For me and many other gamers my age, Windows 98 was our first foray into PC gaming. Many classic series started during this era, such a Starcraft, Half-Life, & Baldur's Gate. I am lucky enough to still have my original childhood PC with most of my games still on it. It was an under powered PC when it was first released, and it pales in comparison to what can be built today at a fraction of the cost.
If your looking replay some retro games without having to deal with workarounds, you will have to decide on what type of hardware to use.
Retro Or More Modern Hardware
There are a few different routes you can take when deciding on your build. The first is to go with period specific hardware, which will most likely mean a Pentium III build for optimal performance. The other option is to find a motherboard that is slightly newer but has support for windows 98 drivers. This method can be fun as it allows you to use newer hardware like SSDs, Pentium 4/Dual Core processors, DDR memory, and newer video cards. Going with newer hardware also greatly speeds up performance as well. In fact, modern hardware can be a bit too fast, as certain older games may not like the newer processors and will run too quickly to be playable. There are usually workarounds for these rare instances however.
Processors
The important thing to remember about Windows 98 is that it does not support more than single core processors. In most cases you can still use a multi core processor but Win98 will only utilize the first core. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as many of the newer dual/quad cores have better features and do not run as hot. CPU choice is more a matter of preference and will be based mostly off of what motherboard you decide to use.
Pentium III Tualatin
This was a great processor for gaming when it was released in its heyday, and it is still popular among retro enthusiasts today. The major benefit of going with an older processor like this one is compatibility, since you will be able to use socket 370 boards. Socket 370 is also an ideal build for those who require legacy connectors such as ISA or slower AGP slots. Additionally, Tualatin CPUs can be made backwards compatible with socket 1 chipsets via a simple pin mod or with a slot adapter.
Pentium 4
The Pentium 4 series were among the last single core processors Intel released before the jump to multi core computing took off. These run off socket 478, although there are some that were made for the later LGA 775 chipset. Be advised that these CPU’s run HOT, especially the Prescott line. The benefit of a P4 CPU
Core 2 Duo/Quad
These processors will run Win98 easily and are a little overpowered for such a legacy OS. They also run at a lower temperature than their P4 predecessors. The drawback of course is that Win98 won’t utilize more than a single core. You may also have to turn off certain features like Hyper Threading as Win98 cannot take advantage of this and it can often cause random crashes.
AMD processors
For the most part AMD’s offerings fall along a similar line in terms of compatibility. The original Athlon/Thunderbirds are roughly equivalent to Intel’s Pentium III line, although they are slightly faster. The Athlon 64 can be considered a P4 equivalent, and the Phenom II is a dual/quad core processor line.
A note on RAM
Windows 98 cannot utilize more than 512 MB of RAM. This is more of an issue if you are using DDR as these sticks tend to come in large quantities. If this seems a bit low for you and you prefer to use more memory, there is actually an unofficial patch that allows Win98 to use up to 4GB of ram. I recommend you familiarize yourself with the many unofficial patches for Win98 since they are necessary in order to bring the system to a more usable state.
Video Cards
You will want to opt for an AGP based video card in order to ensure proper compatibility with most Win98 games. AGP slots top out at 8x but are backwards compatible and can run a higher speed card at a lower speed to compensate. It is possible to use a PCIe card in regular PCI mode but you will have to install a few workarounds and generally you will not be able to use PCIe specific features like Turbocache. Additionally, there are currently no boards that have a driver written for chipset PCIe support so gaming performance will be spotty at best.
The GeForce 6800 Ultra with a driver revision of 81.98 is the last card to officially support Windows 98 and is available In PCIE/AGP variants. In many instances you can get away with using a GeForce 700 or an ATI X800 XT series card although you should ensure that it is a 256 MB or lower variant as Windows 98 does play well with 512 MB graphics cards. If you want to use an ATI Radeon card the 9800 series with the Catalyst 6.2 drivers will be your best bet, as they were the last to be supported.
Voodoo
3dfx was a manufacturer of 3D GPU’s back before NVidia and ATI were the only game in town. Their Voodoo series of cards were well supported by many games of the era, which were made with 3dfx’s 3D Glide API in mind. The Voodoo 3 was the last card to be properly supported in Windows 98 although it has the notable in that it did not support 32-Bit color.
POWERVR
This series of video cards enjoyed a brief stint of popularity in the late 90s. They were marketed as a lower cost alternative to a Voodoo or NVidia/ATI card and delivered a great blend of performance and quality. However, they were heavily software and CPU dependent. These cards are useful for the few games that were optimized for their specialized SGL API which often allowed for improved resolution and framerate, provided you had a decent CPU.
Some titles were optimized for PowerVR cards and will usually say so on the box. There are PowerVR optimized versions of popular titles like TombRaider II and MechWarrior 2. There was also a unique version of the original Resident Evil that could run in 800x600 resolution which is well worth checking out for fans of the series.
The Matrox M3D PowerVR 3D Accelerator Card from 1997 is the ideal choice for this series, as it was one of the last cards released in the Windows 9x era. This card is becoming somewhat rare, so collectors may want to snatch it up before the prices start to rise.
As a site note, the NEC PowerVR PCX2 is similar tech to what went into the Sega Dreamcast in 99. This is a tare video card which slots into a spare PCI Slot and adds 3D Acceleration over the PCI bus pared with another 2D video card.
Monitors
I can say that the monitor you use is entirely a matter of personal preference. However, since we are building a retro PC gaming rig here I recommend you opt for a CRT monitor simply due to the fact that many Win98 games were created with this aesthetic in mind. Its 4:3 aspect ratio is the ideal choice here, as most games from this era were not widescreen capable. If you decide to use a CRT, monitors in the 19” – 21” range are still fairly common and can be had for almost nothing today. Additionally, most older games will look much worse on a modern LCD due to their lower resolution.
Windows 98 Motherboards
The biggest component of any Windows 98 build will be the motherboard choice. This will determine what type of hardware you can use. The main choice here will be between something like a Pentium 3 capable board for a retro build or a more modern P4/Core2Duo board. The benefit of going with a modern build is the capability to use a faster SATA hard drive. Most of the time you can do this without any special work arounds.
If you are using a SATA capable board and are having problems I recommend you install Rloew's SATA patch.
MSFN has a good list of Win98 compatible motherboards here.
PATA (IDE) VS SATA
Windows 98 launched in the heyday of slow Parallel ATA hard drive technology. For those that don’t know, PATA is an older, slower standard for connecting peripheral devices like hard drives & CD-ROM drives. If you opt to go with older hardware you will of course need an IDE hard drive. If you are doing a newer build I highly recommend you choose a motherboard with SATA ports so you can use a more modern hard drive or even an SSD.
Asrock Conroe 865pe
This board was popular among overclockers when it was released, which means you can still find it relatively easily today. I have had good experience using this board for older builds. IT offers versitile connection options and you can use DDR RAM, as well as SATA, or IDE hard drives. The bios has many legacy options for backwards compatibility, and there are official drivers for Windows 98SE.
Windows 98.. Internet Ready?
Believe it or not, you can take your retro PC online if you wish to do so despite the security concerns. There are many patches and older versions of some software that can be used to browse most websites reasonably well. I find it is easier to troubleshoot and download patches directly with the machine rather than having to share files via a network or USB drive. Opera 10 seems to be the last browser that has support for Windows 98.
There are also many fixes & patches created over the years that address most of the old faults that Microsoft decided not to fix. If you wish to get the most out of your Win98 build, I highly recommend taking a look at them.