wierd_w wrote on 2024-07-03, 01:46:

While it is true that NT4 is not plug and play aware (and requires you to have a bios that can allocate resources/init cards for […]
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While it is true that NT4 is not plug and play aware (and requires you to have a bios that can allocate resources/init cards for you), and needs old crusty drivers, it is a VERY lightweight version of windows.
With the DX5 pack installed, quite a few early 9x games install and run fine.

Most of the complaints about NT4 are about it being "Different" from more modern Plug&Play experiences on say, win9x and win2k. It's important to remember that NT4 predates those OSes, and so such mental models need to be discarded as anachronisms. You wont find a 5 speed transmission on a Model T.

As a general rule, NT4 "Feels Like" Win95A, up until you want to install drivers. Then it "Feels like NT3.5"

If you need DX6 or newer, then yes, go ahead and bite the much higher RAM and CPU needs for win2k. Very solid performer in that era.

It's definitely a case of needing to understand and respect the limitations of the software. NT 4 is great, but it is unfair to compare it to much later NT (and to some extent 9x) Windows versions that solve its biggest problems. Even so, it is very interesting to see what level of hardware you can get away with running on it. The simplistic 95-based shell means it doesn't struggle nearly as much on a lower clocked Pentium as it would in 2000. And if you're using something like a Pentium Pro with a true 32-bit architecture, you'll be in very good shape. I imagine its relatively low system requirements meant that many people ended up using NT4 as a workstation well past the release of 2000, as it was a large boost in hardware requirements.

It honestly is the most stable version of Windows for how lightweight it is. The only thing that would compare is terms of very modest hardware requirements is Windows 9x, which is significantly worse for stability and security .

wierd_w wrote on 2024-07-03, 01:46:

it is a VERY lightweight version of windows

Just can't stop laughing 🤣
Well, from today's point of view, any 20th century software may look "very lightweight"...
but seriously, when Windows NT was released, it was probably the *HEAVIEST* of PC operating systems!

Heavier than any DOS-based Windows, heavier than OS/2, heavier than contemporary Linux distributions...
With 16 MB of RAM, all those systems ran pretty well - but the NT was neverending pain!
Yes, literally neverending - just the bootup was taking forever, and then any attempt to do anything resulted in constant swapping...
64 MB was pretty much necessary for anything serious.

Yes, with proper hardware, the NT was a good OS after all - beneath the visible shell it had nothing in common with those poor excuses for OS known as "Windows 9x".
But again - there was nothing lightweight about it!

I see no real benefit over Win2k, unless you're severely RAM constrained.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-07-03, 03:58:

I see no real benefit over Win2k, unless you're severely RAM constrained.

I had a very specific use case where NT4 was the only option.

A goal of mine is building a retro mid-late 90s workstation. Being a college student, money is tight; I don't have the space or funds to actually source the parts. I decided to create the machine in 86Box, and went from there.

What I found was my Core i9 9900k was not capable of emulating the machine at full speed consistently enough to be viable - if I was running 2000. I switched to NT 4, and the problem was solved. It was this very specific edge case with three layers of niche that caused me to grow to appreciate the operating system, as it is highly unlikely I would've used it beyond simple curiosity otherwise.

RetroSonicHero wrote on 2024-07-03, 04:13:

I had a very specific use case where NT4 was the only option. […]
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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-07-03, 03:58:

I see no real benefit over Win2k, unless you're severely RAM constrained.

I had a very specific use case where NT4 was the only option.

A goal of mine is building a retro mid-late 90s workstation. Being a college student, money is tight; I don't have the space or funds to actually source the parts. I decided to create the machine in 86Box, and went from there.

What I found was my Core i9 9900k was not capable of emulating the machine at full speed consistently enough to be viable - if I was running 2000. I switched to NT 4, and the problem was solved. It was this very specific edge case with three layers of niche that caused me to grow to appreciate the operating system, as it is highly unlikely I would've used it beyond simple curiosity otherwise.

On an i9 9900k, why not use qemu kvm instead of 86Box and possibly 2000 or even XP as a guest OS ?

fosterwj03 wrote on 2024-07-03, 01:31:

I might stand corrected. I tried Unreal Tournament just now, and it only runs in a window when I select Direct3D to render the game. I wonder if that means it isn't really running in Direct3D mode at all and is reverting back to software rendering. Very interesting...

Dxdiag (if available) should tell you whether hardware acceleration for Direct3D is available, in normal circumstances. Not sure if it would be reliable in a potentially "hacky" setup (unofficial DirectX5 runtime).

darry wrote on 2024-07-03, 04:34:

On an i9 9900k, why not use qemu kvm instead of 86Box and possibly 2000 or even XP as a guest OS ?

KVM is a hypervisor. 86Box is an emulator - it is making actual system calls and emulating every aspect of the hardware you could think of from the sound, video, IDE controllers, motherboard, etc. You are emulating specific hardware, which is why you'd want to use it. Because my goal is to create a period-correct workstation environment from the mid to late 90s and have each aspect of the hardware behave as it should, KVM isn't going to cut it. If your goal is to just get the operating system running, it works. But since I have specific hardware in mind, it doesn't cut it - not for my use case.

For instance, here's my current configuration:

Socket 8 Intel VS440FX
Pentium Pro 180 Mhz
512 MB
Matrox Millennium II
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
18 GB 5400 RPM Hard Disk
Dual 3.55 Floppy
24x CD-ROM Drive

I would much rather have a physical workstation mirroring hardware similar to this or even surpassing it, but I don't have the money or space to do so. Thus, this was my only option. I am aware how niche this is, but it's been a rewarding project thus far, and I've learned a lot in the process that I can most likely use when I have the money to source the parts I need for this build.

I have a Pentium Pro build in mind, something I will eventually do as a future project. I can't really decide between Win NT4 or 2000, and to be honest I am also holding out for maybe eventually posessing a dual socket 8 motherboard someday, but this thread has done little to convince me that going for NT4 for even a single socket build would be the better idea..

Depends.

NT4 for gaming (outside of old DirectDraw based games) will only end in pain and suffering.

As (comparstively, I see the earlier criticisms about comparing it with period accurate dos+win3x/win9x systems, but consider this apples and oranges. NT4 workstation is meant for endless hours logged into SNP, doing medical billing and coding, aggressive desktop publishing, or interacting with a database server. NT4 server is for running antedeluvian versions of SQL server, Access, archaic flat-mode domain file and print serving, and other such tasks.) A very lightweight win32 envirionment, (compared to win2k), it can make a very effective addition to a retro-pc workgroup, for doing heavy administrative activities with slower, older hardware. (Things like running Services for Macintosh, so your phone-net segment full of macplus and mac classics have something/somewhere to store files reliably, etc)

For anything gaming related, you want DX6 or better, that means win2k.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-07-03, 08:43:

Depends.

NT4 for gaming (outside of old DirectDraw based games) will only end in pain and suffering.

Don't forget about OpenGL games such as the Quake series and Half-Life.

Regardless, 'most' of the beef about NT4 being 'slow', 'unresponsive' and 'thrashy' come from not installing busmastering IDE drivers.

The stock disk controller driver is PIO4.

'Of Course' you will experience pain and suffering with it. It's the same basic setup as running 9x without the dma checkbox on.

There were vendor supplied busmaster drivers yiu could use the 'f6 diskette' method with, that are period accurate.

Anachronistically, there is UniATA, which DOES support NT4.

http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/uni_ata/uni_ata.php

The difference is night and day.

You will still need a disk defragmenter.
(NT4 does *NOT* come with a defragmenter, and statements that NTFS doesnt need one, are lies.)

Period correct is 'diskkeeper lite'.

Anachronistically (and better featured) is ultradefrag.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ultradefrag/

wierd_w wrote on 2024-07-03, 01:46:

If you need DX6 or newer, then yes, go ahead and bite the much higher RAM and CPU needs for win2k. Very solid performer in that era.

I think that's the thing. the gap into which NT4 fits is relatively small, the moment there is a few hundred mhz and 128mb ram then 2000 is more than fine (it can be ok on more constrained systems too). when there's, say, 200Mhz and 64mb ram its fine with 98se giving later directx options (and more driver options) and if specs are low enough to not be able to use 98se comfortably then nt4 offers a limited scope gaming platform. At least at the time. Now - with willing experimentation on a spare vintage system it is interesting and fun.

NT4 on a pentium with 'productivity' and other software of the era is nostalgic if you ever worked with an office pc at the time

RetroSonicHero wrote on 2024-07-03, 04:48:

KVM is a hypervisor. 86Box is an emulator - it is making actual system calls and emulating every aspect of the hardware you coul […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2024-07-03, 04:34:

On an i9 9900k, why not use qemu kvm instead of 86Box and possibly 2000 or even XP as a guest OS ?

KVM is a hypervisor. 86Box is an emulator - it is making actual system calls and emulating every aspect of the hardware you could think of from the sound, video, IDE controllers, motherboard, etc. You are emulating specific hardware, which is why you'd want to use it. Because my goal is to create a period-correct workstation environment from the mid to late 90s and have each aspect of the hardware behave as it should, KVM isn't going to cut it. If your goal is to just get the operating system running, it works. But since I have specific hardware in mind, it doesn't cut it - not for my use case.

For instance, here's my current configuration:

Socket 8 Intel VS440FX
Pentium Pro 180 Mhz
512 MB
Matrox Millennium II
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
18 GB 5400 RPM Hard Disk
Dual 3.55 Floppy
24x CD-ROM Drive

I would much rather have a physical workstation mirroring hardware similar to this or even surpassing it, but I don't have the money or space to do so. Thus, this was my only option. I am aware how niche this is, but it's been a rewarding project thus far, and I've learned a lot in the process that I can most likely use when I have the money to source the parts I need for this build.

While KVM is a hypervisor, thanks to QEMU, some hardware is emulated (and configurable) and PCI hardware can be be passed through.

For example, the machine type can be set to 440FX and host CPUs feature flags can be masked.

On the sound card front there are some options to emulate some some legacy ones (with some issues) [1], though not an AWE64. I would argue that using a more commonly supported emulated card + a softsynth (either inside the guest or on the host) might be more practical than a relatively DOS centric AWE64 on a NT based OS with limited direct hardware access for DOS applications.

For the video card, the basic Cirrus Logic is probably too limited and there are probably no drivers for the other emulated video card options. However, there is the hybrid approach of using PCI passthrough to use an old PCI video card and sound card that is supported in Windows NT. Granted, there is a cost to this, but since you would only need need 1 VGA PCI card (prices vary) and a PCIE to PCI bridge (probably around 20$), you could likely get it done quite inexpensively. You could apply the same appproach to PCI sound card supported by NT 4 (high end pro grade ones tend to go for cheap).

I have experimented with PCI passthrough of video cards and other devices with DOS, Windows 98SE and Windows XP client OSes. Other than some issues that were Voodoo 3 specific and others that were DOS VGA performance related, neither of which would likely be issues for you, things seemed to work (including some old Matrox cards) [2]

That being said, this is a rabbit hole and emulation might well be a much better solution for you (for various practical reasons and/or your personal preferences), but my point is that using a hypervisor approach with some QEMU peripheral emulation and/or PCI passthrough is a potentially viable, inexpensive and higher performance approach to doing what I believe you want to do (and are currently doing with 86Box).

EDIT: There may be specific issue or limitations inherent to to NT 4. I have not used that OS, even on baremetal, since the mid 2000s.

[1]
https://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?p=315216

[2]
I was finally able to succesfully (mostly) PCI passthrough a real PCI Voodoo 3 2000 to a Windows 98 SE QEMU KVM VM

gerry wrote on 2024-07-03, 13:15:

wierd_w wrote on 2024-07-03, 01:46:

If you need DX6 or newer, then yes, go ahead and bite the much higher RAM and CPU needs for win2k. Very solid performer in that era.

I think that's the thing. the gap into which NT4 fits is relatively small, the moment there is a few hundred mhz and 128mb ram then 2000 is more than fine (it can be ok on more constrained systems too). when there's, say, 200Mhz and 64mb ram its fine with 98se giving later directx options (and more driver options) and if specs are low enough to not be able to use 98se comfortably then nt4 offers a limited scope gaming platform. At least at the time. Now - with willing experimentation on a spare vintage system it is interesting and fun.

NT4 on a pentium with 'productivity' and other software of the era is nostalgic if you ever worked with an office pc at the time

It can be nostalgic, or it can be a PTSD trigger. The company I worked for at the time had us using it a while past the EOL date. I will leave it at that. I personally have much more nostalgia for Windows 2000 and XP, but that's just me.

GemCookie wrote on 2024-07-03, 09:17:

wierd_w wrote on 2024-07-03, 08:43:

Depends.

NT4 for gaming (outside of old DirectDraw based games) will only end in pain and suffering.

Don't forget about OpenGL games such as the Quake series and Half-Life.

DirectDraw, OpenGL and Glide games are options.

I used to run Windows 2000 on my Pentium II with 64MB memory and I remember it being fine. I mean, I don't know what you guys think the threshold memory is for having to settle for NT4, but I'd say if you have 64MB or more you probably don't need to...

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-03, 14:49:

I used to run Windows 2000 on my Pentium II with 64MB memory and I remember it being fine. I mean, I don't know what you guys think the threshold memory is for having to settle for NT4, but I'd say if you have 64MB or more you probably don't need to...

Back in the day, I ran Win2K (no service pack) on a Celeron 333 (OC to 400 something) with 96 MB and it worked acceptably. At the moment, I'm running Win2K + SP4 on my Coppermine Celeron 600 with 256 MB and it feels quite snappy.

BTW, I'm not sure if later service packs made Win2K more demanding, but it doesn't feel like it. This is in stark contrast with WinXP where SP2 and especially SP3 made lower-end systems much less responsive.

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-03, 14:49:

I used to run Windows 2000 on my Pentium II with 64MB memory and I remember it being fine. I mean, I don't know what you guys think the threshold memory is for having to settle for NT4, but I'd say if you have 64MB or more you probably don't need to...

I remember getting 128MB of PC100 SDRAM in late-ish 1998, because it was relatively inexpensive (there might have been a price dip at that time, not sure anymore). This was overkill at the time. 64MB would have been more than enough. I did not use NT 4 at home, but when Windows 2000 came out, 128MB was still OK,AFAICR, but website bloat was beginning to rise. I wish I could remember more useful RAM usage metrics, but ever since that time I always strived to have more RAM than I needed.

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-03, 14:49:

I used to run Windows 2000 on my Pentium II with 64MB memory and I remember it being fine. I mean, I don't know what you guys think the threshold memory is for having to settle for NT4, but I'd say if you have 64MB or more you probably don't need to...

there were a LOT of pretty big changes between ppro and p2. cache, mhz, chipset (usually), sd ram, mmx just to name the ones off the top of my head.

The ram is there so the system has very little to swap to disk. IIRC ppro boards were limited to 16mb IDE speeds. (generally speaking). So the performance hit to running out of memory was huge. P2 chipsets usually had teh 440bx and were using UDMA33 and was a massive improvement.

yes i know pentium 2 had cheap chipsets and even ran on the same as ppro. but if you were to compare a "new" ppro rig with a "new" p2 rig of the same price range, the P2 would curb stomp the ppro in 9/10 tasks. even at jsut 233mhz.

That said, the ppro OD chips... those things FLEW. huge L2 cache running at full speed. its a shame people have scooped them all up and want nucking futs prices for them now. I'm still waiting on getting a matched set of 6 for my ALR setup.

darry wrote on 2024-07-03, 13:43:

I have experimented with PCI passthrough of video cards and other devices with DOS, Windows 98SE and Windows XP client OSes. Oth […]
Show full quote

I have experimented with PCI passthrough of video cards and other devices with DOS, Windows 98SE and Windows XP client OSes. Other than some issues that were Voodoo 3 specific and others that were DOS VGA performance related, neither of which would likely be issues for you, things seemed to work (including some old Matrox cards) [2]

That being said, this is a rabbit hole and emulation might well be a much better solution for you (for various practical reasons and/or your personal preferences), but my point is that using a hypervisor approach with some QEMU peripheral emulation and/or PCI passthrough is a potentially viable, inexpensive and higher performance approach to doing what I believe you want to do (and are currently doing with 86Box).

EDIT: There may be specific issue or limitations inherent to to NT 4. I have not used that OS, even on baremetal, since the mid 2000s.

[1]
https://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?p=315216

[2]
I was finally able to succesfully (mostly) PCI passthrough a real PCI Voodoo 3 2000 to a Windows 98 SE QEMU KVM VM

Fair enough. thanks for making me aware of its capabilities. I'll have to look into this further. I didn't know PCI passthrough was that robust.