Windows 98 gaming - Most powerful CPU and GPU? (That aren't super expensive)
Posted by mark12000@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 28 comments
Looking to get a Win98 PC, no DOS games will be played on this. Just wondering what the best CPU and GPU/VGA would be that's fully compatible with 98 games and will run them at good FPS?
Good DOS compatibility not required as I'm thinking of either getting a separate DOS PC or using MiSTer or eXoDOS for that.
Any advice much appreciated! Don't have to be period accurate if they have full compatibility either! Atm I think the Pentium III? If that is the best CPU for 98... Which one? 1.26GHz? 1Ghz? 800Mhz? etc?
ravensholt@reddit
Well, According to our friend, Omores (check out his YouTube channel, it's pretty awesome), you can run Windows 98 on pretty new hardware with a few tricks.
However ...
In reality, I wouldn't recommend anything newer than a Pentium 3.
And if you want the fastest P3 , it's going to be very expensive ... The Tualatin.
A fast P3 1GHz socket 370 Coppermine is more than enough though.
It's cheaper to build either a Pentium 4 system or Athlon XP. Personally I'd go with the Athlon in that case.
No more than 512MB RAM ... There are patches so 9x can support more RAM, but there is no software or games that would ever need more than 512MB on that OS.
As for the GPU - The ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is probably amongst the fastest with native drivers besides some 6000-series nVidia cards (although you're going to have to say goodbye to features that some early 9x titles depend on, such as 8-bit palletized textures and table fog).
On a budget, get a GeForce FX 5000-series, they're pretty cheap, or a GeForce MX card.
If money is no issue - get a 3Dfx Voodoo 3 2000/2500.
Or - any period correct card like a Matrox G200/G400 paired with a 3Dfx Voodoo 2 instead.
I've currently got 3 systems assembled all running 98SE.
AMD K6-2@400MHz , 64MB RAM, Tseng ET6000+3Dfx Voodoo 2
Pentium 3 Coppermine @ 1GHz , 384MB RAM, ATI Rage Fury Pro (Rage 128 Pro, such an underdog and yet awesome).
Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8GHz) , 512MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro.
The reason I assembled the Athlon was solely to play the original release of GTA Vice City.
Good luck.
wavemelon@reddit
You’ve almost got exactly three prev computers I had. The only real difference is my k6-2 was @333 at the time.
ravensholt@reddit
Yeah, my original K6-2 was a puny 233MHz. It still rocked both Unreal (512x384) and Quake 2 (3Dnow!) fairly decently back then.
However I settled for the 400MHz version when I rebuilt my system a few years ago.
wavemelon@reddit
i had a 233 first actually, the 333 was my next upgrade, the glory days :)
giantsparklerobot@reddit
A 1GHz Athlon or PIII would make a great Windows 98 gaming system. Those boards will support 8x AGP. You can also find GeForce 5200s very cheap that will handle any 95/98 era game you throw at them. If you go too new the board might require Windows ME just due to drivers. The 1GHz machines are a compatibility/performance sweet spot.
You don't need more than 256MB of RAM, you're not going to be able to run enough programs simultaneously to page out with even that much RAM. If you find a system with 512MB that's fine but not necessary.
Don't waste your money on a Voodoo 3 despite what the fanboys say. They were really nice for a subset of Glint supporting games compared to the Riva128 and TNT running those same games with OpenGL or DirectX. The GeForce chips then blew the Voodoos out of the water and games that supported hardware T&L and shaders got even more out of the GeForce. 5200s and 4MX cards are super cheap and will do great. The Voodoo 3 isn't bad it just has poor cost/performance at today's collector prices.
I like the CF card adapters that take a PCI slot. It makes it super easy to swap cards with a different OS or back up a disk image of a card so you can nuke a messed up install. You don't need an SSD. A CompactFlash card will be more than fast enough to saturate the ATA bus.
You don't really need anything better than AC97 for audio. Very few games took advantage of EAX or any other proprietary audio libraries. If you found a card cheap that's fine but don't go out of your way or spend a bunch of money. The 1GHz era machines typically have on-board AC97 audio.
An underclocked Pentium 4 is a waste. The instructions-per-clock are so low a 2GHz P4 isn't much better than a 1GHz Pentium III and typically much more power hungry.
Sataniel98@reddit
Get a Pentium III, NEVER a Pentium 4. Actual 9x era games won't need anything newer.
Super_Stable1193@reddit
Pentium 4 S478 works fine, Pentium III is harder to get.
Sataniel98@reddit
I don't know if it's like his globally but I find dozens of Pentium III, even high clocked ones on Ebay often for 20-40€.
The problem isn't IF they have Win98 support, but the quality of the drivers you get and for the entire Pentium 4 ecosystem you're signing up for. Good and bad drivers make a night and day difference on 9x systems. Contemporarily, Win98 was hardly used on Pentium 4 at all and that didn't exactly create much incentive to fix drivers if they existed.
Also, it's not like Pentium 4 is a great architecture you'd be missing out on.
NitroX_infinity@reddit
Nonsense. Pentium 4 came out in late 2000. Most people skipped WinME and even when XP came out, there were still plenty of people with 98(se).
Sataniel98@reddit
That limits us to * People who bought a new PC between late 2000 and late 2001 * Excluding OEM machines that weren't older or didn't use thr brandnew architecture * Excluding the half of PCs and workstations used in businesses, as those overwhelmingly ran Windows 2000 * Excluding the vast majority of users who aren't and weren't tech savy enough or don't bother changing the OEM OS installation * Excluding everyone who was contented with Windows ME, didn't run into dealbreaking issues within its short lifecycle or had faith that the issues would be patched soon enough
And even with all this, these power users still would have to choose Windows 98 over just using 2000 on their Home machine. It doesn't sound like nonsense to me that that can't exactly have been a mass phenomenon. More like something a handful of gamers would have done to play some of the late DOS era games if they didn't work in window mode, but that's about it.
monkeyboywales@reddit
Pentium 4 is an awful architecture that even Intel gave up on and started with the old PIII architecture when they started the Core range. Much better skipped! Hot and slow, alright for some things, not for CPUs
Super_Stable1193@reddit
"I don't know if it's like his globally but I find dozens of Pentium III, even high clocked ones on Ebay often for 20-40€."
I never saw a Pentium III incl shipping for €40.
techika@reddit
Win 98 supported up to 1gb ram max, not supported HT ,max dx9
Super_Stable1193@reddit
Win 98 doesn't do anything with 1gb.
LXC37@reddit
Unless you dualboot XP that is, which often makes sense to make some things like transferring data easier. Some 98 era games also run better on XP but do not run well on typical late XP builds.
Super_Stable1193@reddit
USB drive's with NTFS works fine with Win98, just install the updates.
michaelnz29@reddit
I love eXoDOS, I recently downloaded and installed the full version plus Media pack and the 1.2 TB of space is quite intimidating but it functions really well for my use case, which is dabbling in the old games I remember from my 486 onwards era DOS and Windows games.
The cut down version is probably better but I reason that maybe the games stop being available at some stage so wanted to make sure I had everything.
I haven’t tried my Mister Pi for this yet, though I think it may not work so well with hardware that uses too many transistors (Pentium etc) for the FPGA.
michaelnz29@reddit
I love eXoDOS, I recently downloaded and installed the full version plus Media pack and the 1.2 TB of space is quite intimidating but it functions really well for my use case, which is dabbling in the old games I remember from my 486 onwards era DOS and Windows games.
The cut down version is probably better but I reason that maybe the games stop being available at some stage so wanted to make sure I had everything.
tysonfromcanada@reddit
celery 300a overclocked to like 700 and a voodoo2 were the shit to have
LXC37@reddit
I personally like S462 for 98. There are a lot of options and you can combine pretty fast CPU with chipset which still supports stuff required for DOS sound, sometimes even with ISA slots if that is required. I know you do not need that, but still.
Compared to S370 you also get some nice QOL things like USB2, more USB in general, probably USB boot, etc.
Video? Higher end GeForce FX for compatibility, higher end radeon 9*** for performance, especially in later games. Those are not cheap though.
Or... S754 with pci-e and something like radeon x800 or GeForce 6. This will likely require some fiddling around to make things work, but it is much cheaper than high-end AGP cards and faster too.
oblakhh@reddit
If „speedy on a budget with full Windows 98 support“ is the goal, also consider Athlon XP, preferrably Barton Core, e.g. 2600+ /w 333 MHz FSB. A cheap but speedy Chipset is VIA KT400/KM400. Supports DDR-333 (PC2700). Boards are cheap but usually no integrated SATA support and faulty caps are not unlikely, however that can be fixed.
Get 512 MB DDR-333 CL2.5 RAM, either one or two DIMMs. More is waste and call for problems on a stock 98 install.
Pair with an AGP Radeon X800/850 or Radeon 9700/9800 Pro. GeForce 4 Ti and FX (to some extent) have better compatibility but AGP cards are slower than ATI. Stay away from GeForce 6000 series or newer, they are less stable and are a better match for PCIe based Windows XP systems.
Also get a nice Sound Blaster Audigy for EAX sound effects.
PackardPenguin@reddit
Best is pci-e is 7900 GTX and would required 3rd party patches
Most stable would be AGP and a couple recommendations would be Geforce 4 4800/4400, ATI 9800, ect.
For CPU anything with a 478 or 939 socket with sis, via 800, or intel 856 range chipset.
avoid any HD onboard audio as well.
Keep in mind that some of the latter 9x compatible motherboards had faulty capacitors
Hopefully this helps!
VivienM7@reddit
If you want a simple 98SE machine, I would look for some kind of socket 370 Coppermine i815 setup. Certainly the Dell Dimension 4100s are quite cheap, I would assume standalone mobos, white box clones, etc would be too.
The i815 was the first generation of chipset to fairly consistently drop ISA, which means they are much less prized than earlier 440BX PIII systems, but I think they should have great 98SE support, don't have the cooling challenges of a P4, and anything that can't run well on an 866MHz P3 can probably run on an XP machine or even newer just fine.
McMyn@reddit
I have someone’s cool hobby project standing around: there is a mainboard that has PCIe, runs a core duo e8500 and has win 98 drivers :D also like 2gb of RAM (admittedly Windows 98 with really use anything above 512mb and needs special drivers to even run on a system with more).
It’s pretty fancy. Dual boots into win XP obviously.
Super_Stable1193@reddit
Get a pentium 4 and downclock it to the max with ge-force 4.
256mb ram is enough, don't add more than 512mb.
Windows 98 doesn't do anything with more ram also with "hacks"
rfratelli@reddit
Try “build” one using 86box and see what games you can get out of it. I realized that most of my favorite games can run under winxp which is far easier to set up in a core 2 duo or any other potato pc.
crashprime@reddit
Cheap 98 would be some random Pentium 4 rig with a GeForce4 I’d imagine. I mean “fully compatible” is tricky with things like glide api, table fog, and palleted textures. Take those off the list and you can get by with a FX 5200/6200 for less.
mark12000@reddit (OP)
Thanks, I'll keep those in mind 🙂