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Windows 98 retro PC that runs Gothic 2 Night of the Raven

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First post, by shad02v

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Hey there!

I'm trying to build up a PC that runs windows 98, that's a must.
When I was young I used to have an hp vectra with 486 and then another hp vectra with Pentium I. Since this builds up the most nostalgia, I found that the oldest case that resembles that look but with atx support is the hp vectra vl400. So that's the case that I'm gonna be using.
I will use two slots of ram with 512mb each. I'm doing this so that in case I don't fix windows 98 I can just remove one ram and leave it to 512.
Considering the average power consumption of the components I suppose finding a 300-400w power supply should do.
I'm not a big fan of sound so I will get some speakers that resemble the look of what I had the most. Any a4tech white vintage speakers should do. As for the soundcard I think any Soundblaster card should be enough.
The screen that I aim for is a 14 inch 1024x768 crt screen that's not flat.

Now after looking at tens of YouTube videos and reading several posts I still don't know what should I choose for motherboard, processor and video card. What range of components should I look after such that they are compatible with each other and I can run my desired games on windows 98?
My aim is to be able to play smoothly (minimum 30 fps) at 1024x768 on Windows 98: Gothic 2 Night of the Raven (this one counts the most), TES 3 Morrowind, Fahrenheit, GTA Vice City.
On the lower end I will want to be able to play TES Arena, Warcraft 1, Crystal Caves (1991), DuckTales (1990) , The Settlers 2 (this one counts the most), Jazz Jackrabbit natively.

The recommended components seem to be too low performance for the more recent games that I want to play.
The newer components like a geforce 6600, from what I understand, won't be able to play my older games.

What motherboard, processor and video card should I go for to be able to smoothly play all the listed games on windows 98?
Edit: I live in Romania where poeple used to be pretty damn poor in early 2000's so finding a card like geforce 4 ti 4600 is close to impossible.

Last edited by shad02v on 2020-05-22, 20:30. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 9, by texterted

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For old games, using the Athlon rig in my sig, I often use dos box, as I like to run them in a window anyway. You'll need a pretty powerful system to run NFS U2 smoothly.

Cheers

Ted

98se/W2K :- Asus A8v Dlx. A-64 3500+, 512 mb ddr, Radeon 9800 Pro, SB Live.
XP Pro:- Asus P5 Q SE Plus, C2D E8400, 4 Gig DDR2, Radeon HD4870, SB Audigy 2ZS.

Reply 2 of 9, by Joseph_Joestar

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Making a retro rig that can bridge DOS, Win98 and WinXP games is complicated. It can be done, but there are always some drawbacks. Unless you absolutely have no room for 2 computers, I'd suggest building two separate systems - one for DOS and Win98, and another for WinXP.

There's no reason to play Gothic 2 on Win98 when XP gives you a much broader range of hardware to work with.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 3 of 9, by shad02v

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texterted wrote on 2020-05-22, 20:01:

For old games, using the Athlon rig in my sig, I often use dos box, as I like to run them in a window anyway. You'll need a pretty powerful system to run NFS U2 smoothly.

Now that you mentioned it I believe I went too far with that game, while it definitely brings nostalgia I won't take its requirements into account, I'll remove it from my post.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-05-22, 20:02:

Making a retro rig that can bridge DOS, Win98 and WinXP games is complicated. It can be done, but there are always some drawbacks. Unless you absolutely have no room for 2 computers, I'd suggest building two separate systems - one for DOS and Win98, and another for WinXP.

There's no reason to play Gothic 2 on Win98 when XP gives you a much broader range of hardware to work with.

Well.. XP doesn't hit me with as much nostalgia as 98. aaand... while using my win 98 pentium 1 I always dreamed that I can play gothic on it and I'd love to make it happen. If it can run Settlers 2 in DOS and Gothic 2 NOTR smoothly, that would make my childhood wish come true.
So, I have every personal reason to play Gothic on 98.

Reply 7 of 9, by shad02v

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Doornkaat wrote on 2020-05-23, 16:12:

I believe this has a non standard PSU that'll limit your choice of components.
Wait till it arrives and see what power it'll output.

It comes without a power supply.. This is how it looks empty
IMG_20200523_141440.jpg

And this is how it looks with components inside (found it on google)
pgvUHY6SEi0MG6UqN_YKZkT8o6pkAVkA7k3CG_Tt8ZXVCOBw7vIAg0p8ZxA2zrcJWTuMeBY4uZHAbrjB3kbmQ1gCAdisDIckVXbd5LfPTq4bNpiRdrU7-Pw31DI7mKRtqQ=s412

Reply 8 of 9, by Doornkaat

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If it comes without a PSU find out what PSU you can find to fit in there first. Again it's probably not standard ATX and not knowing what the physical limitations of the case are it's hard to give any suggestions.
Honestly it's hard to suggest any one setup for the games you want to play on this pc. 🙁

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