Speeding Up Win98SE?

Don McC wrote:

I'm using a twelve year-old IBM Aptiva as a second computer,
mostly to read Usenet, mail, and text groups. But the computer
runs like a snail on the Web. 256 MB Ram, 267 MHz processor,
1.4 GB free on a 4.0 GB drive, Internet Explorer 6.0 and Win98SE.
I think I've upgraded-updated as much as the system allows.

Am I being done in by the hardware or the software?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. TIA.

Households and businesses are throwing away 5 and 6 year-old P4
computers all the time. They've already thrown away older computers
years ago.

You can buy off-lease IBM computers with 512 mb ram, 40 gb hard drives
and 2 ghz P-4 CPUs for $50 to $75.

I'm running win-98 on a 3.5 ghz Core2 socket 775 intel Celeron with 1 gb
ram and 256 mb nvidia video card, with 2tb and 1.5tb SATA hard drives.
I have proper win-98 drivers for all the components on the motherboard
except for the HD-audio chip (I have soundblaster Audigy PCI card for
sound).

Basically, there's no reason for you to be using such old hardware to
run windows 98.

Either scan your local craigs list or kijiji for people giving away
their 6-year-old computer, or place an ad under "P4 computer wanted", or
visit your local municipal electronic waste drop-off depot (where people
bring old electrics to dispose of them) and wait for someone to throw
away their old computer (which will almost certainly be newer than what
you have). Pull it off the pile when they do. Grab yourself a better
monitor while you're at it.

MotoFox wrote:
And it came to pass that 98 Guy delivered the following message unto the
people, saying~

Basically, there's no reason for you to be using such old hardware to run
windows 98.

Yeah there is: SIM COPTER and STREETS OF SIM CITY. (Look them up on
Wikipaedia.) From experience those games do NOT run satisfactorillly on
anything higher than a Pentium 2! I happen to still have my original,
aging '99 Aptiva 2158, 400 MHz K6II with 128 MB of RAM and still
use it regularly for that purpose. (That and Doom II.) Of course, that
machine hasn't touched the "Internets" in almost a decade and has had 98
reinstalled a couple times since; Y.R.M.V.

What about trying one of those "slowdown" programs that just eat up CPU
cycles?
I think that works on some old games. Or maybe they only worked with some
DOS games - I can't recall now.

A couple of those programs were "Brenze" and "Moslo", but they may only work
with some old DOS programs. (FYI, slowdown.com and whoa.com didn't even
work on some of my old DOS programs)

MotoFox wrote:

Basically, there's no reason for you to be using such old
hardware to run windows 98.

Yeah there is: SIM COPTER and STREETS OF SIM CITY.

Most win-98 users aren't children.

98 Guy wrote in :

Basically, there's no reason for you to be using such old hardware to
run windows 98.



Indeed. Better to use a smaller faster OS on newer hardware if possible. It
leaves more power to get useful stuff done.

MotoFox confucius-
wrote in
news
Basically, there's no reason for you to be using such old hardware to run
windows 98.

Yeah there is: SIM COPTER and STREETS OF SIM CITY. (Look them up on
Wikipaedia.) From experience those games do NOT run satisfactorillly on
anything higher than a Pentium 2!

There is that, I guess. CPU instruction sets can vary, and I know that some C
compilers will use timers that don't have realtime responses to realtime
values given to them! That was one of the things that put me off learning C
after spending thirty quid on a book and software a few years ago.

With that in mind, it is worth looking for software compatibility fixes
though, if possible. And if the new hardware is REALLY fast, you might still
be ahead if you run on a virtual machine.

"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

What about trying one of those "slowdown" programs that just eat up CPU
cycles?


That could work too, though you'd also see slowing of non-timer-related
functions like screen redraws. Likely not a problem though, if the game was
made for a slower machine. Ideally it would sense when timer code was being
invoked, and slow only that, but I doubt this is doable except as a dedicated
patch for the software needing it.