P4? Win98? Time period? 🤣

Since it's trapped in the AGP8x !3.3v barrier (forbidding the retro favorites like 3dfx cards) you might as well bump the Geforce up to the dreaded FX just because it has a few more legacy extensions the older Geforces don't have (and absolutely not bumping up for its crappy shader 2.0 or anything it tries to be 'modern' at)

It's also likely the P4 mobo has an A3D-compatible onboard sound chip anyway though you weren't specific on it. SoundMAX is common on OEM P4s (and some Dell Dimensions certainly have it)

To be period correct on that machine is to use it in its default craploaded WinXP Home factory state. 🤣

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

2GB DDR in 4x512 Configuration (Unless im mistaken i have to cut that down to 512 for 98 to boot correct?)

Yes, but you can cut it down in software if you don't want to physically take any RAM out.

Basically my research would indicate that this would be the correct setup for the time period

Well, do you want the "best" combo, or do you want "the correct setup for the time period" ? Because you can't have both.

I could leave the GF4 in there but the drivers wouldnt be as well optimized

I think you should stick with the GF4 and be happy with it. Put in a card that performs more poorly, and you will get poor performance, even if the drivers are "better optimized".

Woohoo, Windows 98 on a Pentium 4! Oh, the excitement.

Windows 98 has been known to boot with 1GB RAM; I haven't tried it with anything more than 512 megs though. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeVBGYEbYcI

Dell Dimension 4600 series with SoundMax Audio.

And yeah i had heard something about them ''being the last geforce cards with directx 3 support in hardware'' but i wasnt sure. For an FX should i go all out and get a 5900 Ultra or just go with whats cheap (5200/5500/5600)? Keep in mind i want to play stuff like the original Half Life and System Shock 2 on this aswell as UT and the other ''normal'' windows 98 titles.

Also now that youve said that would Downgrading to a launch era Pentium 4 (The ones that came out in late 2000) make sense to bring it closer to being in the right era?

This is a rough draft of what it COULD look like:

Windows 98
Pentium 4 Willamete 1.4GHZ
512MB DDR RAM
GeForce 5xxx series
Aureal A3D

more like 128-256MB RDRAM and a Geforce2 GTS if you're really gunning for late 2000, and if you got suckered into the P4 hype then you'd most likely be ending up using Windows Me as well 😀

Whenever i see the GF2 GTS Mentioned i think of this funny ass commercial for Halo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meLg7jSHT20

I've nearly bought a GTS a few times because of that video. I'd be lying if i said i'm not curious how Halo would perform on one. I always just remind myself how Halo looked like trash on the Xbox which was a 3TI derived system.

Anywho back on topic.

and ''Pentium 4 hype''?

I remember some reviews that showed the highest clocked P3's beating or exactly matching the lowest clocked Pentium 4's but that comparing a product that's at its absolute limits in terms of advancement to something that could only get faster. Not exactly a hype really.

So why only 128MB-256MB RAM? I've found some older build guides from 99-00 that state 512 was the ''High end'' solution at the time. also why ME? Unless i'm mistaken ME was basically 98 3rd edition for all purposes.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I'd be lying if i said i'm not curious how Halo would perform on one.

in the end for the PC port, it performed and looked like crap on a geforce2, and the terrain looked messed up since they went the pixel shader route (rather than multitextured combine operations which GF2 could do fine).

512MB wasn't recommended then. RAM prices were gouged through the roof so much then, it would have been a miracle for the average joe to wind up with 128mb in 2000.

It is possible to load a P2 233 440LX with 512MB PC100, but was it feasibly available and does it make a period system? no and no

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

So why only 128MB-256MB RAM? I've found some older build guides from 99-00 that state 512 was the ''High end'' solution at the time. also why ME? Unless i'm mistaken ME was basically 98 3rd edition for all purposes.

Why subject yourself to arbitrary restrictions at all? Half Life, System Shock 2, UT, and everything else will run very nicely on a GF4 Ti, won't they? Is there any game you'd actually like to run that requires DX3 support in hardware and might not otherwise run adequately ?

Half life runs on modern machines. Its just i like to get a feel for what gaming was like back then.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Half life runs on modern machines. Its just i like to get a feel for what gaming was like back then.

Indeed, one has not felt the awesomeness that is Half-Life when first run on a Pentium 100 with a shitty S3 Virge card, play half of the game and then upgrade the system with a VooDoo2 🤣 Oh the memories...

orinoko wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Half life runs on modern machines. Its just i like to get a feel for what gaming was like back then.

Indeed, one has not felt the awesomeness that is Half-Life when first run on a Pentium 100 with a shitty S3 Virge card, play half of the game and then upgrade the system with a VooDoo2 🤣 Oh the memories...

Im guessing the awesomeness is going from 2FPS to 20?

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Im guessing the awesomeness is going from 2FPS to 20?

Yeah, pretty much! Although, at 320x200 in software mode it was reasonably playable at like 15fps. Seriously, that's how I played Half-Life (oh and Tomb Raider, and Monster Truck Madness)...

orinoko wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Im guessing the awesomeness is going from 2FPS to 20?

Yeah, pretty much! Although, at 320x200 in software mode it was reasonably playable at like 15fps. Seriously, that's how I played Half-Life (oh and Tomb Raider, and Monster Truck Madness)...

Yeah, isnt the Virge series remembered for all being equally horrible in terms of performance? Im guessing this was the /DX2 version of it you had judging by the fact it ran those at all?

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Yeah, isnt the Virge series remembered for all being equally horrible in terms of performance? Im guessing this was the /DX2 version of it you had judging by the fact it ran those at all?

I believe it was, yes. I had no issue with those cars in DOS tbh, even Duke Nukem 3D (which I used to play over the phone line to a friend down the street). just doing anything 3D in software under Windows 95.

The Virge wouldn't have been able to provide 3d hardware acceleration for HL anyway. It greatly lacks the capabilities compared to even a PCX2...and the performance as well, it'd run nowhere near the software renderer's speed 🤣

leileilol wrote:

The Virge wouldn't have been able to provide 3d hardware acceleration for HL anyway. It greatly lacks the capabilities compared to even a PCX2

There still better than *gulp* Trident Graphics. I was getting 4-5FPS in Redneck Rampage on a twin 90MHZ Pentium Machine. Horrible.

Anyways this thread is officially BACK ON TOPIC

leileilol wrote:

The Virge wouldn't have been able to provide 3d hardware acceleration for HL anyway. It greatly lacks the capabilities compared to even a PCX2...and the performance as well, it'd run nowhere near the software renderer's speed 🤣

Yeah I know this now, but back in 1998, you just use what you have (especially for a then 2 year old machine that cost a fair bit)

And yes! Back on topic we go!

[forget it] 😀

http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Windows_9x_Builds

Best? Hmmm..... GF4's are nice, though for me, they are not the best.

If you want a bit more raw power, perhaps you can go for a Radeon-9800? The big one of them.
As they have better AA and AF plus V-Sync control than the equivelant nVidia offerings.
I am talking about them settings in the drivers. (Talking about stock-setup here, not Powerstrip)
If you want better backwards compatibility, then swap that GF4 with an GF3-ti-something.
It's a bit slower, yes. On the other hand, it play's better with early Win9x titles.

For a soundcard, the Vortex2 is fine, and so is an YMF-724 or an SB-Live.
It all depends on if you want stuff like pure stereo, surround or Adlib support.
Each card has it's ups and downs.

Speaking of memory. You might want to cut it down to 512mb.
True some boards can run Win98se alongside with 1gb. Then why go for that much?
512mb is good enough for nearly all Win98 titles, so you will be left with 512mb that software
propably not take advantage of. If you need to edit movies and make music then 1gb is good
to have in any system running Win98.

Once I had an Asrock P4vm88 board that booted Win98se with 1gb of Ram.
I ran it with an P4-1.8 (one of the 512kb cache models), the Ram configured as single channel, SB-Live
and an Matrox G400 Dual Head. That was a really awesomme machine.

In the end, I swapped that G400 with an Radeon-9600 (LE/SE, can't remember) and installed
an V1 card that came out of the machine again, because of instability issues.

I ended up selling the board and all my Socket 478 CPU's to someone that was building an WinXP rig.