Re: Advice & possible want SoA nForce2 / AthlonXP 1.5GHz up

Elizabeth Leaper wrote:
Any one know what the max cpu speed and max ram speed / amount Win98 SE can
handle?
- am thinking of fixing up my old PC, but want to run Win98 for DOS
compatability for old games.
[think pre Doom up to about Quake3 era stuff - just don't ask why]

With regards to above i might want an nForce2 mobo - can these run DDR ram
and AGP8x ?
Also possibly a faster cpu
- using a 1GHz Athlon (non XP) o/c'd to 1.2 at the mo, so it depends if it's
really worth spending money upgrading it.

Any ideas how much these'd cost? I don't want to spend a lot, as i said it's
only for my old PC.
Just thought i might as well make it the best it can be for what it is.

Grateful for any advice / offers.

Chris
[based in Staffordshire area]


If your existing mobo will handle it use Maxed out fast pc133 SDRAM or if you have a mobo with ddr slots as well ...then max out those. You may find you are limited on AGP speeds to 2x or 4x ... however a good fast AGP card or a MX or TI Nvidea PCI card works well. My son plays UT and
Painkiller and similar on a 950Mhz Athlon/650MbSdram/Ati 8500 agp card.
The only other thing you can tweak is the disk subsystem by using a PCI
IDE expansion card to give you ATA100/133 with fast HD and CD/DVD drives. Also my son's PC runs XP Pro SP2 and loads of games no bother.
(cough...he does run some of them straight from HD lol).
A decent soundcard takes a lot of the load off the cpu as well.

If your games will run in pure DOS mode ..dump W98/SE and just get
DRDOS or Freedos (google) ...should fly as a dos machine!

Either way let the cards, memory and disks take the strain.

The other way is to find one of those cheapy all-in-one ECS mobos
with USB2 and soldered-in amd "2000 pro" cpus and do a transplant.
They were only about £50 new a couple of years ago.

imho W98 SE was far the better than W 98 ..but neither now supported :0(
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Things you forget...
    ... Got the system done, running dos 6.22. ... games), a Nintendo and a Super Nintendo with 30+ ... I also ordered on ebay a vga to tv convertor that plugs into the vga ... that patched in between any video card out and a monitor. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.classic)
  • Re: DOS games & 3dfx voodoo - best version?
    ... playing old DOS games? ... compatibility before getting a card. ... hoping that this will provide satisfactory SB16 emulation in DOS. ... but some videocards and/or motherboards ignore the keying. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg)
  • Re: DOS games & 3dfx voodoo - best version?
    ... playing old DOS games? ... compatibility before getting a card. ... I have a machine with SB16 and Voodoo 5 5500 that I can triple boot to ... hoping that this will provide satisfactory SB16 emulation in DOS. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg)
  • Re: DOS games & 3dfx voodoo - best version?
    ... playing old DOS games? ... compatibility before getting a card. ... hoping that this will provide satisfactory SB16 emulation in DOS. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg)
  • Re: any mobo suggestions?
    ... games come out and yet pretty much nothing from the last couple of ... for the vid card although I might go for a GTX or possibly even a much ... Every one I have looked at seems to get mixed reviews. ... 680i for the mobo. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action)