Requirements for a new computer

I was looking through saved data files to gather requirements for a new custom
computer. It will run W98SE, needs to be capable of later running either W2000 or
XP Home.

My use is primarily internet, text editing, simple photo editing, playing old
DOS/windows sports and aircraft games. I don't need a high power machine. I don't
use Office, Excel, tend towards small programs.

I had been planning on a 2.0 GHZ AMD Duron processor, 256 MB RAM, 64 MB VRAM.

I ran across this comment:
"Ideally, you should avoid Intel's Celeron and AMD's Duron processors. These weak
processors aren't as adept as the competition handling multiple programs or
complex software such as games and video. You're much better off getting a
Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor."


Comment on the above?

TIA

MS

ms wrote:
I was looking through saved data files to gather requirements for a new
custom computer. It will run W98SE, needs to be capable of later running
either W2000 or XP Home.

My use is primarily internet, text editing, simple photo editing,
playing old DOS/windows sports and aircraft games. I don't need a high
power machine. I don't use Office, Excel, tend towards small programs.

I had been planning on a 2.0 GHZ AMD Duron processor, 256 MB RAM, 64 MB
VRAM.

I ran across this comment:
"Ideally, you should avoid Intel's Celeron and AMD's Duron processors.
These weak processors aren't as adept as the competition handling
multiple programs or complex software such as games and video. You're
much better off getting a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor."


Comment on the above?

TIA

MS
Add to above:
120 GB Western Digital hard drive

Kingston memory chips

Comments on those brands?

MS

ms wrote:

These weak processors aren't as adept as the competition handling
multiple programs or complex software such as games and video.

Comment on the above?

Gossip!
No technical info provided to prove one way or another.


TIA

MS

Stanislaw
Slack user from Ulladulla.

I would consider using Kingston RAM modules, the chips on the modules are
useless as is. Crucial makes good RAM modules, except they're pricey at
their website. 3rd party sellers of same are less expensive.

Locate the 8MB cache version of the hard drive mentioned.

--
Jonny
"ms" wrote in message
...
ms wrote:
I was looking through saved data files to gather requirements for a new
custom computer. It will run W98SE, needs to be capable of later running
either W2000 or XP Home.

My use is primarily internet, text editing, simple photo editing,
playing old DOS/windows sports and aircraft games. I don't need a high
power machine. I don't use Office, Excel, tend towards small programs.

I had been planning on a 2.0 GHZ AMD Duron processor, 256 MB RAM, 64 MB
VRAM.

I ran across this comment:
"Ideally, you should avoid Intel's Celeron and AMD's Duron processors.
These weak processors aren't as adept as the competition handling
multiple programs or complex software such as games and video. You're
much better off getting a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor."


Comment on the above?

TIA

MS
Add to above:
120 GB Western Digital hard drive

Kingston memory chips

Comments on those brands?

MS

Easy. You aren't prepared to use enough RAM for XP and some decent sized
applications already is a good all around generalized comment. Since this
is not an XP newsgroup, I'll stop there on XP.

Generally speaking, because of their less built in secondary cache, the
lesser Celerons and Durons are handicapped in that fashion compared to their
related Pentium and Athlon brothers.

I would orient myself to building for XP on paper, then backpedal and see if
it would work in another OS as well.

The games rendition caught my eye. There may be more here than you're
divulging.
--
Jonny
"ms" wrote in message
...
I was looking through saved data files to gather requirements for a new
custom
computer. It will run W98SE, needs to be capable of later running either
W2000 or
XP Home.

My use is primarily internet, text editing, simple photo editing, playing
old
DOS/windows sports and aircraft games. I don't need a high power machine.
I don't
use Office, Excel, tend towards small programs.

I had been planning on a 2.0 GHZ AMD Duron processor, 256 MB RAM, 64 MB
VRAM.

I ran across this comment:
"Ideally, you should avoid Intel's Celeron and AMD's Duron processors.
These weak
processors aren't as adept as the competition handling multiple programs
or
complex software such as games and video. You're much better off getting
a
Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor."


Comment on the above?

TIA

MS

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 16:17:11 -0800, ms wrote:
ms wrote:

I was looking through saved data files to gather requirements for a new
custom computer. It will run W98SE, needs to be capable of later running
either W2000 or XP Home.

See other thread on building for Win9x - frankly, it's a doomed quest,
as you'd have to cripple the system spec. There's a LOT of detail in
that thread, and I'm not going to repeat it all here.

My use is primarily internet, text editing, simple photo editing,
playing old DOS/windows sports and aircraft games.

Note that many old DOS games will fail on modern hardware due to
inbuilt timing or addressing assumptions, irrespective of whether the
OS can cope with the hardware spec or not.

I would:
- forget about Win9x
- retain the DOS mode of Win9x for DOS apps/games
- be realistic in my expectations, i.e. that some won't work

I'd impliment the above by:
- keeping C: 137G and FAT32
- first installing Win9x DOS mode via Sys C: from A: boot
- then preserve this as alternate OS when installing XP

I'd run the Win9x apps in XP, and if they don't work there, I'd toss
'em or keep an old PC to run them on. I'd run the DOS apps from the
DOS mode boot on the new PC, being careful not to write to LFN paths
or file names, ever. I'd set XP to ignore Config.sys and
Autoexec.bat, so that DOS apps can pollute those as much as they like.

I don't need a high power machine.

Then you certainly don't need to pay "Pentium Tax".

I had been planning on a 2.0 GHZ AMD Duron processor, 256 MB RAM, 64 MB
VRAM.

The amount of SVGA RAM is less important than the chipset. I don't
see anything here on mobo or SVGA chipsets, and that is what counts
when it comes to reliability, compatibility etc. Forget the datails
of which processor (unless you are hell-bent on running Win9x GUI and
have to limbo-dance for that), as it really doesn't matter.

I ran across this comment:
"Ideally, you should avoid Intel's Celeron and AMD's Duron processors.
These weak processors aren't as adept as the competition handling
multiple programs or complex software such as games and video. You're
much better off getting a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor."

********, especially in your case. The cost difference between
celeron and Pentium 4 is far better applied elsewhere in the spec -
e.g. 512M RAM instead of 256M RAM, larger/faster HD, better mobo and
SVGA chipsets, treat yourself to a DVD writer, etc.

Comment on the above?

Join the dots - on a mature processor fabrication line, it costs about
the same to make a Celeron as it does to make a Pentium 4, though the
latter costs twice as much to buy. Where else in the modern world do
you get a chance at a free 100% markup? So of course Intel is going
to spend a fortune to create the impression that you simply MUST have
the Pentium 4 brand built into your PC, no matter how irrelevant the
notional benefits may be - and that spend isn't just obvious
advertising, there are all sorts of behind-the-scenes ways in which
techs, media etc. can be manipulated, lured, or bought off.

Add to above:

120 GB Western Digital hard drive

Well, I'd go Seagate (5 year warranty) and large (more data per
cylinder, which means a fixed size C: will have fewer head clicks).

Right now, that makes 160G the minimum and 200G sweet, but you need to
keep all the Win9x and DOS mode stuff within the first 137G by
partitioning the space intelligently.

Kingston memory chips

Oh, please. RAM either works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, it's
defective and you replace it under warranty. So as long as it's the
typical 5 year warranty, and is a brand not known to suck, and you
test the PC before shipping, the brand doesn't matter.

Kingston's a pretty good brand as these things go, they do a lot of
specialised memory for proprietary crippleware (such as those old IBM
or Compaq horrors that need "special" memory).

Comments on those brands?

I think anyone huffing about Crucial vs. Kingston is trying to apply
blind brand loyalty to replace technical common sense. The industry
loves users like that, and sharks need to eat too, but that doesn't
oblige you to smear yourself with ox blood before diving in.

Often you find this advice comes from the overclocking fraternity...

"hey man i can run my pentium 4 3.0ghz at 3.72ghz with my special
overpriced memory and monster heat sink and fan and its rock stable as
long as i run the hard drives in pio mode"

....shrug



--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
First, the good news: Customer feedback has
been clear and unambiguous.
--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) wrote:
On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 16:17:11 -0800, ms wrote:

ms wrote:


I was looking through saved data files to gather requirements for a new
custom computer. It will run W98SE, needs to be capable of later running
either W2000 or XP Home.


See other thread on building for Win9x - frankly, it's a doomed quest,
as you'd have to cripple the system spec. There's a LOT of detail in
that thread, and I'm not going to repeat it all here.

I just manually searched through the 1500 messages I can see in Firefox, don't see
the thread you refer to. Please provide a reference to it?

And, your post had lots of good information. I would prefer to contact you
offline, is the address in the header stiil valid?

Thanks,

MS

My use is primarily internet, text editing, simple photo editing,
playing old DOS/windows sports and aircraft games.


Note that many old DOS games will fail on modern hardware due to
inbuilt timing or addressing assumptions, irrespective of whether the
OS can cope with the hardware spec or not.

I would:
- forget about Win9x
- retain the DOS mode of Win9x for DOS apps/games
- be realistic in my expectations, i.e. that some won't work

I'd impliment the above by:
- keeping C: 137G and FAT32
- first installing Win9x DOS mode via Sys C: from A: boot
- then preserve this as alternate OS when installing XP

I'd run the Win9x apps in XP, and if they don't work there, I'd toss
'em or keep an old PC to run them on. I'd run the DOS apps from the
DOS mode boot on the new PC, being careful not to write to LFN paths
or file names, ever. I'd set XP to ignore Config.sys and
Autoexec.bat, so that DOS apps can pollute those as much as they like.


I don't need a high power machine.


Then you certainly don't need to pay "Pentium Tax".


I had been planning on a 2.0 GHZ AMD Duron processor, 256 MB RAM, 64 MB
VRAM.


The amount of SVGA RAM is less important than the chipset. I don't
see anything here on mobo or SVGA chipsets, and that is what counts
when it comes to reliability, compatibility etc. Forget the datails
of which processor (unless you are hell-bent on running Win9x GUI and
have to limbo-dance for that), as it really doesn't matter.


I ran across this comment:
"Ideally, you should avoid Intel's Celeron and AMD's Duron processors.
These weak processors aren't as adept as the competition handling
multiple programs or complex software such as games and video. You're
much better off getting a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP processor."


********, especially in your case. The cost difference between
celeron and Pentium 4 is far better applied elsewhere in the spec -
e.g. 512M RAM instead of 256M RAM, larger/faster HD, better mobo and
SVGA chipsets, treat yourself to a DVD writer, etc.


Comment on the above?


Join the dots - on a mature processor fabrication line, it costs about
the same to make a Celeron as it does to make a Pentium 4, though the
latter costs twice as much to buy. Where else in the modern world do
you get a chance at a free 100% markup? So of course Intel is going
to spend a fortune to create the impression that you simply MUST have
the Pentium 4 brand built into your PC, no matter how irrelevant the
notional benefits may be - and that spend isn't just obvious
advertising, there are all sorts of behind-the-scenes ways in which
techs, media etc. can be manipulated, lured, or bought off.


Add to above:


120 GB Western Digital hard drive


Well, I'd go Seagate (5 year warranty) and large (more data per
cylinder, which means a fixed size C: will have fewer head clicks).

Right now, that makes 160G the minimum and 200G sweet, but you need to
keep all the Win9x and DOS mode stuff within the first 137G by
partitioning the space intelligently.


Kingston memory chips


Oh, please. RAM either works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, it's
defective and you replace it under warranty. So as long as it's the
typical 5 year warranty, and is a brand not known to suck, and you
test the PC before shipping, the brand doesn't matter.

Kingston's a pretty good brand as these things go, they do a lot of
specialised memory for proprietary crippleware (such as those old IBM
or Compaq horrors that need "special" memory).


Comments on those brands?


I think anyone huffing about Crucial vs. Kingston is trying to apply
blind brand loyalty to replace technical common sense. The industry
loves users like that, and sharks need to eat too, but that doesn't
oblige you to smear yourself with ox blood before diving in.

Often you find this advice comes from the overclocking fraternity...

"hey man i can run my pentium 4 3.0ghz at 3.72ghz with my special
overpriced memory and monster heat sink and fan and its rock stable as
long as i run the hard drives in pio mode"

...shrug

"ms" wrote in message ...
I just manually searched through the 1500 messages I can see in Firefox, don't see
the thread you refer to. Please provide a reference to it?

MS,

try this:



It's in the thread titled "Speedy W98SE machine?".


Regards,

Ivan

Ivan Bútora wrote:
"ms" wrote in message ...

I just manually searched through the 1500 messages I can see in Firefox, don't see
the thread you refer to. Please provide a reference to it?


MS,

try this:



It's in the thread titled "Speedy W98SE machine?".


Regards,

Ivan

Thanks, found it.

Still going through it. Maybe you can comment on 2 points:
1. "Well known RAM limitation" ???

2. W98SE has a CPU 2.0 GHZ limitation?
Thus it would be more reliable to have an AMD 1.8 GHZ Duron, for instance?

TIA

MS

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 14:45:29 -0800, ms wrote:
cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) wrote:
On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 16:17:11 -0800, ms wrote:
ms wrote:

See other thread on building for Win9x - frankly, it's a doomed quest,
as you'd have to cripple the system spec. There's a LOT of detail in
that thread, and I'm not going to repeat it all here.

I just manually searched through the 1500 messages I can see in Firefox, don't see
the thread you refer to. Please provide a reference to it?

It was called "Speedy W98SE machine?" and in case it's aged off or
isn't cross-posted to wherever you are reading this, I'll paste:

paste

"***** charles" wrote
(other attributions oversnipped, sorry!)

Who makes the fastest components that are
supported under W98SE such as:

It's not about "who", it's "how new can I use"?
- keep speed below compatibility limit
- stick to mobo chipsets old enough for driver support
- keep HD capacities under the 137G limit
- there's little point in heroic (over 512M) amounts of RAM
- keep SVGA and sound within highest possible DirectX
- expect poor, driver-bound USB support esp. flash drives
- expect few new apps and games to work

So don't overspend on new hardware - in fact, it's often better to get
old hardware from late WinME vintage, if it can be verified to be OK
at the hardware level.

1. CPU fastest?

Intel and AMD, I guess. The GHz at which things fall apart will vary
across processor families as they skew the relevant timings
differently. Other old software may impose additional speed caps.

Yes I know no dual core support or 64Bit support.

Yup. I wouldn't expect DEP or much HyperThreading either, and as
there's no native true idle loop (unless you add a 3rd-party tool,
such as Rain or Waterfall) expect Prescott-generation CPUs to run hot.

I have also read something about a limitation around 2GHz.

Yep, as discussed above. I'm sorry I can't give you GHz thresholds at
which this kicks in, but it may be between 1.4GHz and 2GHz.

Doesn't need drivers, the motherboard's bios may need a bios update.

Many modern chipsets, such as Intel's 9xx series (as needed for
today's cheapest and fastest RAM, which is DDR2) do not have any
drivers for Win9x whatsoever, compelling use of XP or Win2000.

2. RAM biggest?

RAM module size is a motherboard limitation. Total RAM that makes up real
windows memory is another issue.

Win9x can use as much RAM as you can throw at it, up to either 2G or
4G in terms of 32-bit OS memory addressing architecture. It may
benefit from some manual settings changes to use over 384M more
effectively, and few tasks will really see much benefit beyond that
anyway. Show me a task that needs over 512M, and I'll show you a task
that will do better on XP - think better CPU feature support, no heap
limitations, faster native 32-bit coding throughout the OS, more
robust multitasking and so on.

Some have said 512M others 1.5G and I have seen talbles that say 4G.
So?

I'd seldom if ever go beyond 512M on Win9x simply because there's
little point in doing so, but you can go beyond 1G if that blows your
hair back. You may run into mobo limitations on vintage Win9x-era
hardware before reaching Win9x's limits, though.

3. Motherboard most reliable, fastest, etc.

You're pretty much obliged to stay in the 8xx generation (AGP, DDR400,
preference for IDE over S-ATA) in terms of Intel chipset driver
support, and I don't know how far YMMV on AMD.

Motherboards come with a cdrom with drivers. If the drivers are
applicable to 98SE is another question.

As above. I had to bail out of Win9x on a 915G chipset mobo for this
reason, and that's one of the oldest 9xx chipsets. So that means no
PCI Express or DDR2. I think the Socket 478 8xx series are OK.

4. Biggest fastest hard drive (FAT32).

128GB max formatted size, period. Any bigger is a waste of money as you
can't use the storage space.

Specifically, the OS lacks the ability to address 137G because
there's no 48-bit LBA support in the OS. So 120G is OK, 160G+ is too
big unless you use HD jumpers (where available) to artificially
constrain the HD to 137G in size.

I would not set up these HDs as one big C:, either on FATxx or NTFS,
for Win9x or XP. If you keep C: below 8G, you get 4k clusters that
are efficient for virtual memory paging, a biggie for C:.

5. Video card (PCI, AGP, PCI-E, etc.)

I like ATI cards. They come with drivers.

All the new chipsets will come out in PCI Express only, or if
available on AGP, will be at a premium. Then again, all of these
chipsets will need DirectX and drivers that go beyond Win9x anyway,
and most games that will benefit from the feature sets won't run on
Win9x either. Really, this is all so stupid - why are we bothering to
talk cutting-edge hardware and a 5-year-old OS in the first place?

snip

First let me thank you for your well thought out answer/response.
I had a specific reason for asking the question(s) the way I did.
I still support W98 machines, now it is (98SE and up). The faster
the machine, the faster my response/fix will be. I am up to the
task of building anything I need but "all" manufacturers have passed
the stage of supporting something that is 7 years old and many
only supply drivers for 2000/xp and some just do XP. I have
heard for instance that the Intel motherboards with the 875
chipset were the last ones for which one can still get drivers.

Yep.

When someone wants a machine to replace a broken W98 machine
and they still want the same set of software on it I have two
alternatives, get a used computer or build one that is still supported
by W98SE.

No, generally I'd take that as an opportunity to get off Win9x and on
to XP, and yes that does mean a new OS license (discounted as per OEM
or DSP). Where there are deep-legacy DOS apps to support, I install a
DOS mode before XP, preserve this as an alternate OS boot, and ensure
that C: and any data volumes to be used are all FATxx and 137G line.

I've yet to find a crucial Win9x app that won't run on XP that has to
be preserved - if I did, I agree that would be a challenge. Rather
than pay new system prices for crippled hardware, I'd seek out a used
system, accepting that some of the cost savings will be offset by
additional labour required to verify the hardware as OK. This cost
would be offset by not having to buy a new OS license.

I still worry about the legal issues and so I get real nonpirated
OEM versions of the W98SE install cd's.

Well, usually when there's a crucial app that cannot be re-installed
on a new system, it's because the app's warez, or is abandonware.

If abandonware, one wonders about the wisdom of starting a new
3-7-year hardware plan (i.e. new PC) for such sware. If the sware has
any exposure to the outside world - i.e. needs to be Internet-safe, or
has to keep up with changing business legislation, or handle evolving
file types - it's going to become a crisis sooner or later.

Sometimes the sware is still supported, hasn't been warez'd, but is so
costly the user can't afford to buy into the current point on the
version treadmill and has to bend the system around the antequated
version's requirements. Sometimes there's even ancient legacy
hardware that has to be kept within a stationary time bubble, e.g. one
client who was chained to an ISA card and DOS software that controlled
costly hardware to scan and upload X-ray images - in that case, I had
to build a "new" ISA Pentium-200 system out of what I could find.

Deep-legacy is quite a specialized market niche :-)

I have noticed that when installing a piece of hardware there is
usually a list from which one can choose that has drivers that
are available right off the cd.

Generally that will be big-name vendors and products that pre-date the
OS release. Else you'd need drivers, and these should ship with the
hardware on CD or (for really old stuff) 1.44M - if there are no such
drivers with a new hardware item, don't count on downloads.

Motherboards now a days can support 4G and I have heard of
all kinds of ram limitations for W98 and I was looking for a
definative answer so far I am still looking.

The RAM story is well-documented, though you will see a lot of
nonsense being spouted as well. This is one case where you can find
the relevant MS /kb article and believe it - but remember, hardware
has its own limitations, e.g. all Intel Socket 7 chipsets other than
430HX are incapable of L2-caching 64M, etc.

My gut feeling will be:
- if Intel, stay Socket 478 or older, 8xx chipsets or older
- brace yourself for GHz issues on any modern CPU
- stay DDR400, typically 256M, no more than 512M
- forget hero SVGA and sound cards
- stay 120G or smaller on HDs

Because AGP voltage requirements change, and it's hard to diagnose a
flaky SVGA card (random hangs, etc.), don't count on re-using the AGP
card from a Win9x-era PC. Rather choose a mobo that has built-in SVGA
plus an AGP slot for alternative SVGA, knowing that if you do add
alternative SVGA, it will likely be a new card.

The life of a new Win9x system will be prematurely truncated as
product manufacturing for DDR400, AGP, Socket 478, 137G, IDE etc.
dries up - IOW, if some component dies 1-2 years later, you may find
yourself with no way forward. That's why I would not build new PCs
for Win9x, unless the business case was extremely compelling.

/paste

And, your post had lots of good information. I would prefer to contact you
offline, is the address in the header stiil valid?

It needs to be manually unmangled (as a guard against automation by
spammer bots), but it should be obvious what needs to be done, and
yes; the underlying address still works. Use a clear, non-generic,
non-spammy subject line else I might miss your email, though.



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