For video, I think a 6800 is too new for a 98 machine. Some people do run them, but they don't support palettized textures, so the FX series has better compatibility.

For Audio expansion cards look for something by Creative (Sound Blaster live!/Audigy/Audigy 2) or an Aureal Vorex 2. You don't need this but it's a nice little boost in sound effects for games that support the 3d sound technologies of the times.

The rest of the parts are determined by the motherboard you choose. Probably the trickiest part to make a decision about.

if you care about compatibility don't go with a graphics card any higher then the geforce 5 as has been stated. I run a geforce 5950 Ultra in my high end win98 machine and it works fine. only game that may not look 100% is Splinter Cell.

Audio cards are cheap enough so why not? I use a Audigy 2 zs which is regarded pretty highly for win98.

Could you please list what type of games you want to play and at what resolution?

Wanting to play late win98 games - Star wars Battlefront, LOTR - Battle for Middle Earth and etc. at whatever resolution would be best for a 24" flat screen. My main concern is getting things hooked up on a modern case's front panel - can't seem to find a SB card that's compatible unless it comes with a "live drive".

I would say that eighter a Geforce-FX5000 series (naturally in the high end) or some sort of Radeon 9000 series (9600 to 9800) are the cards to go with. Personally I like Radeon the best. Though the Radeon lacks some technology compared to Geforce, the Radeon's drivers are more easy to work with.

I am thinking in terms of all those different Geforce drivers to choose from, wich varies what version to choose, when a specific game is desired.
Some Geforce drivers works better on some games and worse on others, so it's a bit of a jungle, unless you know exactly what to choose.
On the Radeon side. You just install one specific version (cant remember wich from the tip of my tounge), and the best part is that AA & AF can be controlled better on the Radeon. So... Well... They both have their ups and downs. The last thing, and this is utter personal taste, I like the image quality on Radeon better than on Geforce cards.

To start with. Go for the GF3 you allready have. It can't hurt to use it, and then decide if an upgrade is in need.

Ahh... Forgot about the GF vs R thing... If you change the Geforce drivers too many times, and by accident install a specific version after another, if a different card is required. Well... Then you might (and this is in rare cases) have a broken Win98. I ran into this problem 2 times in say a 100 times of installing and uninstalling of the geforce/nvidia drivers. On the Radeon side, I have yet to encounter this type of behaviour. Whenever a new Radeon is not propperly detected, I just reinstall the drivers on top of those that were installed in the first place. And everything just works again.

The symptoms on my Win98-Broken install, is allways the same. Everything that has to do with Copy/paste/delete/create-folder just disappears in the right-click menu/dropdown-file-menu, in folders and on the desktop. So yeah... Be carefull with those geforce drivers. 😁

Aureal Vortex2 would be my choice over a Live!

brostenen wrote:

Ahh... Forgot about the GF vs R thing... If you change the Geforce drivers too many times, and by accident install a specific version after another, if a different card is required. Well... Then you might (and this is in rare cases) have a broken Win98. I ran into this problem 2 times in say a 100 times of installing and uninstalling of the geforce/nvidia drivers. On the Radeon side, I have yet to encounter this type of behaviour. Whenever a new Radeon is not propperly detected, I just reinstall the drivers on top of those that were installed in the first place. And everything just works again.

The symptoms on my Win98-Broken install, is allways the same. Everything that has to do with Copy/paste/delete/create-folder just disappears in the right-click menu/dropdown-file-menu, in folders and on the desktop. So yeah... Be carefull with those geforce drivers. 😁

Sebaz_ri wrote about this bug with the 56.64 driver uninstall and the fix here: Re: Calling 440BX (and LX) users...

buckeye wrote:

Wanting to play late win98 games - Star wars Battlefront, LOTR - Battle for Middle Earth and etc. at whatever resolution would be best for a 24" flat screen. My main concern is getting things hooked up on a modern case's front panel - can't seem to find a SB card that's compatible unless it comes with a "live drive".

You had me shocked and confused wanting to play Star wars Battlefront on Windows 98. That would really be something 🤣 . I assume you mean Battlegrounds (late 2001 RTS) right? I assume it would work fine on XP wouldn't it? Battle for Middle Earth is mid XP era, not late 98.

If you want to use your modern 24" you want to be running at its native resolution (probably 1920x1080). But thats a lot of pixels to be rendered for a 98 setup. Is there a particular reason you want to run 98?

Creative were extremely lame in their decision to use a propriety connector rather than standard front panel connector pins. The good news is that an adapter cable can be built. For the price to get the parts it's probably easier to just buy a pre built one on ebay like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/281854020606

buckeye wrote:

Wanting to play late win98 games - Star wars Battlefront, LOTR - Battle for Middle Earth and etc. at whatever resolution would be best for a 24" flat screen. My main concern is getting things hooked up on a modern case's front panel - can't seem to find a SB card that's compatible unless it comes with a "live drive".

Might be not exactly true. I've seen something like that on ebay and ordered one, but since it is not arrived yet, I have no real experience if it works or not:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Front-Panel-Audio-Ada … =item27f814b031

In their compatibility list, they have some model numbers of OEM SB Live (0200, 0220) and Audigy (0350) cards.

I also suggest a Geforce 4 Ti (Ti 4600?) card. They came out in mid to late 2002, so they are state of the art for games released in 2003-2003. It's my personal opinion of course but, playing later games (2004 and onwards) on Windows 98 is not a preferable thing. To tell you the truth, I also prefer a PIII Tualatin compared to any P4, any day, for this specific "high end Windows 98" purpose. On the other hand, obtaining P4 components is much more easy compared to PIII ones.

Regarding Star Wars Battlefront, meant the 1st one that came out 2004 or thereabouts. Need an i5/7 rig for the new iteration.

That's the thing on retro computing, so many ways to "skin a cat". Probably going to look for a 370 or a low end 478 set up with a 5xxx series Geforce. The sound card issue I might have to surrender to and stick with on-board audio for the front panel connections. One thing I noticed the 370/478's are much more plentiful on ebay.