It would probably work just fine... I don't see anything that would give problems on Windows 98

Best choice for that barton is 333mhz ddr since the fsb is 166mhz for that cpu. It overclocks easily to 3200+ and a 400fsb but then you need ddr400.

Running at ddr266 you loose a bit performance, maybe the ram can handle 333mhz?

I'll see if I can source a single 512Mb DDR333 stick (or 2x 256Mb DDR333 sticks) at a later stage. For Windows 9x-era gaming you really don't need more RAM than that anyway.

No you don't. My 98se systems all run with 128 and 256mb. Only exception is the 1400 tualatin as it has a dualboot with xp.

Isn't there something like a 512Mb limit imposed by the OS? Or am I mistaken?

Alright, in a very interesting turn of events I managed to find an AMD Thunderbird 1400MHz CPU and ABIT KT7A-Raid Motherboard with an ISA slot. I think I should sell the VIA KM400 board, the 2500+ CPU and the RAM and use the money for that system. How much do you guys think I can get for it?

Evert wrote:

Isn't there something like a 512Mb limit imposed by the OS? Or am I mistaken?

From what I've read, 98SE and ME are limited to something like 512-768MB, over which they run into problems. I have 512MB on my Win98 box and there's no issues, but when I tried booting with 1GB (which the MB absolutely can do, and has done with Win2k and WinXP), 98 refused to start. I've heard of hacks to get around it, but honestly I've never seen the need for 1GB or more in Windows 98... 😊

I think the K7-for-Win98 idea from the original post is a good idea too, it'd be very fast, and should be fairly compatible with games from the later 1990s and early 2000s due to the GeForce FX. Switching to the KT7A would give you ISA, but I'm not sure if that would be of any benefit (yes I know you can have ISA soundcard for DOS, but do you really need AthlonXP for DOS gaming? and would the various DOS games you actually play be okay with such a fast CPU?). You might also want to check if the XP 2500+ can be made to work in the KT7A or not - even if it's at a reduced FSB and clock and such. I would expect it to run cooler than the Athlon 1400MHz, and perform better (XP added various improvements, as well as SSE, over the original Athlon).

EDIT

Did a quick check on the KT7 situation - revision 1.3 and above will work with AthlonXP Palomino at least, and all KT7 apparently work with Morgan Duron (which appears to be AthlonXP-based): http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/news1458.html

Well, since my search for a PIII platform isn't yielding any results, I would like to know if anyone has any experience running Voodoo 2 cards on a VIA KM400 / KT400 platform? Apparently they don't like running on systems where your bus speed is over 100/133MHz or something about the PCI 2.3 slots not providing enough or the right amount of voltage. I have seen YouTube videos of a guy running miss-matched Voodoo 2s on SLI on a P4/Xeon platform with RAMBUS memory. So this could potentially work? I want to be at least 90% sure before I try, seeing that Voodoo 2 cards are getting rarer and more expensive.