DOS Win98SE PC Build

[KieranD]

I am planning a DOS/Windows 98SE build. Okay so i could use compatibility patches or DOS Box/virtual machine but i am interested for the fun of doing a build and also the true experience. I've got a bunch of old games like Sonic CD PC, Command and Conquer, X Wing vs Tie Fighter, Quake II ect that i am interested in playing again (yes i can stomach ye old graphics if the gameplay is good).

The choice of Windows 98SE is because it has MS-DOS 7, plug and play, compatibility with Windows 95 software, larger ram and storage compatibility than 95, overall to me is better. I heard some old DOS games do not like certain CPU speeds, literally they run too fast on more powerful cpu. There is the possibility i could get an i486 system later or use slowdown programs. I need at least a Pentium to run Sonic CD, i reckon some of the later 90s games would be too slow on an i486 anyway. Windows 98 requires a floating point unit to run so id need at least a Pentium MMX.

Ive listed the hardware ive settled on.

• K6-2 450mhz cpu - Acquired
• DFI K6XV3+/66 Socket 7 Motherboard (ATX) - Acquired
• Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Acquired
• DVD drive with dvd decoder card. Acquired
• 3 1/2" floppy disk drive - Acquired
• 5 1/4" drive (possibly not needed) Acquired
• Excelstor 80GB IDE 7200RPM Acquired
• Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold sound card - Acquired
• PCI ethernet card - Acquired
• ATX case Acquired
• Power supply 350w 80 Plus Seasonic - Acquired
• 512mb SD ram - Acquired
• Socket 7 cooler - Acquired

EDIT: I've cleaned up this post, i will amend it whenever i acquire an item for the project.

[xBruce88x]

for voodoo 3d cards, if its a voodoo 1 or 2, then you will need a 2d card, voodoo 3 and higher you wont. 3dfx cards were king back in the day

as for sound, DOS likes the MPU 401 drivers or w/e it is for sound cards, so make sure your sound card supports that for best results, and know the irq settings and such of the card. there should be SB Live! drivers for win98, if i remember correctly, Creative was still supporting 98SE when they launched that card.

a DVD drive might be fun if the video card you use for 2d (if using 3dfx) supports hardware decoding. I think the ati rage pro turbo or w/e had hardware dvd support. make sure to use 80pin IDE cables and have the optical and hard drives on their own channels.

A PIII isn't too fast get a slot PIII at around 533mhz or so, in case you want to run some "higher end" games. if it is too fast you can down clock it haha.

another option could be to go Super7 and grab an AMD K6-II around 450mhz or so. I've seen some Super7 boards with an ATI 8meg card soldered on the mobo! the thing even supported up to 768mb ram haha.

do you already have that intel mobo? if you need help hunting down drivers let me know.

what are the "newest" games you plan to run?

[eidairaman1]

Sonic CD only had issue with running on XP and Higher but was patched, it runs fine on todays hardware.

Id recommend atleast a P3 now with 1.5GB Ram

Originally Posted by KieranD

I am planning a DOS/Windows 98SE build. Okay, so i can use compatibility patches or a DOS Box/virtual machine but i am interested for the fun of doing a build. I've got a bunch of old games like Sonic CD PC, Command and Conquer, X Wing vs Tie Fighter, Quake II ect that i am interested in playing again (i can stomach ye old graphics if the gameplay is good).

The choice of Windows 98SE is because it has MS-DOS 7, plug and play, compatibility with Windows 95 software, larger ram and storage compatibility than 95.

I was thinking a Pentium II (Deschutes) CPU (not sure which speed).
I heard some old DOS games do not like certain CPU speeds. I need at least a Pentium to run Sonic CD, i reckon some of the later 90s games would be slow on an Intel 486 and a Pentium III is too fast. Windows 98 requires a floating point unit to run, the Pentium cpu's all have an integrated FPU. Most games can be run by using a slow down program like Mo'Slo. I reckon anything from 93' upwards should be okay to run.

The Intel SE440BX2 is a good slot 1 motherboard (if i go with a PII). It has AGP, PCI and ISA (good for old sound cards), USB, ATX standard so i could use any ATX case, decent bios, easy-ish to find drivers.

• An old Vodoo 3D card maybe? would i need a 2D accelerator card? am i better getting an ATi Rage series/Nvidia Riva TNT2 card or higher?
• Would i be worth getting a DVD drive or just stick with CD ROM drive?
• I already have a 3 1/2" floppy disk drive with a black bezel, in a box somewhere.
• 5 1/4" drive possibly, depending if i need one.
• Probably something like an old 20gb hard drive right?
• Sound Blaster Live! sound card (PCI) but i heard the ISA workaround to be compatible with older DOS games is shit, so a Sound Blaster 16 might be a good choice?
• PCI ethernet card, ATX mid tower case and any old power supply.
• I need at least 64mb for some later games but i guess it wouldnt really matter if i added more or not.

Did i miss anything?

I'll keep an eye out for complete systems that only need a few things swapped out but a totally custom system would be cushty.

[H82LUZ73]

Originally Posted by KieranD

I am planning a DOS/Windows 98SE build. Okay, so i can use compatibility patches or a DOS Box/virtual machine but i am interested for the fun of doing a build. I've got a bunch of old games like Sonic CD PC, Command and Conquer, X Wing vs Tie Fighter, Quake II ect that i am interested in playing again (i can stomach ye old graphics if the gameplay is good).

The choice of Windows 98SE is because it has MS-DOS 7, plug and play, compatibility with Windows 95 software, larger ram and storage compatibility than 95.

I was thinking a Pentium II (Deschutes) CPU (not sure which speed).
I heard some old DOS games do not like certain CPU speeds. I need at least a Pentium to run Sonic CD, i reckon some of the later 90s games would be slow on an Intel 486 and a Pentium III is too fast. Windows 98 requires a floating point unit to run, the Pentium cpu's all have an integrated FPU. Most games can be run by using a slow down program like Mo'Slo. I reckon anything from 93' upwards should be okay to run.

The Intel SE440BX2 is a good slot 1 motherboard (if i go with a PII). It has AGP, PCI and ISA (good for old sound cards), USB, ATX standard so i could use any ATX case, decent bios, easy-ish to find drivers.

• An old Vodoo 3D card maybe? would i need a 2D accelerator card? am i better getting an ATi Rage series/Nvidia Riva TNT2 card or higher?
• Would i be worth getting a DVD drive or just stick with CD ROM drive?
• I already have a 3 1/2" floppy disk drive with a black bezel, in a box somewhere.
• 5 1/4" drive possibly, depending if i need one.
• Probably something like an old 20gb hard drive right?
• Sound Blaster Live! sound card (PCI) but i heard the ISA workaround to be compatible with older DOS games is shit, so a Sound Blaster 16 might be a good choice?
• PCI ethernet card, ATX mid tower case and any old power supply.
• I need at least 64mb for some later games but i guess it wouldnt really matter if i added more or not.

Did i miss anything?

I'll keep an eye out for complete systems that only need a few things swapped out but a totally custom system would be cushty.

For sound ,I would look for the old Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold ,Man i had one and I still wish I had not sold it. simply the best ISA sound card ever made.Also Try going with a ATI Rage II with sli Voodo2 (I have one still in a box)And I also have a Voodo3 pci .I wanted to build my old socket A up as a Win98SE/ME computer just so I could play Intersate76/82 on it.

[KieranD]

Yeah there is a 3rd party patch for Sonic CD (PC).

A Socket 370 Pentium III? I never really thought about Super Socket 7 either but it seems like a good option i guess. Games like Jazz Jackrabbit dont like anything faster than an intel486 which is annoying, i think there is a patch to make it run on faster systems.

Some of the later games i would probably play would might be Soldier of Fortune, Deus Ex, Homeworld; so 2000 and very early 2001 games at a stretch. Anything Windows XP and up i dont want to touch (most likely would work fine on my current modern system anyway). I was really thinking at the latest 98/99' games and anything back to something like Another World (91') but im finding that id need a totally different DOS pc setup to run those earlier games, anything 80s needs an IBM Compatible PC (not fussed at all with 80s DOS gaming). I didn't really expect a one fits all solution but something that played a large chunk of 90s PC games.

@H82LUZ73 So a ATi Rage II for 2D and 2xVoodoo 2 in the same system? I had an ATi Rage Pro in my first Pentium II system, decent system but then games started to get more powerful so i got a Socket A rig with a 1.2ghz Duron, i had a 9600pro in there and it ran Half Life 2 fine. At some point i also had a Voodoo 3 3500 card because i remember playing Medal of Honor on that.

[_Zod_]

A friend has a rig setup exactly for this. PII 400, 512 meg of ram, SB 16, Analog Joystick (MS Sidewinder I think), 3DFX VooDoo 2 and a nVidia TNT. Gigabyte MB. It basically sits and collects dust or is used as a TV stand.

Cool to build, utterly useless, for him at least.

[H82LUZ73]

Originally Posted by KieranD

Yeah there is a 3rd party patch for Sonic CD (PC).

A Socket 370 Pentium III? I never really thought about Super Socket 7 either but it seems like a good option i guess. Games like Jazz Jackrabbit dont like anything faster than an intel486 which is annoying, i think there is a patch to make it run on faster systems.

Some of the later games i would probably play would might be Soldier of Fortune, Deus Ex, Homeworld; so 2000 and very early 2001 games at a stretch. Anything Windows XP and up i dont want to touch (most likely would work fine on my current modern system anyway). I was really thinking at the latest 98/99' games and anything back to something like Another World (91') but im finding that id need a totally different DOS pc setup to run those earlier games, anything 80s needs an IBM Compatible PC (not fussed at all with 80s DOS gaming). I didn't really expect a one fits all solution but something that played a large chunk of 90s PC games.

@H82LUZ73 So a ATi Rage II for 2D and 2xVoodoo 2 in the same system? I had an ATi Rage Pro, in my first Pentium II system, decent system but then games started to get more powerful and i got a Socket A rig with a i think it was a 1.2ghz Duron, i had a 9600pro in there and it ran Half Life 2 fine. At some point i also had a Voodoo 3 3000 card because i remember playing Medal of Honor on that.

Yeah i ran a rageII with slied Voodo 2`s,was awesome ,Shoot i ran that until the V3 in 99 then a year later a V5 550..miss that system(the V5 was on a 440bx slot1 )PII 450 then a PIII 750.

[xBruce88x]

I had an old dell system ... it had an s370 celeron 433, 128mb ram, 2 voodoo IIs in sli, an onboard intel 810 which did 2d just fine, and a 40gb ide drive. played half life pretty well, ran Unreal Tournament 2000 in glide mode at around 300fps lol. I've got a pIII system now that i want to put the cards in but i can't find my passthrough and sli cables for it I even have an old dvd/mpeg decoder card and tv tuner! I have a 3rd voodooII from canopus that has a tv out that i want to use to build an arcade style rig. got an old Matrox MGI G2+ for 2d

[Red_Machine]

TBH, unless you plan to run Glide games I wouldn't bother with a Voodoo card. They never 100% supported DirectX. Go with an ATi Rage 128 or an nVIDIA RIVA TNT2.

[Steevo]

I have a old 7500 downstairs in a box.

[KieranD]

Totally forgot i had a GeForce4 MX440 back in the day, that card would not work in games like Splinter Cell. I remember going from that to a 9600pro. Anyway enough reminiscing lmao.

The ATi Rage and Nvidia RIVA series of cards lack hardware transform and lighting, not a lot of games used it at the time but im thinking it might be worth getting a very early Radeon or Geforce card for that feature? Those should wallop a Voodoo card in terms of performance. I know games like Carmageddon II, Unreal and the early NFS titles use Glide but is there any point?

[KieranD]

Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold just appeared on ebay, think its worth a bid? It's £19.99 with zero bids but 9 days to go. Bah, even though i heard soundblaster 16 emulation is garbage im still not sure if i should get a PCI soundcard. Is it even possible to run both a Soundblaster Audigy in Windows and an ISA soundblaster for DOS mode?

[dorsetknob]

Dug out of the loft a creative soundblaster AWE64 (model CT4520) ISA Slot

if the one on ebay falls thru and you still want one pm me
or if you really want something retro/different
how about a
Packard Bell sound 144amsp
its 16bit ISA Full length card with cd rom interface 3d sound by srs also has a fax modem Telephone answering machine built in + cd rom interface ((matsushita cd rom cr 563)
comes with 2 manuals/user guides and full software on (5) 1.44 floppys

[KieranD]

Originally Posted by dorsetknob

Dug out of the loft a creative soundblaster AWE64 (model CT4520) ISA Slot

if the one on ebay falls thru and you still want one pm me
or if you really want something retro/different
how about a
Packard Bell sound 144amsp
its 16bit ISA Full length card with cd rom interface 3d sound by srs also has a fax modem Telephone answering machine built in + cd rom interface ((matsushita cd rom cr 563)
comes with 2 manuals/user guides and full software on (5) 1.44 floppys

What sort of stuff do you have for the Soundblaster? the one on ebay has the box, all the accessories, manual, cd ect. Is that the Soundblaster AWE64 Gold? I think if the ebay deal falls through i'll get in touch as they dont seem to pop up much.

Im looking up graphics cards now.

[dorsetknob]

its just the bare card no disk manual or packaging it came out of a system i upgraded for someone years ago

graphics card wize i got a 3DFX 3500 AGP 2 card up in the loft (16m/b mem TV Tuner built in)
got ALL the bits and pieces( including packaging and original bill of sale)

[Red_Machine]

That PB sound card and the boxed Voodoo sound awesome. Can we get pics?

[KieranD]

Heh thats funny i had a Voodoo 3 3500 at one point. What are you doing with the Voodoo 3? It might be just what i need. I've just bid for the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, btw.
Damn i almost got a Windows 98 Second Edition license and disk for nothing, turned out it was just Windows 98 they had.

Looking at this board - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-SE44...item20bf3e4ef8

[dorsetknob]

will see if i can upload and post pic's to either B/S/T thread or most probably to the TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club thread

have you considered useing the slot 1 to socket 370 lga flip chip upgrade card
the older members here will most probably remember these items (got one stashed away )
this enabled slot 1 motherboards to be upgraded to socket 370 P3 Processors

re the 3DFX card its just sitting in its retail box i also found that in the box i had stashed a
Creative PC DVD encore card (model CT7260) included in the kit is ir remote control kit and software this was for hardware accelerated playback of DVD
back in the days when CPU's were not man enough for smooth DVD playback

see post below by brandonwh64

got these processors
amd K6 266
amd K6 300
amd K6 350
amd K6 400
amd duron 750
amd duron 1100

if you go intel
P2 233 (2) (slot1)
P2 266 (2) (slot1)
Celeron 300/66 (slot1)
Celeron 400/66 (slot1)
Intel Slot1 to socket 370 flipchip adapter ( run a P3 in a slot 1 m/b)
Intel 370 Celeron 366
Intel 370 Celeron 900
Intel 370 P3 800eb
Intel 370 P3 866

spoiling you for choice depending what m/b you eventualy get
and of course there is the question of Ram
Boards from this era were SD Ram got some of that stashed away (even got some edo ram)

[brandonwh64]

If you can find one. A AMD K6-3D 450Mhz Socket 7 would be nice

[KieranD]

Originally Posted by brandonwh64

If you can find one. A AMD K6-3D 450Mhz Socket 7 would be nice

Super socket 7 motherboards varied massively in quality. Theres nothing on ebay, I would take a K6-II or III something like that but would need help tracking one down. There's Pentium IIIs for slot 1, no need really for a slocket. I dont fancy a PIII anyway.

Another thing that's bugging me is finding a case and psu combo. I dont want to spend a lot on either but the only deal i saw that was price good was a Coolermaster Elite 330 Case With Coolermaster eXtreme Power 500W PSU. That case looks terrible, i just want something with a plain front and side panel.
Coolermaster Elite 330 Case With Coolermaster eXtr...

The cheapest non junk 300-500w psu would be about £30 on top of that i could have a £30 budget for a case i guess.

[dorsetknob]

Psu for this build would probably need to be AT and not ATX if i remember right AT had power switch on PSU at rear and 2 power connectors for m/b usualy marked p8 &p9 connecting side by side
some early ATX PSU also had the right additional power connectors for AT motherboards
and AT PSU's they were usually only rated to 250w

AT motherboard power connectors are not the same as ATX

[KieranD]

Originally Posted by dorsetknob

Psu for this build would probably need to be AT and not ATX if i remember right AT had power switch on PSU at rear and 2 power connectors for m/b usualy marked p8 &p9 connecting side by side
some early ATX PSU also had the right additional power connectors for AT motherboards
and AT PSU's they were usually only rated to 250w

AT motherboard power connectors are not the same as ATX

Slot 1 and most super socket 7 boards are atx standard, meaning i can use any atx PSU and case, with a benefit of PS/2 connections for my keyboard. Thats more or less the reason i want to go with those over the original Pentium. Modern power supplies are more efficient and reliable.

Baby AT would be a pain in the arse to work with unless i found a complete system.

[KieranD]

I got a copy of Windows 98 Second Edition; genuine install/recovery CD, Manual, floppy, a booklet. Got bids on a case with psu, Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, Voodoo 5 5500.

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

I have a win98 build I have been playing with from time to time.

I am using a
Asus k7vpro mobo
Athlon non xp 1ghz proc.
256 mb pc133
Tosing between Ati Rage fury pro, 9000 pro, and a Geforce Fx 5700
Creative Sb Live


I also have a Slot A board with a 750 mhz Athlon proc, a Slot 1 with a 600 mhz proc and various socket A procs to use with the K7v pro board. Also have enough pc133 memory to choke a small horse.

Win 98 was a fun os to play with. Alot more in depth with setting up and getting it to run then what we have today.

[KieranD]

Lost out on an ATX Case and PSU by 20p so im looking at alternatives. Started to look at Baby AT cases and motherboards.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...tchlink:top:en

DFI K6XV3+/66 (Super Socket 7 Baby AT Form Factor), 512mb ram, AMD K2-450
Might see if the seller will cut a bit off the price. Then i saw these cases with psu (which i think are Baby AT). The DFI case interested my as it has 2x 3.1/2" bays but will need to try get the other case as it has 8 expansion slots. Im digging the size and retro look of them.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Empty-DFI-...item4ab6eab792
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Empty-Comp...item4ab6edc6e9