Building Windows 98 Retro Gaming PC with AMD Athlon 64 Platform

[@flecom5309]

I built 24x A64 win98 machines 2 years ago after finding a ton of parts that suddenly became available for a "retro lan party" I did for my birthday... they worked great and everyone had a ton of fun... thanks for the videos phil

[@armorgeddon]

Wow nice.

[@jldarkspider]

Just built a win98 machine with a 462 socket and love playing the old dos game son it lol. looking for a decent agp graphics card for the machine.

[@darunealbane]

@@jldarkspider look up a gforce4 mx 440 128mb

[@DhinCardoso]

Woooooow! Such a dream! ♥

[@guillaumel7798]

with a s939 socket, it's possible too for a w98 retro config?

[@dergrunepunkt]

I still find computers of that era onthe streets more or less often, so this is a great way to re purpose them

[@dazberry]

I put back together an old Athlon XP 2000+ socket A machine only a couple of weeks ago. I had put away the parts including the hard drive years ago. Took a little bit of coaxing but got it running - back into Windows XP - last used in 2006 - old development machine - running Delphi 5 - was pretty nostalgic :) Next up is the 939 Shuttle XPC that replaced it!!

[@bestopinion9257]

This weekend I will resurrect my Athlon XP rig. All components are sleeping in their boxes now, but I have a nice new Zalman Z1 Neo case to make them work together again.

[@roger.monitor]

I am using one game on a machine like you for more than 10 years, running Win 2K Pro Sp4 namely Settlers 3 Amazons. Plenty of those CPU around in my collection.

[@darunealbane]

asus a7n266 vm/aa AMD atalon xp 2000+ 512mb ram 2g/16g 2hd CF cards Geforce4 128mb Lots of those boards out there has built in gpu (geforce2) and sound

[@TheDemocrab]

This actually makes a lot of sense to do, the earlier Athlon64s were actually not too far from the old Athlon XP in terms of internal design, AMD64 was the big addition and switching from the EV6 Bus to HTT along with moving the memory controller on-die was what gave it that extra performance. Given the Athlon XP was an optimised Athlon Thunderbird which was an optimised Athlon Classic, this is basically akin to running a very high end later era 98SE PC, except hot-rodded!

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

Biggest bonus was SSE2 support. Otherwise the XP was good enough, and the sound storm boards were even better. That said good AMD hardware is rare and more expensive than P4s.

[@extracoolboy]

yea, try running any modern OS without SSE2

[@Protoking]

I disagree and the K8 was the largest jump in IPC seen in quite a few years. It’s sort of like saying Conroe wasn’t a big deal it’s ipc was about 10% higher over what K8 brought over K7

[@TheDemocrab]

@@Protoking I'm not saying that K8 wasn't a big jump or a big deal, just that the lineage between the early Athlon to Athlon64 (and all the way to Phenom II) is very obvious and the K7 itself was largely limited by Socket A's EV6 bus in its later years which allowed AMD to reuse large parts of the design on their next-gen platform while still gaining a lot of performance (Because that fast core design is now properly getting fed with data to crunch) and focus on the parts they were changing that made K8 a big jump and a big deal like AMD64. Same deal as Conroe itself actually, while it was revolutionary it also was a scaled-up Pentium M...The Banias and Dothan cores were the quiet revolutions that allowed the loud one (Conroe) to happen.

[@retropuffer2986]

I'm starting to feel nostalgia to that era of computing even though it feels like only yesterday.

[@joey_after_midnight]

Me too.. there are something the legacy equipment can do, which modern equipment cannot. The manufacturers pruned off specialty or rarely used features to focus only on mainstream possibilities.. and it is maddening when trying to sort it all out since modern documentation doesn't even attempt to explain some of the choices and options older equipment offered.

[@MisterRorschach90]

I have a dream of having a stack of itx PCs filled with hardware from each major pc era. Have them all connected to a display adapter switch and connect them all to a few different crts that can support all of the machines. It would be beautiful, with the press of a button you can go from playing doom eternal to the original doom on original hardware. If I had a large house I would do original beige cases, but my apartment is tiny. Lol

[@penguin5384]

@@MisterRorschach90 I'm slowly getting that way, if only it would fit in itx cases, I wish, old hardware takes up quite a lot of space, and old silicon is also bloody heavy. I draw the line at CRT's , I have one, they just take up sooooooooooo much space.

[@MisterRorschach90]

Pen Guin I wasn’t even thinking when I posted that lol. For some reason I thought the itx standard had been around longer than 2001. Though they definitely had thin client matx slim. And actually I bet getting a thin client would be pretty cheap.

[@slvr_l7732]

4:00 Thank you for reminding me. i have Gigabyte motherboard and now i will try CTRL+F1 on bios startup

[@DoomGuy9001-MK4]

Be careful with the settings, I believe if you cause issues you void the warranty (Unless it is an old board then go crazy).

[@slvr_l7732]

@FEELS GOOD MAN oh relax, mine just a LGA775 so nothing to worry about, but yeah even i can pay for the new one (latest model) someday i definitely do it too

[@DoomGuy9001-MK4]

@@slvr_l7732 Oh fair one. Good thing with old hardware, you haven't got that nervousness when overclocking and pushing the hardware to it's limits.

[@romanrm1]

It's not on BIOS startup, press it after you already entered the blue settings menu (via pressing DEL on startup). You will notice it flashes briefly after the Ctrl-F1 if that worked.

[@kjrchannel1480]

It is often hard to tell if I already watched certain uploads. It never hurts to have a refresher view. The info is always timeless, and keeps inspiring to keep the dust of my classic equipment.

[@joeyvdm1]

Awesome. Thanks so much for the video Phil. I absolutely loved it. Two Athlon vids, two weeks in a row. Happy days👍

[@petergibbons86]

It was really great seeing how you handle those classic retro setup issues. It's always nice seeing your builds that don't just use all the hero components from the day. I think a successful build like this motivates people to do their own build without being put off by the difficulty or cost of those hero components

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks! Yes I do like to get to the bottom of when things don't go well. Luckily I have a bit of extra time now :)

[@danielson9579]

I would of loved a win98 pc this fast back in the day 🙂

[@laharl2k]

i would have loved to have the money to buy a win98 pc this fast back in the day :(

[@spliceoncharlie]

love when you do these retro builds, specifically the win 95 and win 98 builds. Thanks.

[@provugab]

I've always reused old computers as a server purpose on my home network, I had a Pentium IV 3.0 Ghz on a server until 2011 until I upgraded. Sadly I ended up gifting the older computers. I wish I still had them, I would be having almost as much fun as watching your videos. I miss my old Pentium II.

[@enzomeister]

Yay new video barley waited in this quarantine, im excited

[@nicacioedu]

Great content as always, @Phil. Thank you!

[@registrazioniduemillaotton6030]

I also have a thing for VIA chipsets, especially those with an Universal AGP. They just work and are easily obtainable.

[@logipilot]

Except for sata...

[@matthewplehn4271]

The timing of this video is awesome..today was the day i was going to test out a bunch of computer parts that date from "98 to "02...and now i know i can use win98 without any floppies...i was tearing my hair out tying to get win98 installed before with no floppys..so thank you for that info..i currently have a PNY Geforce 2 mx400 PCI card on Ebay but have been asked to "show proof"..that the card actually works..now i can with all the knowledge you have provided for a Win98 environment. Again excellent material Phil, love the video.

[@roger.monitor]

Ever thinking of using a Dual socket 462, like a Tyan Tiger or MSI K7D-L or GA-7DPXDWP, you now AMD 760 chipset. I have been using those for a lot of years with Win 2K, I still have all those computers most in Chieftec Dragon cases and one in a Aopen HQ.

[@MusicalMikeTube]

Liked it very much and am really looking forward to the DOS vid

[@pokey4200]

Ah yes, Classic Phil and Win 98 build. Love it!

[@Nanospark0]

When it came to the locking up and the storage controller not loading, I had this same issue with my MSI K8T Neo2-F v2.0 Socket 939 board. What I had to do was download the SATA/RAID driver and install that. After I installed the driver I then had to go into the BIOS and set the SATA controller to RAID mode and it worked just fine at full speed.

[@Reziac]

I was wondering about that -- I thought Win98 didn't have SATA drivers??

[@Nanospark0]

@@Reziac SATA in IDE/Compatibility mode is recognized as an IDE Controller on most motherboards. I didn't have to jump through that hoop with my Asus P4C800-E or my Intel D875PBZ with SATA...it just worked (I even have a SSD on the Asus board). With AMD, my VIA Neo2-F worked after jumping through that hoop, but my MSI RS480M with the ATi X200 chipset wouldn't work at all with SATA and Windows 98. I guess it all depends on the chipset when it comes to getting Windows 98 to work on SATA.

[@Jwalker76]

Hi Phil, awesome content as usual. When I see these builds it reminds me of the days these machines were in their prime. Wish I had kept one instead of chucking them out in the council clean up years ago. I've learnt my lesson and keeping the older PCs I own. Oldest PC I have is a 2009 era pheom 2 955be. All my other older PCs are sandy, ivy bridge and haswel systems.

[@jonchapman6821]

I have owned, or at least built and played with, every platform from the 386 onwards...except socket 754, I’m looking forward to it!

[@Ace12GA]

I have a Sempron 3000 on a 754 platform running my Win98SE system. It does indeed work well, with that AGP.

[@DeadlyGamingLV]

I always hear about the 512MB limit for win 98se but I have built 6 of them all with a 1GB stick and they work perfectly with no issues. Clint from LGR actually got win 98se running with 1.5GB but he had to add some lines of texts to the ini file to get running as it should. His installation was fine with a 1GB of ram though. Anyway great video. I may have to get one of those Turtle Beach cards for one of my 98 builds.

[@zippywheel3589]

Hey Phil, always look forward to your Friday videos. Have learned a lot from them about things I thought I knew everything about already. Thanks and keep the excellent videos coming! As someone else said, the sata controller needs to be set to RAID mode and windows will install and boot like a champ. I have about 4 different motherboards with the K8008M chipset and has worked for each one. Plus the VIA RAID drivers I believe don’t have the 128GB hard drive size limit. Although I haven’t filled a hard drive past 128GB to test, larger hard drives have worked just fine with no corruption evident. My best Win98 experiences have been with these VIA boards and are great performers! Again thanks for the great vids!

[@alexanrsousa]

Love A64's, still have my old S754 A64 3000+ that used to be my main rig over 10 years ago, working perfectly with a VIA Chipset. VIA chipsets are not bad as long as you know their little quirks... My A64 machine have weird SATA II incompatibilities (had to jumper them back into SATA I mode) and I know my old VIA-based LGA775 C2D has weird compatibility issues with anything based on the GeForce 8800 core (like my GTS 250), but worked fine with my GTS 450.

[@MarkHyde]

Great selection of parts and I remember some of these issues myself from years ago lol :) Great video.

[@Airbag888]

Woo Friday video! Coincidence? I just found a asus GeForce 4 4600 in an old drawer!

[@philscomputerlab]

For real? They have value, quite collectable so don't throw it out :)

[@Disobeyedtoast]

that's nice. My Geforce 4 4600 died last week :(

[@Airbag888]

@@philscomputerlab the question is does it still work 😅 We will see if I can get a agp board to test

[@Nanospark0]

I have a MSI MS-8870 GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB that still works.

[@dycedargselderbrother5353]

Back in the day, setup guides had all sorts of exceptions regarding IDE and SATA bugs. It wasn't just VIA. The Pentium "Neptune" chipset had data corruption problems, for example. I think in practice you were stuck with PIO4 mode and couldn't take advantage of UDMA. Back when regular people compiled Linux kernels you had to make sure to check the relevant workarounds in the configuration.

[@directionlessstudios7210]

Nice! Love your alternative retro builds. :)

[@jasmijndekkers]

nice build Phil. i build retro computers for people. It is just fun. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[@philscomputerlab]

Amazing 😍

[@techniksaal254]

Nice one as always Phil. If I'm not mistaken the error-message in the device-manager when you had the primary ide-channel disabled relates to some sort of inconsistency in the BIOS. It seems like the channel isn't fully deactivated. I know this behaviour from other boards with a variety of chipsets when disabling an IDE-channel. Seems like windows' hardware-recognition is able to dig deeper than the BIOSes method of handling its resources.

[@michaelthompson9798]

Hey Phil, glad to see more of these retro pc gaming setups 👍😍 I’ve recently got myself an AMD Athlon 64 x2 6400 cpu, mobs, ram & compatible power supply to build myself either a Windows 98SE or XP retro setup. Seeing your videos brings back good memories of my early computers, first being an Acer 486 Dx2 80mhz and playing original doom, UT and Warcraft to name a few games. What a great time it was and with all advances in technology they can’t replicate the good old days of pc gaming. Keep up the terrific work. Cheers 😁🇦🇺👍

[@philscomputerlab]

Oh nice that is the fastest X2 isn't it? Black Edition also...

[@michaelthompson9798]

@@philscomputerlab hey Phil, yes it is the fastest x2 cpu available and got it for a bargain on eBay with working mobo & 4gb ram for $40

[@BeefJerky4104]

The second I saw that motherboard I knew I had to run downstairs and check my retro tech shelf to see if I had the original box for it. Low and behold, I had the exact same Gigabyte K8 Triton series board back when I was in 9th grade, revision 2.0 as well. I had mine paired with an Athlon 64 3400+ Venice, an EVGA GeForce 6200 256MB video card, and Corsair XMS 512MB RAM. I never ran W98 on mine since XP was in its heyday at the time. Let me tell you though, I loved that machine. I still have the case I used too. I think the attitude about VIA chipsets has more to do with the overclocking potential rather than instability or low performance. I've always had rock solid experiences with VIA chipsets, but I've never had one that would overclock more than 200-300MHz. Great video as usual Phil. Cheers.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

Sweet spot of your channel Windows 98 another build. Watching immiediately

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks!

[@Reziac]

This was a lot of fun, and good info on the various possible glitches. I have some of that era in my Closet... time to upgrade my old Win98 setup? :) Hey Phil, a few vids back you used a PCI sound card that works with DOS games -- very interested to see more about that, but I missed the brand/model and couldn't find the vid again. So hope that will be part of the DOS games vid... I gotta have my daily DOOM, and if my iBase ever dies, not having to scrape up a "modern" board with ISA slots would be nice. Thanks! The ISA sound card in my P4-3GHz that I use for DOOM is an SB16 that I bought new in 1994!! board is an iBase MB800 industrial mainboard that I got used in 2003. So it's a genuinely 'modern' retro system. :)

[@MartinPaoloni]

I've just bought a 1.6 GHz Sempron and an MSI board with this same VIA chipset for about $3! Sure, no Cool'n'Quiet but can't complain for that price. Your video couldn't have arrived with better timing. Thanks, Phil!

[@philscomputerlab]

What a bargain!

[@dergrunepunkt]

This is really cool, this week I started to build a retro system just for my son, I dug out a P4 2.4Ghz with a 4200Ti that I got a year ago when you did a video about them, also a VIA chipset motherboard!, I have a few of that I picked up from the street. I wasn't sure which way to go 98 or XP, DOS/98 it's more interesting I think, I'll see what my son wants to play. Cheers!.

[@philscomputerlab]

Both are really good platforms for Windows 98!

[@eletro_doc9529]

A nice thing about this motherboard is that the integrated VIA VT8237 SATA controller actually has really good drivers for Windows 98. To use it you should enable RAID option in BIOS. Win 98 will freeze at the first restart, at that point you apply R. Loew SATA patch, and it's done. Just continue installation normally. By doing this you also get rid of the 120Gb limitation.

[@philscomputerlab]

That is a nice tip! Yes I believe it will actually freeze twice during installation. Thank you for the tip 🙂

[@RedShift5]

Having to force the display driver is because it's a Medion card. Pretty sure it doesn't have the same performance as a regular Geforce 4 Ti 4200, Medion is known for using cheaper, trimmed down versions of standard components.

[@cesteres]

I remember my DFI socket 754 mainboard. It was amazing. Clocked a cpu to 4 ghz+ using cold winter air.

[@Hairy_Lee]

I loved my s754 Althon 64 3700+ system

[@philscomputerlab]

Fastest CPU for that system...

[@Hairy_Lee]

@@philscomputerlab I also experimented with a mobile turion in the same system and managed a very healthy overclock and the performance was excellent

[@linoxyard]

I recently built an Athlon 64 socket 939 Win98 retro gaming pc, using the A8V-MX motherboard (similar to the A8V-Deluxe that you showed us in a previous video). I was able to use a SATA II hard drive NATIVELY under 98, by installing the SATA II RAID drivers in win98 on an ide drive, and then I simply cloned the partition. This way the os is way more snappy, and the transfer speed for smaller file copies is significantly better.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yup, as I hinted at in this video, every board can behave differently. This one just didn't like working with the onboard SATA controller :)

[@linoxyard]

@@philscomputerlab For me the sata controller only worked in RAID mode, if I set it in SATA or AHCI in the bios win98 would freeze. Of course in RAID mode windows didn't identify the sata hdd until I installed the raid driver.

[@David-fm6go]

I have used the FIC K8M-800M 754 board with a Sempron 3300+ as a Windows XP platform since 2005. It is very similar with the VIA chipset, S3 graphics, AGP slot and two SATA ports. I did momentarily boot that system from a hard drive with Windows 98SE on it, but I never contemplated its utility as a 9x platform.

[@BilisNegra]

Thanks for your content these really hard times. May it not be the end for many of us who are in danger of losing jobs never to get new ones, just about to lose everything, and may we, therefore, keep on watching your channel and all those little great things we could enjoy with no worries when life was normal and worth it, just mere months ago...

[@philscomputerlab]

We will be ok...

[@caraforsythe5830]

The 939 platform seems to be more windows 98 and dos friendly. Lot less issues with a 4000+ and a via 939 platform. That said, me too I can't use any sata ports, only ide works. Also I sugest you to do some 800Mhz test in 98 as some games will require a 800mhz cpu speed not to hang. And Phil, can you test one game next time you do a 98 video? The game "ONI" is VERY picky about the video card.

[@barbunicolae2711]

I remember that game! It ran perfect on my socket A AMD Sempron and ATI Radeon 9550GU back in the day.

[@caraforsythe5830]

@@barbunicolae2711 I played it on PS2 at the time but it was a port of the PC version. This game was really unique, there is nothing like it on Win98.

[@NightMotorcyclist]

I have the Gainward Golden Sample GeForce 4 Ti 4200 that was paired with my AMD Ahtlon XP 1800 until I bought the Radeon 9700 Pro when I upgraded the system to a Barton core Athlon XP 2500. When I went the Athlon 64 route I was running the GeForce 6600 GT AGP and and nForce 3.

[@Leeki85]

I don't see many reasons to build a machine specific for Windows 9x. I would aim for high-performance DOS PC with ISA sound card and Windows 9x as a secondary use. Windows 9x is the easiest gaming environment to emulate. GPUs from that era had "fixed-pipeline" which meant that programmers had to use a small set of predefined functions. This made adding "3D acceleration" hard for many games, because software renderers used sophisticated methods that could not be replicated on "fixed-pipeline" GPUs. For example invisible demon from DOOM that had cool predator invisibility can't be done on such GPUs. On the other hand small fixed list of functions can be easily emulated, so virtualized Windows 9x can be more accurate than DOSBox. Not to mention that almost all Windows 9x games will run fine in Windows XP. Only good reason for building Windows 9x machine is that it's the cheapest retro PC build. You can just pick any laptop from 2004-2006 that has Nvidia or Ati GPU and install Windows 98 on it. Such laptops should have all drivers for Windows 9x available and even low-end ones will be more than enough for Win98 games. Good DOS era hardware will cost you way more, because DOS emulation is far from perfect. DOSBox will run fine, but when you compare DOSBox against real PC, many games will be running noticeably different. With Win9x emulation it's not the case.

[@d4rks0m3thing]

After reaching 1.9GHz with my 1.4 Tualatin on a Asus TUSL2-C I've never looked back at the VIA-powered TUV4X.

[@KyoshoLP]

I wasn't aware there were any sound cards back in the day that could do both A3D and EAX. Any chance you'd do a full review of that Turtle Beach Santa Cruz in the future? EDIT: So, apparently there were quite a few cards that could do both. I don't know how this somehow slipped past my notice over the years. Probably because back in the day I was a Creative guy and didn't upgrade often (usually spent the upgrade budget elsewhere), then switched to onboard sound when that became viable. Super weird to me that there are cards that do both, even from other companies. I was under the impression these were proprietary formats. Maybe I'm wrong there as well? Or did the other manufacturers just use some sort of emulation? Curious.

[@philscomputerlab]

The Santa Cruz does both APIs well, but the Live and Aduigy 2 ZS does EAX best, and the Vortex 2 does A3D best. So yea, it's a compromise...

[@AaronHendu]

The first PC I ever built was based on the s754 platform. The 754 motherboard I got for it was also the first purchase I ever made online. I think I got a Sempron 2800+ for it...can't remember exactly, was a long time ago. First experience with overclocking was on this platform.

[@mktgriffon6293]

Phils, are the 754 era VIA Chipsets still buggy with Sound blaster live/Audigy1/2?

[@eletro_doc9529]

If you're struggling with no onboard sound with this motherboard or other VIA motherboards just make sure the jumpers are properly set on the front pannel audio out.

[@kennyj4366]

Thank you Phil for your wonderful videos and insights. I will definitely try the ctl-f1 combo. Hope you and your family are doing well. 🙂

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks you too!

[@KomradeShotabollokov]

Surprising difference between the 4200 and 4600. I wonder if the drivers were playing a part somehow? You explained that there were some initial issues with the 4200 and I'm remembering the marathon drivers testing video you did a while back, highlighting the difference the versions make... Thanks for another great video, anyhow. I've recently bought a 939Dual-Sata2 so am looking forward to some A64 Win98 and XP dual boot fun.

[@ironinquisitor3656]

This weekend the final parts for my 98 SE build will come.

[@philscomputerlab]

Good luck!

[@matthewconley7568]

Out of curiosity, what are your parts for your build?

[@ironinquisitor3656]

@@matthewconley7568 A Geforce 4600 ti, I also found a 3dfx Voodoo 2 that I didn't know was in the computer I'm building until recently so that's an option as well, a 2.8 ghz socket 478 Pentium 4, and 512 MB of RAM.

[@matthewconley7568]

@@ironinquisitor3656 Are the 4600ti really that powerful for Windows 98? What is stopping someone from putting a more powerful in their system?

[@ironinquisitor3656]

@@matthewconley7568 It's considered a sweet spot because it has great backwards compatibility with older games.

[@rob-en5fm]

Hey Phil. Possibly an idea for a future video. How do you organise and store your computers and parts? What's your method to work out what to keep, what to chuck? Whats your thoughts on keeping cases, drives etc. I realise this is all personal, but you seem to have a good system going... I've been sort of just grabbing what ever I can get my hands on for a few years now, but I really need to go through and sort it (so many 5200 graphics cards!). Love your videos and website. Keep up the good work.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea not possible to explain in a simple comment LOL

[@retro-computing-gaming]

I did a 754 build about a year ago using a slightly newer MSI MS-7145 motherboard. It has an ATI RS480 chipset w/SB400 southbridge. Lots of compatibility issues with Windows 98 (neither onboard video nor sound worked and I had the same issues as you with the SATA ports), but after using strictly IDE and installing a PCI sound card (ALS4000) and PCI-E video card (FireGL V5000 hard-modded into a Radeon x700), I managed to get rid of all exclamation points in the device manager. Used the same Sempron 3100+ CPU and also a 32 GB IDE SSD. Was interesting to see your attempt at a similar build.

[@philscomputerlab]

Interesting, I don't think I've used such an ATI chipset solution before...

[@retro-computing-gaming]

Now I'm wondering if maybe the onboard video did indeed work - the RS480 is the Radeon xpress 200 which I see is supported in Catalyst 6.2. I may have to re-check that. Not even the performance of a Radeon 7500 but might not be too bad for Windows 98.

[@Rickenbacker451]

I tested an ALS4000 some days ago and was very unsatisfied with how much static it produced. Turned out later when I had removed it that the jumper between Line-Out and Speaker was set to Speaker. No wonder it had massive static. Have to test it again someday. But for now I have no reason to use it because I'm very satisfied with an ESS Solo-1 which has very little static even when volume is at maximum.

[@roger.monitor]

He Phil, I have a huge lot of old computers and parts, some stil in their box, starting from 286 over Pentium Pro to P4 and higher. AMD K6 to Opteron and so. Most of my material is in Belgium but some is in Australia. A couple of Compaq Portable and and IBM portable are overthere. That material in OZ is more than 2000k from you on the Vic south coast. I am thinking of compiling a list of everything and than put it on ebay. Do you still test mini and SFF computers ?

[@penguin5384]

You have a lot to answer for Phil. I have a dual slot 1 rig that i have owned and built from new and have always enjoyed messing around with (it did have to work for a living for a very long time, Gateway server) and it's now basically a pet. Dual 600's, Geforce 2 GTS, Globalwin 802 case, maxxed ram, Highpoint Raid card, more storage than it will ever need and Windows 2k Pro, oh and a Yamaha sound card, you may want to try one of these. However, I now find myself , as a result of watching YOUR channel, with a P2 450 SLI Voodoo 2 setup, an AMD 6000+ running crossfire 3870's , and a Q6600 running at about 3.5 or so (varies depending on my patience) with either crossfire 4870's (superb cards and damn reliable) , or, crossfire 5970's (these require a small nuclear power station in place of the psu). More to the point I also have a third 5970 waiting for a suitable mobo ( and a slightly larger power station) to run triple crossfire. Keep up the good work.

[@H6rdc0re]

The reason why the Geforce 4 TI 4200 was so much slower than the TI 4600 is because it's probably the version with the 64-bit memory interface. That version of the TI 4200 is extremely slow.

[@Stermy57HW]

Incoming needs TNT2 pro or ultra to have the best experience. Good one like always phil. Same opinion about socket 754 for Windows 98. In my opinion is the best choice. They are cheap: Athlon 64 or Sempron 64 costs only few £ or €. Mainboards are cheap 15/20£ and it's easy to find a single stick of DDR400 memory. You can use lots of GPU. Performance are impressive, the platform stay cool and quiet at load speed. You can use reference AMD stock cooler and put down multiplier if you need. See you soon

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea with GeForce and later Incoming doesn't render correctly. This is an odd game. Looks very nice on other cards like Matrox and Radeons.

[@jason50146]

This was fun to watch. It reminds me what a pain it was to set up clone machines in the 90's and early 2000's. Edit: I've been pondering building a DOS machine for gaming. Looking at Pentium II's as we speak.

[@BigEightiesNewWave]

I have fond memories of the "space" screensaver with the astronaut floating.

[@Zero11s]

it's a fantasy world that doesn't exist in reality

[@classic_jam]

I use Socket 939 and 775 for Windows XP. I ALSO use 775 for Windows 7. That's my preference. I also prefer High end Athlon XP/P4 for XP, while low end belongs in 98SE, ME, or 2000. That's just how I do it though. I leave everything up to midrange 1155 for Win7, everything else newer is 10. I do, however, want to use that spare 4790K and GTX 980 for a silly windows xp system.

[@fourthdirective]

I've combined a Socket 754 Sempron 3000+ with a ASRock K8Upgrade-VM800 and the processor can be downclocked to 800MHz.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice! Be sure to check out CPU SPEED tool from Vogons. As you have VIA chipset, it will let you slow it down even further :)

[@nosee8466]

Hi, which monitor did you use? or which monitor do you use for win98 usually?

17 or 19 inch CRT would be era correct and they look great

[@Mitsou44]

In that era I was happy if a demanding game ran in 640x480 with 15-20 fps. I would like to show my collection and do some cool projects, but I'm far from professional... And my language skill is far from good.

[@jedi9577]

I have had similar issues with the VIA chipset SATA controllers for socket 754/939. I had to use a PCI SATA card to work around the problem. Aside from that the systems work great!

[@janwitkowsky8787]

And here I was just reading an article online about which hardware Win 9x is compatible with. xD Perfect timing!

[@janwitkowsky8787]

msfn.org/board/topic/107001-compatible-hardware-with-windows-9x/

[@cartonwaffle]

What is the test bench you are using

[@0KylePrior0]

12:25 Whoops. Got those 2 confused. Now I'll never know how many 3d marks there were four either one.

[@Rickenbacker451]

I bought the same Medion Ti 4200 for cheap recently, there seems to be quite a lot of them on ebay. It has a lower core clock than a standard Ti 4200. I think it was 225MHz compared to the usual 250MHz. Don't like the fan on it, it's a bit annoying. Don't know it that was standard or if the bearing is just worn.

[@dainneater6944]

This is a fun video. I know I came upon this very late, but I have a very similar system so it was interesting to see.

[@itstheweirdguy]

Nice video, as always. I'm impressed, as always!!!

[@Rocky-bz8wr]

Great video thank you. It makes me want to dig out some old hardware and build a 98se test rig. That second graphics card cooler reninded me of the old Zalman video card coolers where they had the fins fan out like that except the Zalmans were more of a goldish or copper color infact I still have one laying around some where in a box as well as a couple Zalman cpu coolers.

[@maxxlr8tion578]

Rage Incoming was my jam when we got our first PC, tho it didn't play anywhere near that 30 fps cap, lol, probably more like 10 fps. RIP Compaq.

[@vgjhlgjhfuyfjhfjkhgyghj]

I know it's not your style Phil. But I'd be interested in seeing your Aladdin's cave of hardware. Great video as always. 👊

[@vgjhlgjhfuyfjhfjkhgyghj]

I have also found the same thing with the sata controller on 754. Thought I was going nuts. 🤣

[@eulondon]

Nice easy and cheap retro gaming.

[@TABRO284]

I used to work for a component distributor. I would test returned items to determine if they where faulty or not. We sold these Gigabyte boards. We had very few returns on Gigabyte boards. If they did have a problem it was mainly having to flash the bios to the latest version because it would not boot with newer CPU's and I remember a spate of boards with leaking capacitors. MSI boards at that time where terrible. I always wish i had kept my best PC for each era instead of upgrading.

[@playtech7165]

Today I got (Actually I had it stored) a new motherboard for my Windows 98 machine, brand new, unused. Asus P4P800-E Deluxe, With a Pentium 4 HT 3.20ghz and 512mb of ram plus an SSD120gb, I install Win98 SE (I deactivated the hyperthreading just in case) it is a great motherboard. Some tools you have on your website were very useful to me, Nvidia drivers, Daemon Tools, and others. Thank you!

[@philscomputerlab]

Very nice!

[@alvaroacwellan9051]

Fun fact: I just found this very motherboard on my "to-be-tested" pile. And it works fine. Yay!

[@larrybreavman4864]

Thanks, Phil, I like a lot your videos.

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks for watching!

[@kofteburger]

I was going to comment about dos gaming till you mentioned it. Looking forward to the bonus video.

[@robertol2275]

heh, I was just replacing some capacitors from an old gigabyte mobo for a dual core E5400, got a geforce 8400 GS too, I'm curious how this thing goes

[@soknightsam]

Is the Athlon 64 x2 series possible with windows 98? I've got a 6400+ black edition on my xp rig. I'd like to dual boot possibly. Yes I will have to painstakingly switch the gpu and remove ram every time but you do what you gotta do

[@veretos7]

"If it has a bios, we're gonna flash it!" I like this guy

[@iKatOverLord]

😉

[@abooogeek]

Got my hand on a ASUS K8V-MX (VIA chipset) with a Sempron 2800+ and I have to say, I got pretty disappointed on Win98SE as it seems the system appears unstable. So far my nForce2/AthlonXP behave much nicely and more stable. The glaring example is the system unable to shut down properly (Windows claims a fatal error occurred and needs to restart the computer...as I asked him to shut down). I don't know if it me or if I have some plague with the ASUS series of that period (I really got unlucky with ASUS mainboards from 2004-2005 era), but I gonna try next weekend and benchmark against an ABIT NF8-V (Socket 754/nForce 3).

[@mesterak]

Nice work Phil! I’ll have to pull out my old 754 board and give it a go now. 👍

[@piratebear3126]

I still have my Gateway Athlon 64 from the XP era (in storage unfortunately). Does what I want from the XP era, but I need to upgrade the RAM from 1 GB at some point. Maybe I'll try 98 on it at some point too.

[@dennisanderson8663]

1GB for Windows 98 is a good amount but for XP I desire at least 2GB. In one of my IT classes my teacher said Windows Vista wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. The problem was that OEM manufacturers were giving people criminal amounts of RAM like 1GB.

[@Reziac]

Win98 is limited to 512mb or 1GB depending on the mainboard's bugs. Win98 on 3-slot boards often threw up with more than 512mb, but 4-slot boards usually would handle 1GB no problem.

[@paulhilling6208]

Just built win 98 pc during lockdown after watching your videos, epox 8kmm+ motherboard, 512mb ram, AMD xp 2000+ CPU, ATI Radeon 9800se 256 mb. Sound blaster live sc. Smashes windows games except grand Prix 4 must be really demanding ? Grand Prix 2 runs really badly 2 in dos, the image seems to slightly ossolate not unplayable but and the sound really bad, championship manager 2 runs ok but with the same ossolation with the image. So looking forward to your bonus video for tips with DOS games . Great videos 👏

[@philscomputerlab]

Hey you watched to the end!

[@paulhilling6208]

@@philscomputerlabyep ! watched more minutes of your channel than Netflix in the last month binged everything , cross checked everything I was buying with your videos 😁

[@Rickenbacker451]

What do you mean with ossolation? Oscillation? Still don't know what that's supposed to mean. Btw Grand Prix 2 is capped to 25 FPS, that may explain why it looks choppy.

[@anomaly95]

These were the days for different chipsets! If you didn't like VIA, there was SiS, AMD, and nVidia. In the server market, there was also the ServerWorks chipsets.

[@philscomputerlab]

SIS also always worked for me :)

[@joey_after_midnight]

The Santa Cruz card usage is continuing to be interesting.. as are any mistakes (very helpful ! ) I have been looking at the M-Audio 2496, Revolution 7.1 and Revolution 5.1 sound cards for Input video capture. Both from ATI Wonder Theater 200 cards and from other TV Tuner cards. Sound cards aren't normally known for their Input capabilities, Mic and (Consumer) Line seem to be all there is.. Mic=Mono, Line=Stereo. I see some have "hardware" channel support for EAX and other Surround Sound on the outputs.. but not all. The M-Audio Revo 7.1 had no "hardware" support for EAX and DirectX and got panned for poor gaming support. The Revo 5.1 was supposed to have "hardware" channels and was lauded for it, but had poor quality drivers. I'm new to all this EAX and Sensura (software only?) sound support and the MME vs ASIO driver and latency control support. It seems to me after Visa the whole landscape of sound support changed.. but I'm not sure what is important anymore. 16/48 to 24/96 and 24/192 .. seem to be tiers for audiophiles (is that a fan or a brand name for M-Audio products?).. and stuff seems to favor IEEE Firewire or USB 2.0 then there were Guitar or Instrument (non-Line level to Line Level) adapters and converters.. this is all humbling, confusing and frustrating to understand.. sometimes I think I need to visit a Guitar shop to figure out which legacy sound cards are best for analog video capture to digital AVI or MPEG2 transfer. Still I find your videos with the 'crumbs' of information about video cards and audio playback/gamer cards useful.. they connect a few dots for me.. and send me off in new directions to explore terms I've never heard of before. I think there is a lot of historical, legacy information that informs and prepares one to understand the landscape of today. Thanks for the videos!

[@philscomputerlab]

I feel like saying some deep and meaningful but can't lol I just follow my gut and what my ears tell me. For gaming the Santa Cruz is a solid all-rounder. EAX is better with a live! Or Audigy 2 ZS even better. A3D you want an Aureal Vortex 2.

[@johnmijo]

I used a few VIA chipset boards like this one, but I ended doing something different: I disabled the SATA + the Primary IDE controller port and used a Promise SATA PCI controller card instead. But of course I wasn't doing the budget thing for the most part but I find that these Promise SATA controller, non-RAID type are pretty speedy.

[@philscomputerlab]

That works well! Did you use a SATA optical drive?

[@johnmijo]

@@philscomputerlab , both, I tried an IDE optical first and tested the speed and went to a SATA inferface model. With optical you don't really see much of a difference, you can measure it but in practical terms you really cant.

[@antwanarmstrong5987]

Yeah, 754 motherboards are fun and stable depending which board you have.

[@renzh19]

Been waiting for this

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

Hey Phil, this video is very similar to the one from January 2018! Still, great video, thank you very much!

[@anno5936]

Guys, as much as i admire the passion you put towards fixing 20 years old problems and a trip down memory-lane, the x86 platforms have always been very generic, there's no "iconic" like for example the C64/Amiga/enter-your-favourite-console... wouldn't emulation work out just fine ?

[@newstubees6497]

In my experience, It must work also by enabling SATA controller and disabling both IDE, on Win98 and socket 754

[@muhammadnurazlansaadon1504]

I love this amd athlon 64 windows 98..... Stay safe Phil