Making A Retro Pc

[DK_BLEU]

How should I go about installing windows 98 second edition on a dell dimension 8300? Want to play older games and its a pc that does not get used much...

[DK_BLEU]

Also, i have already made the dvd for installing it

 

[ZXL_115]

Just now, DK_BLEU said:

How should I go about installing windows 98 second edition on a dell dimension 8300? Want to play older games and its a pc that does not get used much...

Whats the exact model of the pc? and if i were you, id throw a 3dfx voodoo in the pc

[DK_BLEU]

what do you mean by exact model and i have a radeon 3450 in it

[ZXL_115]

Just now, DK_BLEU said:

what do you mean by exact model and i have a radeon 3450 in it

Like is it the full size tower or small form factor?

[DK_BLEU]

full size

[ZXL_115]

Just now, DK_BLEU said:

full size

Whats the current OS on the pc? does it have drivers for win98?

[DK_BLEU]

the current os is server2008

[ZXL_115]

Just now, DK_BLEU said:

the current os is server2008

Make sure theres win98 drivers for all your parts  so your rig will run well and all. What are you going to use the pc for?

[DK_BLEU]

old gaming and programs that i cannot run well on windows 10

 

[ZXL_115]

Just now, DK_BLEU said:

old gaming and programs that i cannot run well on windows 10

 

XP does a good job at running win98 titles as well. i dont see any harm in trying it out. Wish you luck  

[SLAYR]

 

14 minutes ago, DK_BLEU said:

How should I go about installing windows 98 second edition on a dell dimension 8300? Want to play older games and its a pc that does not get used much...

If you have the install disk, or the iso on a flashdrive just plug it into the computer , boot from it, and follow the instructions.

 

If the computer is too new it probabbly won't work since the drivers won't work.

 

Best chance to get it to work may be a virtual machine.

5 minutes ago, DK_BLEU said:

old gaming and programs that i cannot run well on windows 10

 

Have you tried compatibility mode, or a VM of windows 98?

[ProjectBox153]

If you get this to work, some programs may not run correctly with a processor of the speed of a P4. It's always been my opinion that older operating systems, such as Windows 98, should be put on old computers to match.

[KenjiUmino]

4 hours ago, SLAYR said:

 

If you have the install disk, or the iso on a flashdrive just plug it into the computer , boot from it, and follow the instructions.

 

If the computer is too new it probabbly won't work since the drivers won't work.

 

Best chance to get it to work may be a virtual machine.

Have you tried compatibility mode, or a VM of windows 98?

 

running win9x games in compatibility mode fails more often than not and there is no such thing as a "win 98 VM" for gaming either - never seen it working. ever.

 

2 hours ago, Jamiec1130 said:

If you get this to work, some programs may not run correctly with a processor of the speed of a P4. It's always been my opinion that older operating systems, such as Windows 98, should be put on old computers to match.

this exactly matches my experience

 

stay below 1 GHz CPU speed - more will cause trouble with some games

stay below 1 GB RAM size - windows 98 can't even use that much and more will cause trouble 

 

watch the size of your HDD - windows 98 has no native support for NTFS and the size cap for a FAT 32 partition is somewhere around 120 GB AFAIK - given how "small" all the games and applications are by todays standards, you probably won't need terabytes of HDD space anyways

 

don't know about your radeon 3450 but you will probably not find win 98 drivers for any graphics cards newer then the geforce 6000 series (if you are using a pentium 3 or first gen. pentium 4 you probably won't have PCI-express on your mainboard and be stuck with AGP graphics cards anyways)

 

and while you're at it, get a sound card (SB16 or AWE32 compatible) and a 3dfx voodoo card for maximum compatibility with 90's games

[ZXL_115]

2 hours ago, KenjiUmino said:

 

running win9x games in compatibility mode fails more often than not and there is no such thing as a "win 98 VM" for gaming either - never seen it working. ever.

 

this exactly matches my experience

 

stay below 1 GHz CPU speed - more will cause trouble with some games

stay below 1 GB RAM size - windows 98 can't even use that much and more will cause trouble 

 

watch the size of your HDD - windows 98 has no native support for NTFS and the size cap for a FAT 32 partition is somewhere around 120 GB AFAIK - given how "small" all the games and applications are by todays standards, you probably won't need terabytes of HDD space anyways

 

don't know about your radeon 3450 but you will probably not find win 98 drivers for any graphics cards newer then the geforce 6000 series (if you are using a pentium 3 or first gen. pentium 4 you probably won't have PCI-express on your mainboard and be stuck with AGP graphics cards anyways)

 

and while you're at it, get a sound card (SB16 or AWE32 compatible) and a 3dfx voodoo card for maximum compatibility with 90's games

Vodoo's are classics  

[ZXL_115]

14 hours ago, KenjiUmino said:

and while you're at it, get a sound card (SB16 or AWE32 compatible) and a 3dfx voodoo card for maximum compatibility with 90's games

I got a soundcard from the xp era in my pc, a sb live! 24-bit

[KenjiUmino]

On 21.12.2016 at 5:37 PM, ZXL_115 said:

I got a soundcard from the xp era in my pc, a sb live! 24-bit

that was a good card - and for whatever reason the ONLY card i had that was 100% EAX compatible - many games refused to let me enable EAX with other cards not made by creative that claimed to have EAX support.

 

but for a 90's retro PC, the SB live is not a good choice because that card does not have DOS compatibility.

 

there seems to be no "one shot final solution" for a retro PC

 

early 90's games need DOS compatibility and specific graphics hardware to show their full potential while late 90's and early 2000's games require a completely different set of hardware

 

so a pentium 2 or 3 (or AMD K6) with not more than 500 MHz, a SB 16 / 32 and a 3dfx card is ideal to run DOS and win 95 games to their fullest,

 

some games i played on this kind of hardware that i could not get to work perfect on newer systems:

 

Tomb Raider (needs 3dfx card and DOS compatible sound)

WipeOut 2097 (runs too fast on modern hardware)

Resident Evil (needs 3dfx and runs too fast on modern hardware)

 

later win 98 and XP games are better off with a geforce 3/4 Ti or radeon 8600 and a sb live paired with a 1-2 GHz single core CPU (yes, single core - there are games that cough up a hairball on dual core systems) 

 

Scarface (problems with multithreaded CPUs and modern GPUs) 

Outcast (problems with +2 GHz CPUs, needs SB live for EAX) 

Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance (shabby PC port of the awesome PS 2 game - had awful fog bugs with anything newer than a Geforce 4)

[ZXL_115]

23 hours ago, KenjiUmino said:

that was a good card - and for whatever reason the ONLY card i had that was 100% EAX compatible - many games refused to let me enable EAX with other cards not made by creative that claimed to have EAX support.

 

but for a 90's retro PC, the SB live is not a good choice because that card does not have DOS compatibility.

 

there seems to be no "one shot final solution" for a retro PC

 

early 90's games need DOS compatibility and specific graphics hardware to show their full potential while late 90's and early 2000's games require a completely different set of hardware

 

so a pentium 2 or 3 (or AMD K6) with not more than 500 MHz, a SB 16 / 32 and a 3dfx card is ideal to run DOS and win 95 games to their fullest,

 

some games i played on this kind of hardware that i could not get to work perfect on newer systems:

 

Tomb Raider (needs 3dfx card and DOS compatible sound)

WipeOut 2097 (runs too fast on modern hardware)

Resident Evil (needs 3dfx and runs too fast on modern hardware)

 

later win 98 and XP games are better off with a geforce 3/4 Ti or radeon 8600 and a sb live paired with a 1-2 GHz single core CPU (yes, single core - there are games that cough up a hairball on dual core systems) 

 

Scarface (problems with multithreaded CPUs and modern GPUs) 

Outcast (problems with +2 GHz CPUs, needs SB live for EAX) 

Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance (shabby PC port of the awesome PS 2 game - had awful fog bugs with anything newer than a Geforce 4)

Man your way more knowlageable than me. I love my sb live card so much it's in my main rig; albeit my pc isnt the greatest. it works well with windows 10  

[KenjiUmino]

23 hours ago, ZXL_115 said:

Man your way more knowlageable than me.

i credit that to the fact i ran into most of these troubles myself

 

i bought my first PC in 2000 - it was used and a generation behind and i was on a tight budget most of the time so i bought outdated games from the bargain bin to go with it. (steam holiday sale was still to be invented) 

 

that machine gave me enough shit to write a book about it

 

but eventually i upgraded the whole thing a few years later and then had to find out that most of my old games wouldn't work on the new hardware because no soundblaster support or too fast CPU or whatnot

 

same with the next upgrade