I recommend you find something older. You'll have a lot of hurdles to take if you want to install Windows 98 on that machine.

I'm guessing a lot here, but I think it has at least a G33 chipset with GMA3100 graphics. There are no W9x drivers for these. Maybe modded ones... And then you want sound and maybe networking...

PD2JK wrote on 2024-08-18, 06:12:

I recommend you find something older. You'll have a lot of hurdles to take if you want to install Windows 98 on that machine.

I'm guessing a lot here, but I think it has at least a G33 chipset with GMA3100 graphics. There are no W9x drivers for these. Maybe modded ones... And then you want sound and maybe networking...

Or should i buy new mini pc like CPU i5 and play with dosbox connect midi external [sc-55 mt-32] with usb to midi port
should it be easier?

NEC Mate series is a favorite product line of Japanese office environments: companies, schools, government agencies, etc.; not exactly designed for gaming or expandability. That specific case design indicates its vintage between Core 2 to early Core i era. Any MB with DDR3 couldn't be earlier than mid-2007 so it is way too new for native DOS or Win9x. It could be, however, a nice little WinXP build, especially if you could pair it with a low-profile, low-power graphics card like GTX 750 Ti.

For some reason NEC Mate seems to be popular on Filipino auction sites; could be acquired in bulk from Japanese offices retiring entire batches then resell them to Filipino individuals after refurbishing.

DataDragons wrote on 2024-08-18, 07:00:

Or should i buy new mini pc like CPU i5 and play with dosbox connect midi external [sc-55 mt-32] with usb to midi port
should it be easier?

Yes.

dormcat wrote on 2024-08-18, 07:12:

NEC Mate series is a favorite product line of Japanese office environments: companies, schools, government agencies, etc.; not exactly designed for gaming or expandability. That specific case design indicates its vintage between Core 2 to early Core i era. Any MB with DDR3 couldn't be earlier than mid-2007 so it is way too new for native DOS or Win9x. It could be, however, a nice little WinXP build, especially if you could pair it with a low-profile, low-power graphics card like GTX 750 Ti.

For some reason NEC Mate seems to be popular on Filipino auction sites; could be acquired in bulk from Japanese offices retiring entire batches then resell them to Filipino individuals after refurbishing.

i can use GTX 750 Ti on this board?

DataDragons wrote on 2024-08-18, 08:30:

i can use GTX 750 Ti on this board?

The motherboard should have one PCIe x16, one PCIe x1, and two PCI slots. You can install a graphics card on that PCIe x16 slot, although a card too long might conflict with RAM slots.

You also have to check PSU output; many SFF computer designed for office works have rather weak default power supply (<200W). If you want to install a low-profile GTX 750 Ti you'll need at least 250W minimum.

Why people sugest guy will need a dedicated grpahic cardfor dosbox is beyond me... the onboard gpu will be more than enought

Install windows XP, dosbox + scumm + game ports + crt, and enjoy a "look a like" windows 98 machine

forget real dos or win9x

I totally recommend a CRT ans winmodelines to create custom resolutions and refresh to match original DOS ones

The NEC will begood for that

Well, if DOSBox or any other emulator is the key player then any modern or semi-modern system would be fine, and the cheaper and quieter the better.

dormcat wrote on 2024-08-18, 11:08:

Well, if DOSBox or any other emulator is the key player then any modern or semi-modern system would be fine, and the cheaper and quieter the better.

real dos or win9x in this NEC will be difficult, and not very usable really, then dosbox is the best path. In my opinion much better than any more modern system because here he have real floppy and cdrom

One nice thing op can do is to use for example conemu, and integrate dosbox, is very nice

https://conemu.github.io/en/DosBox.html

If OP are a norton commander user like me, will find the conbo FAR manager + conemu + dosbox amazing, so nice some times forget im in windows and not in DOS jaja

Conemu look amazing in 720x400 resolution and IBM font

https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/

In what I can only describe as a odyssey through computer hardware to the "Ultimate Windows 98 PC" I can quite honestly say you need to stay away from anything dual core.
Not that it doesnt work, it might but its just so much work to get it working I would recommend a nice if a little boring Pentium III, early Pentium 4 or an Athlon XP system.

You aint never going to get the ultimate build, but you might be happy with a build that works. A build with no exclimation marks in the device manager, a build with all the devices you want turned on turned on in the BIOS.

DOS games will be more than happy with a Pentium III

More authentic machines with a similar form factor exist. Try searching for "IBM Netvista Slim". This will get you a range of PIII (Celeron) around 1 GHz with a similar nice compact and simple design.

It's a cute little machine. On first blush, I bet it could run DOS games on bare metal with SBEMU for sound and CPU throttle software. I've found Intel integrated graphics to have pretty good DOS graphics support. I bet it would work, but I would also say that the setup would be sub optimal.

It's hard to find specifications for that NEC Mate, but some quick research makes it look like that computer uses the MSI MS-7594-0A-A10 motherboard hosting an Intel G41 or G43 chipset. That board does indeed have 1 PCIE x16 (GEN 1), 1 PCIE x1, and 2 PCI slots, but only 2 SATA ports. It can handle Yorktown and Wolfdale processors (FSB 1333), but you might want to stick to 65W CPUs given the case size.

If I could be so bold, I'd trick that computer out quite a bit and dual boot Windows XP and Windows 7. I'd put in at least a 3.0GHz Wolfdale Core 2 Duo, 4GB of DDR3, a low-profile GPU (the GTX 750 Ti would be an OK match, but you're quite limited by the PCIe slot speed; something like a Radeon HD 5570 or 6670 might be a better match), a low profile Creative X-Fi Gamer, a large SSD for storage, and a Gotek for the floppy. That would run DOSBox like crazy as well as most late XP games.

If you left a small, say 32GB FAT32 partition on the drive, you could boot DOS 7 from a floppy and periodically play DOS games on bare metal (or triple boot if you feel like you need it) from that partition.