Welcome to the forum. 😀

I expect the 6600GT will be severely bottlenecked by the gimpy <2GHz Pentium4. TNT2 is more period-correct for Win9x games, but the 6600GT should work just as well. 256MB RAM is not enough for a good WinXP experience.

There may be some subtle differences between the Riva and the 6600GT when it comes to DOS compatibility. I am not experienced to recommend one or the other.

dr_st wrote on 2024-10-21, 10:46:

Welcome to the forum. 😀

I expect the 6600GT will be severely bottlenecked by the gimpy <2GHz Pentium4. TNT2 is more period-correct for Win9x games, but the 6600GT should work just as well. 256MB RAM is not enough for a good WinXP experience.

There may be some subtle differences between the Riva and the 6600GT when it comes to DOS compatibility. I am not experienced to recommend one or the other.

Thanks a lot! Maybe I should keep this box with the TNT2 and the 256mb RAM, I will search for my SoundBlaster aswell and have fun with 98SE I guess, the 6600GT is working but has a problem in it's fan bearing, I will keep it for nostalgia purpose (I skipped my final's trip to get it back then!). I can always plays my Deus EX, Doom 3 and System Shock on my modern PC connected to my CRT, should be a good experience as well, am I right? 😀

A geforce 2mx would be a more period correct graphics card for a socket 478 Willamette.

Period correct sound card could be an audigy sb0090.

I think it is a great machine for win98.

A P4 should be able to drive a full-fat GF2 (no need for the gimpy MX) without issue, but I’d really look to replace that 1.7GHz P4 with a cheap 2.8GHz Northwood.

st31276a wrote on 2024-10-21, 14:03:

A geforce 2mx would be a more period correct graphics card for a socket 478 Willamette.

Period correct sound card could be an audigy sb0090.

I think it is a great machine for win98.

Will try to eye something in the second hand websites we have around! 😀 Thanks a lot!

paradigital wrote on 2024-10-21, 14:30:

A P4 should be able to drive a full-fat GF2 (no need for the gimpy MX) without issue, but I’d really look to replace that 1.7GHz P4 with a cheap 2.8GHz Northwood.

Taking notes and checking the websites as we speak haha.
This is a computer I'm very fond of, because it was actually mine, maybe will build another one with these specs! 😀

dr_st wrote on 2024-10-21, 10:46:

256MB RAM is not enough for a good WinXP experience.

It works okay on my Pentium III – only newer Web browsers manage to bog it down.

GemCookie wrote on 2024-10-21, 14:57:

dr_st wrote on 2024-10-21, 10:46:

256MB RAM is not enough for a good WinXP experience.

It works okay on my Pentium III – only newer Web browsers manage to bog it down.

I won't even try getting online, that's for sure. 😁

daeds wrote on 2024-10-21, 16:27:

I won't even try getting online, that's for sure. :D

It works surprisingly well with Firefox 45, one of the last releases where the Windows build didn't require SSE2.

paradigital wrote on 2024-10-21, 14:30:

A P4 should be able to drive a full-fat GF2 (no need for the gimpy MX) without issue, but I’d really look to replace that 1.7GHz P4 with a cheap 2.8GHz Northwood.

You forgot to account for the fact it uses old SDRAM, not DDR 😀

PcBytes wrote on 2024-10-21, 17:40:

paradigital wrote on 2024-10-21, 14:30:

A P4 should be able to drive a full-fat GF2 (no need for the gimpy MX) without issue, but I’d really look to replace that 1.7GHz P4 with a cheap 2.8GHz Northwood.

You forgot to account for the fact it uses old SDRAM, not DDR 😀

That's true, I forgot to mention. I have to get 256mb more for it. 😀

This system is mostly comparable to late Pentium 3. So 512Mb is not needed. Windows 98 it is.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-10-21, 19:19:

This system is mostly comparable to late Pentium 3. So 512Mb is not needed. Windows 98 it is.

Thanks a lot! Will keep it like this and try to get a sound card (if I can find my old one, even better!).
Can you please help me with this, want to know if I can install 98 this way:
DOS bootable USB (this bios can boot from usb already), to partition the disk (a 500gb sata with a SATA to IDE converter);
Then, load win98 setup to the disk in my modern PC, to the correct partition (going to partition it into smaller 32gb partitions);
Put the disk with win98 into the old rig again, boot from DOS pen and run win98 setup;

Is it correct? Thanks! 😀

I run Windows ME on the following:
P4 3.06
Intel D850 something or other MB
512MB PC1066 RD-RAM
Quadro FX 3000 (roughly FX5950 performance)
SB Audigy
Startech Gigabit NIC

I went with ME over 98 because no matter what I do I find 98SE randomly doesn't shutdown properly on this PC and takes a weirdly long time to boot when connected to my network. It plays the old stuff I have on their very nicely.

You have the makings of a slower XP or very fast Win98 rig, I know which I'd prefer!
The GF6 also has supports Win98, although does lack some backwards compatibility.
The TNT2 would bottleneck even a P3.

Personally I'd run it up as a Win98 PC and try out the GF6 before spending any money. Could be your games work just fine.
You could also dual boot with XP with this setup and play earlier XP titles and have best of both worlds.

You do want to install a SBLive or Audigy sound card. Not only for EAX in both OS's but with Win98 installed you'll also be able to play dos games with the legacy drivers.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-10-22, 02:43:

You have the makings of a slower XP or very fast Win98 rig, I know which I'd prefer! The GF6 also has supports Win98, although d […]
Show full quote

You have the makings of a slower XP or very fast Win98 rig, I know which I'd prefer!
The GF6 also has supports Win98, although does lack some backwards compatibility.
The TNT2 would bottleneck even a P3.

Personally I'd run it up as a Win98 PC and try out the GF6 before spending any money. Could be your games work just fine.
You could also dual boot with XP with this setup and play earlier XP titles and have best of both worlds.

You do want to install a SBLive or Audigy sound card. Not only for EAX in both OS's but with Win98 installed you'll also be able to play dos games with the legacy drivers.

For setup, I'd do everything on the P4.
Copy fdisk from WinME onto your USB (unlike WIn98 this one supports hard drives up to 512GB)
Create a primary partition for Win98 (personally I prefer under 4GB due to scandisk and have games installed on a separate partition)
Create an extended partition and as many logical drives and size as you prefer.
Copy the win98 folder from CD onto the hard drive and install windows from that folder.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-10-22, 02:55:

For setup, I'd do everything on the P4. Copy fdisk from WinME onto your USB (unlike WIn98 this one supports hard drives up to 51 […]
Show full quote

chinny22 wrote on 2024-10-22, 02:43:

You have the makings of a slower XP or very fast Win98 rig, I know which I'd prefer! The GF6 also has supports Win98, although d […]
Show full quote

You have the makings of a slower XP or very fast Win98 rig, I know which I'd prefer!
The GF6 also has supports Win98, although does lack some backwards compatibility.
The TNT2 would bottleneck even a P3.

Personally I'd run it up as a Win98 PC and try out the GF6 before spending any money. Could be your games work just fine.
You could also dual boot with XP with this setup and play earlier XP titles and have best of both worlds.

You do want to install a SBLive or Audigy sound card. Not only for EAX in both OS's but with Win98 installed you'll also be able to play dos games with the legacy drivers.

For setup, I'd do everything on the P4.
Copy fdisk from WinME onto your USB (unlike WIn98 this one supports hard drives up to 512GB)
Create a primary partition for Win98 (personally I prefer under 4GB due to scandisk and have games installed on a separate partition)
Create an extended partition and as many logical drives and size as you prefer.
Copy the win98 folder from CD onto the hard drive and install windows from that folder.

Thanks for the tips, I have to check if my cd drive is alive, it sounds dead. 😁
I could copy the Windows 98 into the pen and copy it to the hdd I guess?
The fdisk, can I make the DOS bootable pen and just get WinME fdisk there to use?
Thanks a lot!

daeds wrote on 2024-10-21, 10:08:

Hello there, As I'm almost getting the last piece of the puzzle I need to get the rig running I need some advice on where to go […]
Show full quote

Hello there,
As I'm almost getting the last piece of the puzzle I need to get the rig running I need some advice on where to go from here,
So far I've been using an ASUS F5RL laptop with a Celeron, 2gb RAM and an ATI x1100 with Windows XP for my older games, but I wanted something more "period correct" so I've been fixing my old PC, which consists of:
Mobo: Soltek SL-85SD-C
CPU: Socket 478 Pentium 4 1.7ghz (not entirely sure, but it's a Pentium 4)
256mb RAM
GPU: Riva TNT2 or nVidia GEFORCE 6600GT AGP

I wanted to know if I should install 98SE or XP on this rig and if I should go with the Riva or the 6600GT, I can play the XP games on my modern rig (that is connected to the CRT aswell) but the DOS games are always better on 9x,
Looking forward for your replies on this matter as I'm torn between these 2 technology "era".
Thanks! 😀

the 6600 is obviously more powerful, i know after the 5 series you lose 8 bit paletted textures and table fog, i assume this is present on the TNT2, if thats important to you, go for the TNT2 especially as your cpu is under 2ghz, both should have good compatibility for DOS, personally i'd upgrade the cpu to 2.8ghz and use the 6600gt, for sound card a sound blaster live is a good choice, an audigy 2 is the better card especially if you want higher than EAX2, but under dos SB16 probably sounds just the same on both cards, if you want a cheap card that has accurate OPL3, a C-media CMI8738 can be had for peanuts.

for installing 98 i use a boot cd instead of a floppy, if you source one make sure it includes ramdrive, there are iso's out there for win98 and win M.e, you could use a usb drive and copy setup files to your hdd, i dont bother, a boot cd is the quickest and simplist option for me, for hdd i just use one partition, limit is 137gb, stay under that you should be fine, anything more you'll need Rloew's patch.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-22, 12:22:

daeds wrote on 2024-10-21, 10:08:

Hello there, As I'm almost getting the last piece of the puzzle I need to get the rig running I need some advice on where to go […]
Show full quote

Hello there,
As I'm almost getting the last piece of the puzzle I need to get the rig running I need some advice on where to go from here,
So far I've been using an ASUS F5RL laptop with a Celeron, 2gb RAM and an ATI x1100 with Windows XP for my older games, but I wanted something more "period correct" so I've been fixing my old PC, which consists of:
Mobo: Soltek SL-85SD-C
CPU: Socket 478 Pentium 4 1.7ghz (not entirely sure, but it's a Pentium 4)
256mb RAM
GPU: Riva TNT2 or nVidia GEFORCE 6600GT AGP

I wanted to know if I should install 98SE or XP on this rig and if I should go with the Riva or the 6600GT, I can play the XP games on my modern rig (that is connected to the CRT aswell) but the DOS games are always better on 9x,
Looking forward for your replies on this matter as I'm torn between these 2 technology "era".
Thanks! 😀

the 6600 is obviously more powerful, i know after the 5 series you lose 8 bit paletted textures and table fog, i assume this is present on the TNT2, if thats important to you, go for the TNT2 especially as your cpu is under 2ghz, both should have good compatibility for DOS, personally i'd upgrade the cpu to 2.8ghz and use the 6600gt, for sound card a sound blaster live is a good choice, an audigy 2 is the better card especially if you want higher than EAX2, but under dos SB16 probably sounds just the same on both cards, if you want a cheap card that has accurate OPL3, a C-media CMI8738 can be had for peanuts.

for installing 98 i use a boot cd instead of a floppy, if you source one make sure it includes ramdrive, there are iso's out there for win98 and win M.e, you could use a usb drive and copy setup files to your hdd, i dont bother, a boot cd is the quickest and simplist option for me, for hdd i just use one partition, limit is 137gb, stay under that you should be fine, anything more you'll need Rloew's patch.

Thanks for the input! 😀
I think my cd drives are dead, that's why I must go the usb way for now atleast, until I get another working one. I already have a partition on my HDD with the win98 setup, going to use a bootable USB pen with MS-DOS and WINME fdisk to format c: and sys c:, then, again with the bootable dos pen, I should be able to navigate to the I: partition and install windows, right? 😁

daeds wrote on 2024-10-22, 12:41:

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-22, 12:22:

daeds wrote on 2024-10-21, 10:08:

Hello there, As I'm almost getting the last piece of the puzzle I need to get the rig running I need some advice on where to go […]
Show full quote

Hello there,
As I'm almost getting the last piece of the puzzle I need to get the rig running I need some advice on where to go from here,
So far I've been using an ASUS F5RL laptop with a Celeron, 2gb RAM and an ATI x1100 with Windows XP for my older games, but I wanted something more "period correct" so I've been fixing my old PC, which consists of:
Mobo: Soltek SL-85SD-C
CPU: Socket 478 Pentium 4 1.7ghz (not entirely sure, but it's a Pentium 4)
256mb RAM
GPU: Riva TNT2 or nVidia GEFORCE 6600GT AGP

I wanted to know if I should install 98SE or XP on this rig and if I should go with the Riva or the 6600GT, I can play the XP games on my modern rig (that is connected to the CRT aswell) but the DOS games are always better on 9x,
Looking forward for your replies on this matter as I'm torn between these 2 technology "era".
Thanks! 😀

the 6600 is obviously more powerful, i know after the 5 series you lose 8 bit paletted textures and table fog, i assume this is present on the TNT2, if thats important to you, go for the TNT2 especially as your cpu is under 2ghz, both should have good compatibility for DOS, personally i'd upgrade the cpu to 2.8ghz and use the 6600gt, for sound card a sound blaster live is a good choice, an audigy 2 is the better card especially if you want higher than EAX2, but under dos SB16 probably sounds just the same on both cards, if you want a cheap card that has accurate OPL3, a C-media CMI8738 can be had for peanuts.

for installing 98 i use a boot cd instead of a floppy, if you source one make sure it includes ramdrive, there are iso's out there for win98 and win M.e, you could use a usb drive and copy setup files to your hdd, i dont bother, a boot cd is the quickest and simplist option for me, for hdd i just use one partition, limit is 137gb, stay under that you should be fine, anything more you'll need Rloew's patch.

Thanks for the input! 😀
I think my cd drives are dead, that's why I must go the usb way for now atleast, until I get another working one. I already have a partition on my HDD with the win98 setup, going to use a bootable USB pen with MS-DOS and WINME fdisk to format c: and sys c:, then, again with the bootable dos pen, I should be able to navigate to the I: partition and install windows, right? 😁

i'v e never installed windows that way so cant really advise, since swapping a boot floppy for a cd its never been easier, i have got an old laptop with a dead cd drive so i may have to install from hdd to get it working again, as for boot disks, i've used an M.e one for 98 but i remember there was something that was incompatible, i think it was scandisk related i forget now, it didnt stop me installing/running 98, but it did show someting in windows stating it was using a different version that was incompatible, it wasn't a serious issue, for 98 i use 80-120gb hdd's for Os so i dont have to bother with patches for larger drives, if i need extra space for games i just use a 2nd hdd, the other reason is if my Os screws up and i need to re-install, i dont have to transfer all my games off first.