tomeldee wrote on 2025-10-19, 10:59:

I also ordered some more RAMs, so I'll have 1GB in total, that's surely better than 256MB, at least for the HDD caused stuttering and loading times.

You absolutely won’t need that amount of ram, nor there is any use for it. First, win98 only supports max 512MB out of the box. Second, there is no software that can run comfortably on that system and could even remotely take advantage of it. The only reason why it is worth the hassle to cram that much memory for win98 box is if you are dualbooting to XP also.

Besides, there are games that crap out with more than 256MB memory. Fortunately limiting the memory space in win98 can be achieved with software, but it just highlights how unnecessary it is to add huge amounts of ram. My Slot A Athlon box I mentioned has 256MB and my ”autumn 2001” SocketA build (1400TB, KG7 RAID, Radeon 8500) has 512MB. Both systems have far more ram that would be needed for the games and applications they are used with.

ah I didn't know that about Win98, thanks for the info!
well then I'll try with 512MB only for Win98, and only add more when I'm experimenting with WinXP

What software do use to limit Win9x to 256MB RAM and what Win9x games work worse at 512MB? Thank you!

marxveix wrote on 2025-10-19, 12:36:

What software do use to limit Win9x to 256MB RAM and what Win9x games work worse at 512MB? Thank you!

2muchmem has worked for me when needed, can't remember where I downloaded it so I attached it here. For example, Longbow 2 doesn't work with more than 256MB and 2muchmem does the trick. Although there may be some .ini fix for the memory error, 2muchmem is just easy to use and at least it doesn't have side effects.

Other trick is to create a ram drive that limits the amount of memory available to OS.

3DMark 2001 is a very dubious test due to its heavy CPU dependency.
If you were to filter the top 10 results of HWBOT for your graphics card, you'd find all the "fake" results.
Like "Asrock_something_AM2+_AGP" + Phenom 2 at 5GHz with a score of nearly 15,000 points.
Or "that same Asus_i865_AGP" + Core 2 Duo at 4.5GHz with a similar score.
Don't rely on it.
https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/3dmark2001_se/su … issions/3875815