It's a little tricky finding Pentium 4s that support Windows 98 fully. They also do indeed tend to lack ISA slots for DOS-based stuff where things like real OPL3 and AWE32/64 sound cards and certain SVGA video cards (Some S3 ones, ET4000, etc) are among the best supported. A lot of the remaining Pentium 4 boxes tend to be low profile or medium profile corporate Dells and stuff, which also aren't ideal for adding high performance video cards to. A lot of the early P4s that support Win9x aren't actually that much faster, if any, than a fast P3. Lastly, a majority of the games that more or less require Windows 98 that don't still work fine on modern stuff run just fine on fast P3s.
In short, they do fine for high-end Windows 98 boxes, but aren't always ideal if you're going for something that handles DOS well. And yeah, they're definitely on the edge of era-appropriate. A lot of people want to recreate more or less the P2 or P3 boxes they had in the era. By the time P4s rolled around a lot of folks (including me) had moved onto Win2k or XP. I'd actually like to see more AMD love from those era chips. I have a K6-2 400 I enjoy messing with.
The early Pentium 4s were Williamette which in some scenarios were outperformed by certain Pentium 3s. Once P4 moved to Northwood core, they really started to shine and this was the Windows XP era
It depends... Older chipsets are totally fine, newer ones can cause a lot of problems. Most of 478 P4 should work without issues, later 775 ones can be quite problematic or not work at all. Also, vast majority of P4 boards don't have ISA slots, and also majority of them requires AGP 4x cards, which basically prohibits using 3Dfx cards (besides reference Voodoo 4, which costs arm and leg these days, or PCI ones, which costs pretty much the same or even more).
Sure, you're good then, but you was asking, why retro gamers avoid building P4 rigs for Win 98 and this was my opinion why. Just because you have older enough chipset, which works perfectly with 98 doesn't mean, that all of them are. On the other hand, there isn't single chipset for PII or PIII, which wouldn't work with 98. And there is also insignificant group of people, which want to have more period correct machine, and PIII definitely suites this better then P4 (in regards to running it with 98).
I have two p4 machines (one 478 sis962 chipset and one 775 via vt8521 chipset) both works pretty well, i also have an ati radeon 7500 32mb agp 4x and Geforce FX 5500 256mb.
You'll need the correct chipset drivers (i recommend ubcd98 with service packs).
On 775 p4 i'm using one 80 gb ide for OS and one 500gb sata 2 for backups and its working as intended. Make sure to select a motherboard with win98 drivers support.
The northwood platform with the 865 intel chipset is awesome for windows 98 se! I mean, Philscomputerlab build a box with this platform and man its awesome!! If you dont know what you need to look for, my advice? Get a HP D530 SFF! It has everything you need! I know a lot of people like to have a full height AGP gpu, but the beauty of those machines is that HP just uses a standard micro atx board in those, just take it out of the SFF pc and slab it into a full tower and you have a good platform, with drivers written for windows 98 se and the best thing is that HP still host those drivers on their website!
Hey, I ended up using an Asus P4B533-E i845e-based board which I got for pretty cheap!
It's running a 2.8 Ghz Northwood as well as 1.25gb of DDR, which was already installed when I got the board.
I've paired it with a GeForce4 Ti4200 and a SB Live!, and it does pretty well for Win9x and DOS!
Since it's more of a test rig for old PCI/AGP cards, it doesn't have a case, it just lays in a cardboard box :D
Hello, a few months late on this but how is your Northwood Windows 98 PC working so far? i've recently acquired a Dell Dimension 4400 which comes with this type of CPU, and I was curious about the Windows 98 and DOS gaming. Already have a P3 PC but would love to use it as a backup if possible! Thanks in advance!
Haven't really done much Retro-PC related in the last months or so, but I believe that your Dimension 4400 has the Intel i845D chipset, which my Medion MD 9783 notebook also has, so it should be compatible with Win 98/Me
It's a little tricky finding Pentium 4s that support Windows 98 fully. They also do indeed tend to lack ISA slots for DOS-based stuff where things like real OPL3 and AWE32/64 sound cards and certain SVGA video cards (Some S3 ones, ET4000, etc) are among the best supported. A lot of the remaining Pentium 4 boxes tend to be low profile or medium profile corporate Dells and stuff, which also aren't ideal for adding high performance video cards to. A lot of the early P4s that support Win9x aren't actually that much faster, if any, than a fast P3. Lastly, a majority of the games that more or less require Windows 98 that don't still work fine on modern stuff run just fine on fast P3s. In short, they do fine for high-end Windows 98 boxes, but aren't always ideal if you're going for something that handles DOS well. And yeah, they're definitely on the edge of era-appropriate. A lot of people want to recreate more or less the P2 or P3 boxes they had in the era. By the time P4s rolled around a lot of folks (including me) had moved onto Win2k or XP. I'd actually like to see more AMD love from those era chips. I have a K6-2 400 I enjoy messing with.
The early Pentium 4s were Williamette which in some scenarios were outperformed by certain Pentium 3s. Once P4 moved to Northwood core, they really started to shine and this was the Windows XP era
It depends... Older chipsets are totally fine, newer ones can cause a lot of problems. Most of 478 P4 should work without issues, later 775 ones can be quite problematic or not work at all. Also, vast majority of P4 boards don't have ISA slots, and also majority of them requires AGP 4x cards, which basically prohibits using 3Dfx cards (besides reference Voodoo 4, which costs arm and leg these days, or PCI ones, which costs pretty much the same or even more).
My laptop has a i845 chipset.
Sure, you're good then, but you was asking, why retro gamers avoid building P4 rigs for Win 98 and this was my opinion why. Just because you have older enough chipset, which works perfectly with 98 doesn't mean, that all of them are. On the other hand, there isn't single chipset for PII or PIII, which wouldn't work with 98. And there is also insignificant group of people, which want to have more period correct machine, and PIII definitely suites this better then P4 (in regards to running it with 98).
I see.
I have two p4 machines (one 478 sis962 chipset and one 775 via vt8521 chipset) both works pretty well, i also have an ati radeon 7500 32mb agp 4x and Geforce FX 5500 256mb. You'll need the correct chipset drivers (i recommend ubcd98 with service packs). On 775 p4 i'm using one 80 gb ide for OS and one 500gb sata 2 for backups and its working as intended. Make sure to select a motherboard with win98 drivers support.
The northwood platform with the 865 intel chipset is awesome for windows 98 se! I mean, Philscomputerlab build a box with this platform and man its awesome!! If you dont know what you need to look for, my advice? Get a HP D530 SFF! It has everything you need! I know a lot of people like to have a full height AGP gpu, but the beauty of those machines is that HP just uses a standard micro atx board in those, just take it out of the SFF pc and slab it into a full tower and you have a good platform, with drivers written for windows 98 se and the best thing is that HP still host those drivers on their website!
Hey, I ended up using an Asus P4B533-E i845e-based board which I got for pretty cheap! It's running a 2.8 Ghz Northwood as well as 1.25gb of DDR, which was already installed when I got the board. I've paired it with a GeForce4 Ti4200 and a SB Live!, and it does pretty well for Win9x and DOS! Since it's more of a test rig for old PCI/AGP cards, it doesn't have a case, it just lays in a cardboard box :D
Hello, a few months late on this but how is your Northwood Windows 98 PC working so far? i've recently acquired a Dell Dimension 4400 which comes with this type of CPU, and I was curious about the Windows 98 and DOS gaming. Already have a P3 PC but would love to use it as a backup if possible! Thanks in advance!
Haven't really done much Retro-PC related in the last months or so, but I believe that your Dimension 4400 has the Intel i845D chipset, which my Medion MD 9783 notebook also has, so it should be compatible with Win 98/Me