ragnargd

"Too new" is not necessarily an argument: The 990FX/890FX/970A were the newest AMD chipsets a very few years ago, and were much more compatible than everything before for a long time from AMD. I expect the boards - or their chipsets - to be more of a problem, the closer they are/were to the last working chipset generation: W9x (wrongly) *thinks* it knows them, initializes them, and... crashes. This is very true for USB2- and SATA-chipsets (which makes all Intel-chipsets after P45 so very difficult, if not impossible, to use, up and until today). With many newer boards, W9x does not know those strange things, but lets them be... and - *presto!* - remains stable! (And then there is the ingenious RLoew for the stubborn parts... ;-) The rest of the story are compatible known-to-work add-in cards, as long as the MoBo-layout allows to install them. The next (and final?) show-stopper may be UEFI-only MoBos, and/or boards where the PCIe-specifications change considerably. (btw.: Has anyone a W9x-compatible GPU running stable on W9x in a PCIe 3.0 slot already?) So the upcoming Intel-platform (and maybe AM4 already) may be the end of the show already.... let's see... So far, I will only test AM4-boards, once the Dual-GPU-stunt is possible on an 8x/8x enabled MoBo, a well-positioned PCI-slot for my Audigy 2 exists, and either there still exist IDE-compatible SATA-ports, or another well-positioned slot for a SATA-I-AddIn...

Can you please state the source and version of UnRaid you are using? (is it the Demo Donwload from the Homepage?) I see that Q35 chipset is emulated - and we have drivers/inf for P35, so that *may* work.

Games will not run faster, of course, on the same machine with the same CPU and same GPU - but my impression is, with a second core active, some of them run smoother, FPS being more constant. This is even more true with games that have sound (i.e. music) running in its own thread - "Jedi Knight" being a good example. Other games, then, make no difference. Well, unless i use my 1920x1200 screen with maximum details, for games like Half-Life 2 - that is unfair, in a way, as i run them on a faster card on the same machine, but, hey, who said life is fair?

@ruthan: Look for the MSI NX7950GT-VT2D512 or NX7950GT-VT2D512EZ-HD. For my taste, they still get too hot, even with air-flow in the case, but YMMV.

@LoneCrusader: Most games "made for W9x" in fact run better when running on a dual/quad CPU, and this is true for D2 as well. But some just don't run at all, or only with serious problems. I just played "Jedi Knight", and it ran fine on W98SE, but on the same machine with XP, it was glitched beyond repair. Same with a Harry Potter game (part one?) my daugther played. Inspired by your idea, i just played D1 again. Oh my, it made me remember why this game was called "mouse killer No. 1"...

@jumper: Well, worth a try. Will take a bit of time, but I'll report. @HarryTri: Worth trying. I did. Well, I did not. But THAT I did. Wait... AAAAAH!

You will have a hard time finding a situation where i oppose LoneCrusaders respected opinion (cheers! ;), but this is one: The GeForce 7900 GTX is at least 10% faster than a 7950 GT. The 7950 GT is the second fastest card, and being newer than the 7900 GTX (the same G71 GPU, just clocked down, and better equipment of the card), it is more power efficient (i have i.e. a passively cooled version, as TDP is ~120W for the 7900 GTX vs. ~95W for the 7950 GT). I have both cards, and can confirm all of this by practical experiments. But also have a view at the respected Anand Tech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2080/8 Your major problem will be, that: - You will find no 7900 GTX for AGP (so the 7950 GT is the fastest card for AGP on W9x) - You will have a hard time finding a 7900 GTX with LESS than 512MB (none known to me), so it reqires the $$$-patch by RLoew (the 7950 GT with 256MB for AGP is still very rare, but you CAN find it) Fun-fact: The 7950GX2 is supposed to be as fast as the 7900GX2, because the latter is not running with full speed because of temp/power-reasons, and thereby the 7950GX2, speed considered being equal, being much superior for secondary reasons (i.e. only using one power-connector vs. two for the 7900GX2, less noise, less heat, less throttling, you name it). This is of no importance for W9x-users, of course, because no SLI with GeForce on W9x...

See: http://www.dosforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=11599 (in german) It basically shows a sceenshot after D2 crashed, showing a dependency to a w2000-DLL. I have the same phenomenon, and will start a research. Hopefully just a small problem. Any ideas welcome...

I install no chipset drivers - they don't exist. Does that answer your question?

The 4coreDual with a patched BIOS (4GB Ram) runs W10 64bit, besides XP, i use it with a Q9550S. P.S.: I did not try for a long time, but i somehow remember to have used a PCIe-card and an AGP card in parallel (or was that with the AM2NF3-VSTA? Or both? Worth trying, perhaps...) I was not aware of the DOS-problems of the X800, but normally i'd use DosBox anyway, as most DOS-games work just better with it, given your PC ist fast enough. Actually, i use DosBox on the 4coreDual... :-D The only exceptions can be found on vogons.org, its about a couple of games that absolutely NEED i.e. a VooDoo2 or such (i don't find the thread). But to be honest, the AM3+ boards work better for me, and just have that much more value with multi-booting. But that's just IMHO.

In the ad it says W98SE is pre-installed... Is it not? (Perhaps german version) As this contains a "Disk on a module" - a VERY small SSD of about 512 M(!)B, which you cant just remove to plug it into another PC (which would be the solution for a "normal" HDD or SSD) -, you NEED an USB booting device. I recommend this one: https://www.amazon.de/StarTech-Com-S2510BU3ISO-Zoll-Festplatte-Gehäuse/dp/B00E6EBPBO/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1487782060&sr=1-2&keywords=iso-emulation (you can switch the german amazon to english, or look it up on amazon.co.uk) When you boot the HP T5720, what shows up?

@rloew: Technically, you are most probably right, as it has a distinct power supply - and what for, if not an amplifier? Still, even if better than your average soundcard, this cannot be much (3W perhaps?) - otherwise, it would have fragged my devices already.

I second what RLoew says - with an exception: The Audigy 2 (ZS) PCI come with a 5 1/4" frontpanel, that gives the features you need - looks similar like this: I use it for headphones - plugging in disables the line-out, when configured correctly. I record my disastrous efforts on my Fender Bullet into the line-in of that panel, via the Creative sequencer on my PC, through the line-out of that panel to my external 4-channel tape-recorder, and then forward it to my Sennheiser Headphones from there. On Windows 98 SE, of course! B-D (it works on XP as well, but, heck, why would i... ;-)

Hi, i've installed W98SE on an MSI 970A SLI Krait, and also installed XP pro 32bit, and W10 home 64bit. ------------------------------------ Hardware: ------------------------------------ AMD FX 4320 (4 cores, 95W TDP, 4GHz base, 4.2 HGz Turbo) Soundblaster Audigy PCI TP-Link RTL8111B Gigabit PCIe 1x 1 GB Ram (all works fine with 32GB, might have 16GB in the end) 3 SSDs (60GB SATA III FAT32 for W98SE, 120GB SATA III NTFS for XP, 240GB SATA III NTFS for W10 home 64bit) 1 DVD-RAM SATA 2 x EVGA NVidia GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB PCIe, linked with SLI bridge USB2 works on all OS (compatibility set to "Auto", USB3 on XP and W10) Temporarily a SATA I-controller to have a DVD on W98SE, but will most probably switch to RLoews SATA-patch, IF i keep this machine... ------------------------------------ The minor issues ------------------------------------ The OS and hardware installed, there were only minor issues: - i had to switch to Ushers method early on during the installation of W98SE even with just 1 GB of Ram - on this board, although the chipset allows for it, MSI did not implement separate ATA/AHCI-settings for the SATA-channels 5 and 6, so i installed W98SE on the controller in IDE/ATA-mode, and when installing XP and W10, switched to AHCI-mode. This of course set the controller in W98SE to compatibility-mode, which voids the use of other SATA-Devices (like the DVD-RAM). I used an add-in SATA-I controller for $things from DVD, but removed it later. I guess this means getting RLoews SATA-patch later on, if i want to have normal operations with the onboard-controller set to AHCI. This is a minor issue on W98SE, though, as with the SSD, the system is still fast. - The board has bad quality-control by MSI, so many people had to swap boards with their seller, until they had a working one in the end, and so was me: Only on the third attempt i had a working one. ------------------------------------ SLI-Issues ------------------------------------ No, there is no SLI on W98SE (yet). I'm pretty sure this will not change, as i learned about SLI from i.e. the "Hybrid-SLI"-mod-community, and i know, the issue is complicated. Still, i wanted to use SLI at least on XP and W10. My question, now (already posted on the german MSI-forum, and NVidias SLI-support-community-forum): Why does the SLI-option not show up in my NVidia-System panel (in XP or W10) ?!? I know this is not directly related to W9x... if you can point me to a place where this is to be located... move this thread, and tell me... I know that RLoew has this board as well: Did you try SLI? Do you have any idea? Cheers, Ragnar G.D.

@deomsh and nomen: Thank you for your input, i'll add links soon.

I'm running an FX4320 on an MSI 970A SLI Krait (and an FX 8350 on an ASRock 890FX Deluxe5, and an Opteron 8320 on an ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0). All and each with SSDs, Audigy <1|2> PCI, Realtek 8111B PCIe Gigabit, 16GB Ram (1GB visible to W98SE), EVGA 7900GTX PCIe 512MB (or some 7600GT PCIe 256MB), SATA-DVD. All have Multiboot with XP and W10, where sometimes i use additional hardware (like USB3.0, GTX 960, more SSDs). My only Intel-System at the moment is a Q9550S (reduced speed because 1000FSB) on an ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA R2.0, 4GB Ram (1GB visible to W98SE, 3.3 visible to XP and W10) with an IDE-SSD (W98SE), 2 SATA-SSDs (XP and W10), a Gainward GeForce 7900GT AGP 512MB, the obligatory Audigy PCI, and an Intel Pro MT Gigabit PCI. I use an 1680x1050 IPS Monitor with a KVM-switch, but everything works on an 1920x1200 IPS Monitor as well. This is about the most modern hardware i get to run, and i can play almost every game on these PCs - i just have to choose the "right" OS for each, and sometimes turn down details... ;-) (I have older systems in my cellar, although in an disassembled state).

Note for 775i65g: On ASRock Homepage, only rev. 3.0 shows compatibility for Wolfdale, but only up to E7300 (M0-Stepping) see: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/775i65G R3.0/?cat=CPU see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors#.22Wolfdale-3M.22_.2845_nm.2C_1066_MT.2Fs.29 On rev 2.0, the effect of BIOS v. 3.30 is not documentated, but only Conroe CPUs have beed added up to v. 3.20 see: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/775i65G R2.0/#BIOS I can see things going on pctreiber.net, but can't access this from my momentary PC...

The most easy to handle boards are with the 970A chipset - i have two of those running. But it's not only the chipset, the layout is as important also - you need two PS/2-ports for ease of use, a PCI-slot for audio add-in, a PCIe-1x for LAN, and a compatible PCIe-GPU. I use an SSD on port 5, and a DVD on port 6, in compatibility-mode (which works very well). It works with any other modern OS on port 1-4 in SATA-mode (tried with XP, W7, W10, Ubuntu 64-bit LTS, and SteamOS (! only with a second, modern GPU !). If you want to use the SATA-ports in W98SE in true SATA-mode, you'll need RLoews SATA-patch - can't say if this is better, as i don't own that patch, but many say it is great. For GPU i recommend an ATI Radeon x800 PCIe 256MB. If you want to use an NVidia-GPU, you absolutely need corresponding RLoew NVidia-GPU-driver-patch ($20,--) - then, i recommend the 7600GT PCIe 256MB, or the 7900 GTX PCIe 512MB. For Audio i recommend the SB Audigy PCI or SB Audigy 2 PCI - used via ebay for about $5 to $8. Only the original old ones, actually, not any "XE"-variant or whatsoever. For LAN i recommend any PCIe-1x Gigabit card with the RTL 8111B chipset. Should be available brand-new.

I had exactly that MoBo. While W98SE was technically possible on it, in the end the layout made a "full" sysxtem (for playing games) impossible. Can't recall the details, but it was not fun. I gave it back, and ordered something else (some used P35-Full-ATX-board from GigaGyte - consult the "motherboards running with more than 1 GB Ram-thread). If you want W98SE and XP (and nothing newer) you can get the ASRock 775i65G R3.0 brand new - it uses AGP and DDR400, though, and cannot use a 1333-CPU.

Thank you!!! I'm just back from a long journey. Unfortunately, the board for which i needed this was DOA and sent to the merchant for RMA. When the board is back (i ordered the same again), I'll contact you.

Which was the exact version of the driver you are using? I recommed this driver: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_77.72.html Your card has 256MB of memory, and not 512, does it?

Asus does not deliver drivers for the mainboard for W9x (you already know that, right?). I heard of noone using this chipset with W9x. You will have probably have problems with the chipset (unrecognized devices) when using the basic drivers of W9x. Sometimes boards can still be used, so you may try, but you might need skills with inf-file modding... Please report of your results.

Sorry for the confusion. Your PC has enough power in terms of wattage. I just wanted to say, that graphics card will be the "fastest" device in your system, and has a chance to be bogged down by the "inadequate" speed of other components (i.e. CPU, PCI-bus,...) in your computer. It's like putting a race-horse before your waggon instead of a cow, and wondering, why it will not go with full speed - until you recognize your waggon has small wheels made of uneven wooden. So it just MAY be, that your CPU (your Pentium III with 800 MHz, i guess) will not deliver enough data to the GPU (= graphics card) to allow for it's full potential. Another CPU (like, Pentium III with 1000 MHz) MIGHT allow for 10%-12% more pictures per second with the GeForce 6200. It still is the best choice, though, as with any other card you will have slower games. In other words: Your waggon will be faster with the racing horse than with the cow, so it still is recommended, but not as much as could be with a chariot instead of a waggon... :-) (I'm not a native speaker, so PLEASE forgive me if this sounds strange, or worse...

[SPAM] Funny, i had a similar kind of discussion just yet: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3166883/pci-express-card-win98.html I recommend a GeForce 6200 PCI with 256 MB (over a VooDoo 3). They are easy and comparably cheap to get on *bay, and have a mature driver for DX 9.0c and W95. Your CPU migth be some kind of bottleneck for graphics performance, i think.

Rant only important for legacy-gamers: All games that run with W9x have been developed with a GF 6800 with 256MB in mind, because that was just the fastest card for W9x/ME ever WHILE GAMES WERE STILL DEVELOPED FOR THAT SYSTEM. Using a faster card with more memory therefore only makes sense, if you dual-boot with any other OS, where you depend on this card as well. Same is true for CPU, where a fast P4 was the best you could expect as a game developer. Because when you developed with a Quad-Core and a GF 8xxx and up, you developed for and on XP. If i'd have to build another pure W9x system, I still prefer cards from the GF 7xxx series, and use the according patched and inofficial driver, as i.e. the 7600 GT (AGP as well as PCIe) has performance close to some GF 6800 GT, but can be cooled passively, and (PCIe only) doesn't need an auxiliary power cord. For the same reason i prefer an AMD Athlon II X? or Intel Core2Duo over an Intel P4: Less power, less heat, less noise. Still, a P4 and a GF 6800 will give no worse gaming experience on W9x. Here as with other modern equipment, an SSD will make so much more fun (given you don't work on it every day, 'cause no trim and higer degradation).