First post, by s0ren
Hi everyone. I have been leeching tips & tricks on this forum for a couple of weeks in relation to my own retro computing project, so i thought i would share my experience.
I decided to go with a thin client setup, and went for a HP t5720 with a nVidia Quatro NVS 280 (its one of the standard configurations) running Windows 98SE - even though i have 486 and Pentium I computers on storage. The setup is as follows:
HP t5720 512MB RAM w. Quatro NVS 280 64MB 30€
Sandisk Extreme pro compact flash 16GB 32€
DMS-59 to dual VGA 8€ (bummer, but the video card has no other output)
CF to 44-pin IDE + IDE cable = 5€
~ 75€ total incl. delivery
Drivers:
SiS 7012 PCI Audio Driver
VIA Rhine NDIS5 V384A ethernet driver
81.98 forceware nVidia VGA driver
SiS UVGA3 373 for the on-board VGA (i just tested it once)
Native USB disk driver for Windows 98SE v3.3
VDMSound beta 3 for Windows 98
Pros:
- The hardware is newer and thus more reliable
- Has Windows 98 drivers for everything
- Great performance
- Low power consumption and low noise
- Legacy USB support for USB mouse/keyboard
- Low price
Cons:
- No native soundblaster support (for dos games)
Disk:
I went for the Compact Flash solution, although wear might be an issue.
In config.sys i added ACCDATE values for the C drive to avoid writing to the disk every time i opened a file to set the "last accessed date", and set ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 in system.ini. Both configurations work as anticipated.
I also left 4GB free on the CF card so that the build-in wear leveling functionality has some unused space to use. If you are very paranoid, you could buy the 100+€ Transcend industrial grade SLC compact flash cards and get about 4 times longer lifespan, in which case i would not worry about wear at all. Afaik, only Transcend is still producing SLC compact flash cards. Everything else seems to be MLC or TLC. There are cheaper 16GB CF cards out there, but to my very limited experience, i have found that the Sandisk Extreme cards are of better quality than for instance the "Ultra" versions.
Video:
The nVidia Quatro NVS 280 offers excellent performance for playing Unreal Tournament in full HD and Half-Life 1, and thats about the newest games i want to play. It does not work at all with FIFA soccer 98, 99, and 2000 though. I also tried with nGlide but at most i got a 99% black screen with a lot of glitches going on. GTA1 is also flickering, and build games like Duke3D needs the nolfb patch to work in VESA modes.
I tried the on-board SiS GPU as well, but then i could not get sound to work in some games like Duke Nukem 3D (!). The on-board supported screen resolutions also left a lot to desire.
Audio:
Some games, like Duke Nukem 3D works fine with the Windows 98 supplied soundblaster emulation. I installed VDMSound for some dos games, but it only works with a few titles. Astrofire, Magic Carpet, and others, do not work at all with neither Win98 sound or VDMSound unfortunately. Also, if i have used VDMSound, and then later run Duke Nukem 3D, the windows 98 soundblaster emulation thing doesnt work and i have to reboot - even if i run the VDMSound unload programb (btw anyone know how to disable the tip of the day popup?).
Software installation:
Installing Windows 98 directly from USB was a nogo, as the USB drive was detected as the primary hard drive, and i couldnt change the active partition in fdisk. The compact flash IDE drive thus became drive D:. I could however format the CF drive, and copy system files with "Format d: /S", after which i could copy the Win98 installation files. I then booted from an external USB floppy drive with a Windows 98 start disk, so that i could run fdisk to make the compact flash drive active (else DOS wont boot). At last i could boot from the CF drive, got a dos promt, and could run the Win98 setup. Installing the drivers was a breeze after i had found them 😀
Next:
I have a Neoware Capio 508 that i wish to turn into a DOS/Win 3.11 box for the games im missing. At least on paper, the motherboard has native sundblaster emulation so hopefully i can run Magic Carpet, Astrofire, Redneck Rampage, etc. If anyone is interested, i can make a new post when that experiment has been carried out 😀
*** EDIT ***
Tried a Radeon 9200SE graphics card in this machine: Re: Thin client HP t5720 Win98/DOS experience