1600 x 1200 screams Pentium 4 at me, mostly because you're probably going to want AGP 8x and DDR RAM. However, The K7S5A, a popular socket 462 board will give you the choice of SDRAM or DDR and will do AGP 4x and if you can get a board with universal AGP all the better.

What do you want to base this build around? A graphics card? A CPU? A motherboard? A game? A year? Choose one and the rest will follow.

If 1600x1200 at 100 fps is your goal you need Pentium 4 and FX5950 at the minimum for the later Win9x games and early WinXP games (2000-2002 era). More GPU power is better, so going 6800 or X800/850 will also help.

I dislike P4 and would rather avoid it... if the P3 1.4ghz is not fast enough for the FX5950U, I guess the Athlon XP it is then. I'm guessing an Athlon XP at about 1.8ghz should be able to match a 2.5ghz P4... would that still bottleneck the FX5950 Ultra? And yes I can find a 6800GT as well but I hear those lack in table fog and 8bit palletized textures? I want to use a single machine for all Win9x games (no DOS games) up to like 2001 or so, what I'm using my current P3 1ghz/Voodoo3 for, basically make sure that all those games work fine on the new machine and probably sell my old V3 build afterwards.

God Of Gaming wrote:

I dislike P4 and would rather avoid it... if the P3 1.4ghz is not fast enough for the FX5950U, I guess the Athlon XP it is then. I'm guessing an Athlon XP at about 1.8ghz should be able to match a 2.5ghz P4... would that still bottleneck the FX5950 Ultra? And yes I can find a 6800GT as well but I hear those lack in table fog and 8bit palletized textures? I want to use a single machine for all Win9x games (no DOS games) up to like 2001 or so, what I'm using my current P3 1ghz/Voodoo3 for, basically make sure that all those games work fine on the new machine and probably sell my P3 1ghz/V3 2000 build afterwards.

It depends on the games you want to play. If Quake III is the most graphical intense game, then the FX5950U will be fine, if you're going to play Giants Citizen Kabuto, MDK2, Sacrifice, Wolfenstein and other 2000-2002 games then it might not be powerful enough for that resolution&framerate. Yes, the 6800GT lack the table fog and 8bit textures, but few games uses them and they are related to DirectX 5 games (and DirectX 3 I believe). To get around that you could use a Voodoo2 alongside the 6800GT. You'd also get Glide compatibility with that option 😀

I have a P1.4ghz and FX5950 setup. I can do some tests with the games I mentioned 😀

vetz wrote:

if you're going to play Giants Citizen Kabuto, MDK2, Sacrifice, Wolfenstein and other 2000-2002 games

Yeah, I would like to play those too, I haven't tried them yet but they're on my list to try 😀 I'm also almost finished with a WinXP build (c2d e8600, 750Ti, X-Fi) which would be for games of like 2001-2009 era, DX10 games like Crysis not included. Serious Sam released 2001 I will certainly prefer playing on that build because it supports EAX, that's pretty much when games that support Glide and/or A3D seem to have stopped being released, which is why I think 2000-2001 is pretty much where I should draw the line between win98 and winXP. Quake 3 is the most demanding game that Im aware of that supports A3D.

P.S. just checked, those games you listed are on the list of games that support A3D... Guess I'll have to run them on the win98 build... can 6800gt play those well?

God Of Gaming wrote:

Hello guys,

... and Win98SE.

no higher than 2ghz because I'm aware of NFS Porsche bugging out to low quality textures with 2ghz+ cpus. I would prefer being able to use DDR400 ram if possible.

May I suggest you look into the A64 platform? P4 has very high CPU frequency and as you mentioned NFS Porsche bugging out on anything 2+GHz, you'll need a CPU with good performance/frequency ratio and some platform that supports 98SE drivers (if my assumptions are correct, doesn't this rule out netburst and possibly anything LGA775 anyway?).

A64 works with DDR-400 and is available with AGP 8x. I'm not sure about A64 and 98SE drivers though. If this is not an option, then I'd probably suggest sA and a board that supports DDR-400 and a mobile and setting it to some lower multiplier and upping the FSB. You might end up with something like KT600 or KT880 if you go that route.

^^

Socket 754 or 939 is also something I would suggest. Ample of performance, compatible with modern PSUs and should be cheap as chips, also SSE2 (I believe), which might come in handy down the road.

1600 x 1200 is like the 4K of the late 90s. It's very demanding and often UI elements are too small.

Don't discount 1280 x 1024, it's a great balance between performance, compatibility and detail.

God Of Gaming wrote:

vetz wrote:

if you're going to play Giants Citizen Kabuto, MDK2, Sacrifice, Wolfenstein and other 2000-2002 games

Yeah, I would like to play those too, I haven't tried them yet but they're on my list to try 😀 I'm also almost finished with a WinXP build (c2d e8600, 750Ti, X-Fi) which would be for games of like 2001-2009 era, DX10 games like Crysis not included. Serious Sam released 2001 I will certainly prefer playing on that build because it supports EAX, that's pretty much when games that support Glide and/or A3D seem to have stopped being released, which is why I think 2000-2001 is pretty much where I should draw the line between win98 and winXP. Quake 3 is the most demanding game that Im aware of that supports A3D.

P.S. just checked, those games you listed are on the list of games that support A3D... Guess I'll have to run them on the win98 build... can 6800gt play those well?

All those games do EAX2 as well and will run on your WinXP platform. I run them on my 6800GT@Ultra with a Pentium 4 3.2ghz Extreme Edition and I have stable 60 fps in all those games with v-sync activated. Sacrifice have a “Insufficient page file space” bug with Windows XP SP3, but there is a patch for it on the web. I believe Aquanox to be the last and most demanding game that supports A3D 2.0.

May I suggest you look into the A64 platform? P4 has very high CPU frequency and as you mentioned NFS Porsche bugging out on anything 2+GHz, you'll need a CPU with good performance/frequency ratio and some platform that supports 98SE drivers (if my assumptions are correct, doesn't this rule out netburst and possibly anything LGA775 anyway?).

A64 works with DDR-400 and is available with AGP 8x. I'm not sure about A64 and 98SE drivers though. If this is not an option, then I'd probably suggest sA and a board that supports DDR-400 and a mobile and setting it to some lower multiplier and upping the FSB. You might end up with something like KT600 or KT880 if you go that route.

Regarding NFS Porsche, there is a patch for the 2ghz problem. I'd advise to stay away from Intel AND Windows 98 AND Via chipsets. I've been down that road with Intel cpus and I've experienced strange issues (mouse disappearing from Windows, video card driver resetting randomly, etc). I'd personally recommend the Intel 865 or 875 chipsets if you need alot of CPU power and Windows 98 support. As Phil says though, 754 and early 939 is cheaper and will probably work just as well.

For some reason my CRT is letting me set only up to 75Hz at 1280x1024, while at 1600x1200 its allowing me to set 100Hz. Also 1280x1024 is 5:4 aspect ratio so it would look a bit weird. I'm currently running it at 1024x768 @ 120Hz for the voodoo3, but in Half-Life it often drops below 60fps...

Do 754 / 939 motherboards even have win98 drivers? I think I looked at them a while ago and saw they don't... Also do they have nice low voltage cpu options like the mobile bartons at only 1.35v?

PSU for socket A I think I've got covered, bought one of those recently, just needs re-capping:

God Of Gaming wrote:

For some reason my CRT is letting me set only up to 75Hz at 1280x1024, while at 1600x1200 its allowing me to set 100Hz. Also 128 […]
Show full quote

For some reason my CRT is letting me set only up to 75Hz at 1280x1024, while at 1600x1200 its allowing me to set 100Hz. Also 1280x1024 is 5:4 aspect ratio so it would look a bit weird. I'm currently running it at 1024x768 @ 120Hz for the voodoo3, but in Half-Life it often drops below 60fps...

Do 754 / 939 motherboards even have win98 drivers? I think I looked at them a while ago and saw they don't... Also do they have nice low voltage cpu options like the mobile bartons at only 1.35v?

PSU for socket A I think I've got covered, bought one of those recently, just needs re-capping:

s754 does have Turion. These don't work very well with a stock HSF though due to the Turion not having an IHS.

I never actually installed 9x on anything post sA, so I don't know from experience. But I do remember P4 having been troublesome for 98SE due to drivers?
If going for something like s478 I do have good experience with Intel chipsetted ones.

Your Antec PSU seems fine for sA (provided it's in working condition but you seem to already been taking care of that 😀).

If going for a Turion, be sure to first read up on which boards these will work with. There are also other mobiles and lower voltage chips for s754. I remember http://www.silentpcreview.com having a forum which used to have lots of info about running mobiles in desktop boards.

I was looking for some cpu scaling charts for 6800gt and found this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/1598/6

sadly they're using half-life 2 so I'm not sure just how relevant this would be for older games. To be honest I did not expect a card like that to be bottlenecked by a 1.4ghz tualatin, hell, I was imagining my 1ghz coppermine might do fine 😁

God Of Gaming wrote:

For some reason my CRT is letting me set only up to 75Hz at 1280x1024, while at 1600x1200 its allowing me to set 100Hz. Also 128 […]
Show full quote

For some reason my CRT is letting me set only up to 75Hz at 1280x1024, while at 1600x1200 its allowing me to set 100Hz. Also 1280x1024 is 5:4 aspect ratio so it would look a bit weird. I'm currently running it at 1024x768 @ 120Hz for the voodoo3, but in Half-Life it often drops below 60fps...

Do 754 / 939 motherboards even have win98 drivers? I think I looked at them a while ago and saw they don't... Also do they have nice low voltage cpu options like the mobile bartons at only 1.35v?

PSU for socket A I think I've got covered, bought one of those recently, just needs re-capping:

You can find some Socket 754 motherboards with 98 drivers - I've got a machine with a ASUS K8V-MX (I think) and a Sempron at 1.8ghz running Windows 98 at my inlaws' house.

VIA and SIS chipsets all have 98/ME drivers. IIRC, NF3 has 98 drivers but NF4 does not.

I had in mind using one of those for a Socket A build:

But I took a look at those Turions you mentioned, and they sure look nice on specs:

Especially those last few ones with 1.2v 25W. If I can find a desktop motherboard that supports them and has win98 drivers it would surely end up nice. Do they also have unlocked multipliers like the mobile bartons?

P.S. oh, wow, I found something interesting while researching those Turions. Apparently they should perform the same as Athlon 64 running at the same frequency, so a 2ghz Turion should be as fast as a 2ghz Athlon 64. Well, Intel has a similar thing, Pentium M, that is also a low power mobile processor that can apparently be used on some desktop motherboards, and seems to be an even better pick 😀 I saw some benchmarks, and a 2.0 ghz Pentium M gets better framerates in UT2K4 than a 2.4 Ghz Turion. Doesnt seem like those Pentium Ms are the same disappointment as the Pentium 4s 😀 I should really research them some more, they might be the ideal pick for this 😀

Ok, so I think I have my answer now. Looks like the best build for my needs would be to look for an Asus P4P800E Deluxe motherboard (intel 865PE chipset), an Asus CT-479 adapter, a Pentium M (Dothan 90nm), and 2x256mb DDR400 (dual channel), which should give me the best platform performance possible for win98, and in turn lowest chance of bottlenecking a fast graphics card like the 6800GT 😀 Now let's start digging on ebay 😁

P.S. found a P4P800E Deluxe for sale locally, but also found out P4C800E Deluxe also supports this (intel 875P chipset), I want to ask, which is better chipset for win98se, 865PE or 875P? Both have drivers for win98, so the newer one?

Very close to my setup there 😉 I'd go with 2x512MB RAM. Easier to find highend low latency 512MB sticks than 256mb. You can easily configure Windows 98 to run fine with 1GB of RAM.

I prefer the 875p, it is a littlebit quicker and "highend" than the 865.

ok, guess I'll pass by this P4P800E Deluxe and wait for a P4C800E Deluxe to pop up. I would also like to find a Cooler Master ATC-201 case for this build, from several hours of research it seems that this has been one of the very best PC cases back in the day. For the past few days I've been unable to find it for sale anywhere though, I guess it's rare. But no ultimate build would be complete without an ultimate case 😀

p.s. damn, I found someone locally selling a p4c800e deluxe motherboard... but he's actually selling a full PC, and is unwilling to sell just the motherboard. Asks for quite a bit for it too, 50 euros which is in my opinion way too mcuh for such a machine, I can find a much faster core 2 duo machine for that kind of money... on the plus side his machine has an FX 5950 Ultra in it, but I've seen even one of those to sell for only half that, so its still not quite worth it... I'll try to haggle him I guess

swaaye wrote:

Best for Windows 98:
GeForce 4 Ti 4600/4800 or GeForce FX 5900. FX 5700, 5950, and GeForce 6 are less ideal because you can't run 45.23 drivers which tend to offer the best compatibility. Later drivers definitely cause problems in some games.

Based on this post I saw in another thread, perhaps neither 6800GT nor FX 5950 Ultra are a good idea for this... Which FX 5900 exactly is he talking about though? 5900XT? 5900 Ultra? just plain 5900? Or should I get a Quadro FX2000 (basically an FX5800, theres a few cheap brand new ones on ebay) and add an aftermarket cooler to avoid the noise? Does that support those 45.23 drivers?

I have a W98SE/XP dual-boot build using the following:

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (OC to 2.6GHz, was single core 3800+)
Asus A8V Deluxe
2 GB DDR-400
GeForce 6800 Ultra
Audigy 2 Platinum

One of the easiest Win 98 installs I've had, surprisingly. Everything just worked. Dual-booting, however, took a bit of tinkering but in the end each OS has its own drive - W98 on an IDE and XP on a SATA. Got 2GB working in W98 by cutting it down to 512MB at boot using a command line utility.

Everything runs great, and I play on a Dell Ultrasharp 19" LCD at 1280x1024, Full AA/AF and ridiculously high frame rates for everything I've tried. I vote S939/Athlon 64.