celeron D360 seem better than i thought, it tops the cedar mill Pentium 4, and is pretty much on par with the pentium 4 extreme in terms of score but trumps it in terms of single thread rating

i just found a celeron D365 on ebay at $69, and a celeron D 360 for $100. 🤣, which i refuse to pay for a 20year old cpu! i am still tempted though i can do without it.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-14, 03:29:

Yeah, minimum system requirements from that time were often too optimistic, and didn't really provide a playable experience.

Other than Bloodlines, another fairly demanding title from the OPs list would be Deus Ex 2: Invisible War. Again, it's a case of an unoptimized game which runs poorly even on much more powerful systems. Also, Morrowind can struggle in large outdoor areas, but it still runs better than the aforementioned games.

deus ex 2 is another one i haven't got round to trying out yet, i picked up the complete box with the first 2 games a few years back but only got round to trying out the first, it seemed fine, i didnt expect the second to be much more demanding, ill have to give it a go when i've got some time, didnt want to try it till i've finished the first game, as for morrowind that doesnt surprise me being open world, i tried it on my 7950gt build a few years back but forget how it performed, i remember oblivion and skyrim did struggle a bit on lower settings on the same system.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-14, 13:08:

Wow. That's a lot to digest. But thank you for the suggestion. I may have to re-read the post again just to process it all 🤣.

no worries 😀 hope it helps.

Apologies if I already asked this; I honestly can’t remember and I don’t have much time to check, but did I ask for opinions on the 440LX? I understand it will only take a Pentium II, but would this be a decent alternative for something a bit cheaper? I saw this one on eBay:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/226187149894?mkcid … emis&media=COPY

If not, I’ll have to do some calculating on how much it’ll cost altogether with a rough price of an i440BX. 😀

LX should happily take a celeron up to 766mhz with the right adapter and bios

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/p … 66-mhz-fsb.html

Bios after y2k =most likely supports all celerons.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/dtk-prm-0076i-e1#bios

Zero scope for overclocking fsb with jumpers though.
Ignore the multiplier jumpers. The CPUs are locked. It's irrelevant.

Seen this though?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167017233037?_skw= … ABk9SR4TTrvTRZA

Or perhaps a better start
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326197790573?_skw= … ABk9SR_y10vTRZA

myne wrote on 2024-10-15, 08:16:

LX should happily take a celeron up to 766mhz with the right adapter and bios […]
Show full quote

LX should happily take a celeron up to 766mhz with the right adapter and bios

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/p … 66-mhz-fsb.html

Bios after y2k =most likely supports all celerons.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/dtk-prm-0076i-e1#bios

Zero scope for overclocking fsb with jumpers though.
Ignore the multiplier jumpers. The CPUs are locked. It's irrelevant.

Seen this though?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167017233037?_skw= … ABk9SR4TTrvTRZA

Or perhaps a better start
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326197790573?_skw= … ABk9SR_y10vTRZA

Thanks for the links. I’ll keep my eye on that auction from Ukraine. Didn’t see if they send to the UK though.

I did see this one, too:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/226025809230?mkcid … emis&media=COPY

I understand this also takes a Pentium III as well…?

Doesn't look like it - not without a hardware and bios mod
https://krick.3feetunder.com/370mod/

myne wrote on 2024-10-15, 09:46:

Doesn't look like it - not without a hardware and bios mod
https://krick.3feetunder.com/370mod/

Oh. Doing a Google search seems to suggest it does. 🙁

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-11, 01:05:

marxveix wrote on 2024-10-10, 22:07:

AM2 with VIA chipset = Overkill for Win9x, Dualboot XP good1

AM2 with VIA chipset = temperamental for Win9x. Cool idea if the motherboards are still relatively plentiful on eBay (they were when I got mine), but... don't let yourself get seduced by those SATA connectors which will make you lose your mind.

I have one MSI AM2 VIA motherboard that works and has windows 9x drivers, but i have more Socket 754 boards to play with.

Are there any recommended and affordable tower decks I should go for with this build? Something from around 97/98?

EDIT: And whilst on the topic - a CRT monitor? 😀

marxveix wrote on 2024-10-15, 11:31:

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-11, 01:05:

marxveix wrote on 2024-10-10, 22:07:

AM2 with VIA chipset = Overkill for Win9x, Dualboot XP good1

AM2 with VIA chipset = temperamental for Win9x. Cool idea if the motherboards are still relatively plentiful on eBay (they were when I got mine), but... don't let yourself get seduced by those SATA connectors which will make you lose your mind.

I have one MSI AM2 VIA motherboard that works and has windows 9x drivers, but i have more Socket 754 boards to play with.

Have you managed to get 98 happy with any SATA devices, let alone a SATA boot drive?

Not sure what you mean by tower deck Do you mean the case?

If yes then you have lots of choice as you can choose a modern ATX case with better airflow and if you wanted a window to show off the old hardware.
Or you can get something Beige and period correct, It's all just personal choice.

You'll probably want a case with 2 front panels though, for a FDD and CD drive. If going modern it'll be hard to find a case with a 3.5 drive bay for the fdd but you can use adapters if needed.

CRT monitors are big, heavy, fragile and expensive to ship. I'd be looking whats available locally rather then specific models.