easymode

I'm putting together a Windows 98/2000/DOS PC and I'll post the updates here.

Currently, I have a setup with Windows 10 that plays about 95% of everything I throw at it. I have a 20" CRT as a 4th monitor that works perfectly with DOSBox. I can even use external midi devices... but Windows 95/98 games are very hit or miss. Most have modern hacks and workarounds that get the job done (thanks to pcgamingwiki), but some are a nightmare. Some of the Monolith games like No One Lives Forever and a few others work... sometimes... if you pray and jump through 30 hoops... so I decided I do need a Windows 95/98/2000 rig.

Here's what I have so far:

• Intel Pentium III 1000mhz, 133 FSB
  Why not Pentium 4? Well it's overkill and the boards are more geared toward Windows XP in terms of features... Plus, and ISA ports are usually not real ISA. Pentium III is plenty. I don't really need ISA, but I figured I might throw a real SB 16 into the slot in case I do want real DOS gaming.
• Q-Lity CPV4-T MBX-037 Motherboard: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ ... nta-cpv4-t
  AGP, plenty of PCI, and an ISA slot for old the old Sound Blaster.
• ATI Radeon X850 XT PE - The fastest GPU with W98 drivers
• 512 MB Mircon PC 133 RAM - CL 3
• Dual compact flash IDE adapter: https://www.ebay.com/itm/177734362081
  The ideas is to install W98 on one CF and 2000 on the other. I prefer W2000, but some games run faster/better on 98. Plus, more games are compatible.
• Sound Blaster Live 5.1 with Live Drive front bay
• Yamaha YMF719E-S (Labway A151-A00 ISA Soundcard) - SB Pro 2 compatible & unfiltered OPL3
• Optical: Plextor DVD Burner, Plextor 48x CD Burner (all beige)
• Floppy & Optical Emulators:
  Floppy Drive emulator with FlashFloppy firware: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256811510318267.html
  CD/DVD/IDE emulator (pre-ordered): PicoIDE https://www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics/picoide

Considering a couple extras:
Aureal Vortex 2... for the few A3D games
Voodoo 2 for ... Mechwarrior 2 I guess?

I don't know if I really need these extras, but I think I have a Voodoo 2 around here somewhere.

I need to add a USB 2 card and a network card... and I'll have two empty slots. I could do dual Voodoo 2 (I have one already), but I'm not sure.

Ideas? What would you change?

Edits:
Added Floppy Emulation and CD/DVD Emulation.
Changed the DOS sound card from SB 16 to the Yamaha YMF719E-S because it has better compatibility with SB Pro stuff, which is a LOT of the DOS gaming experience. Also, compared to the SB 16, it is cleaner and has unfiltered OPL3, so you get the SB 16-style OPL3 experience that isn't muffled... AND it has none of the SB 16 midi hanging note bugs.

I mean, what kind of internal storage you running with? just spinning disks or perhaps something like CompactFlash? Maybe even both, which could reverse-mirror the PCIe-era SATA SSD for OS/HDD for local archive/"Home folder."

I scrolled further on down the list and was tempted to just type "ah hell just install Gentoo 1.0 and see what happens"

I recently built a Windows 98 PC; specs can be found in my profile. So from recent experience, I'll try to input some of my opinions.

Storage

What a struggle this was. First and foremost, a word of warning on the 40 - 44 pin IDE adapters. I already have to throw one away as it died on me, and I am on my 2nd and last one that I have for now. They're very fiddly in terms of build quality, and so far I have been unable to find those that are built much better so that it doesn't look like something that was thrown together in the last minute of a project.

But overall in terms of trying to put Windows 98 onto flash storage, like on a microSD card, it was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like experience for me. At one point when I managed to get Windows 98 installed onto the SD card, I took out the SD card and reinserted it back in, with the whole PC powered off. Slipped the card back into some adapter contraption that I'll explain later, tried booting up Windows 98 and it started complaining that some of its critical system files are either missing or corrupted.

Other times that I tried putting 98 onto various SSDs, it was not a success. I believe 2 that I tried using were dead when I got them, and the 3rd one, a brand new one, tried using the SATA to IDE adapter, it had problems figuring out whether it is a master or slave drive even though I explicitly told it to use cable select or forced its assignment as master. Not sure why but maybe it is because my overheaded adapter setup consists of: IDE mobo header > 40 - 44 pin adapter > 44 pin IDE to SATA > SSD, or just the shit quality of one of the adapters. The SD card setup however gets even better: Mobo > 40 - 44 pin adapter > 44 pin IDE to CF > CF to SD > SD to microSD. For that one, again, maybe it's because of my setup creating too much overhead, or poor quality adapters.

At the end, I gave up and use a 40GG IDE hard drive for Windows 98 and a 160GB hard drive for storage. Don't ask me how Win 98 managed to detect, partition and format the drive's full space but to my surprise it did detect around 153GB of free space in My Computer. All of that said, maybe your selection could be less error prone?

Soundcard

Knowing the onboard audio could be quite inferior, I am using an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro (yes, but not with the front drive bay; rather an external bay connected via 2x Firewire from the soundcard) and have no problems with it. There is a tutorial on Vogons on how to get it to work on Windows 98, and getting the SB16 emulation working on the sound card for DOS games. I'm not sure if you would need the SB16 emulation on yours since you said you have a dedicated SB16 card already. So I'd assume you use it and disable the Live on Win 98 and vice versa on Win 2000. Curious to know, what model is your SB16 card?

Overall, your chosen parts are still more than good enough. I would like to get my hands on that ATI video card, even though my Geforce FX 5200 card is really good enough for what I want to use it with. RAM is very optimal. Never do a mix-a-bunch on them. I did that to several setups and all the time the OS crashes it was due to the intolerance of mixing up even a different brand despite the same speed and timings.

The motherboard I use lacks onboard Ethernet, so I ended up using a Realtek card that I sourced from another parts donor PC and it has drivers for Windows 98. Even though the board has onboard USB at the rear I/O and drivers for it, I decided to add a PCI USB/Firewire card that was again, sourced from another parts donor PC, so that I can make use of the front panel USB ports as the motherboard does not have the headers for it. The controller it uses is an Avance Logic (ALi) controller of some kind and from what I heard the controllers and even chipsets they made for some motherboards back in the AT era were of excellent quality like the Intel ones, over the VIA junk that is more commonly found on older motherboards.

Destroyed007 wrote: Mar 25th, '26, 07:50 I recently built a Windows 98 PC; specs can be found in my profile. So from recent experience, I'll try to input some of my opinions.

Storage

What a struggle this was. First and foremost, a word of warning on the 40 - 44 pin IDE adapters. I already have to throw one away as it died on me, and I am on my 2nd and last one that I have for now. They're very fiddly in terms of build quality, and so far I have been unable to find those that are built much better so that it doesn't look like something that was thrown together in the last minute of a project.

But overall in terms of trying to put Windows 98 onto flash storage, like on a microSD card, it was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like experience for me. At one point when I managed to get Windows 98 installed onto the SD card, I took out the SD card and reinserted it back in, with the whole PC powered off. Slipped the card back into some adapter contraption that I'll explain later, tried booting up Windows 98 and it started complaining that some of its critical system files are either missing or corrupted.

Other times that I tried putting 98 onto various SSDs, it was not a success. I believe 2 that I tried using were dead when I got them, and the 3rd one, a brand new one, tried using the SATA to IDE adapter, it had problems figuring out whether it is a master or slave drive even though I explicitly told it to use cable select or forced its assignment as master. Not sure why but maybe it is because my overheaded adapter setup consists of: IDE mobo header > 40 - 44 pin adapter > 44 pin IDE to SATA > SSD, or just the shit quality of one of the adapters. The SD card setup however gets even better: Mobo > 40 - 44 pin adapter > 44 pin IDE to CF > CF to SD > SD to microSD. For that one, again, maybe it's because of my setup creating too much overhead, or poor quality adapters.

Also, @chiefterror who asked about storage:

Hopefully the IDE to CF adapter I ordered will be ok. It has good reviews on newegg and Amazon with lots of people saying that it works.

I didn't go with SD or SSD for a few reasons: I think the biggest issue is that SD is such a different format that you need all kinds of nonsense to make it work... and SSDs can be problematic as well. I haven't tested, but I think I've watched enough Phil's Computer Lab videos to know, lol.

CF cards are natively IDE, so there's no nonsense there... hopefully it'll just werk. I might have to mess with the pins because it looks like pin 20 is present on the adapter, but not on the board... so I'll just snip that off. If this doesn't work, I'll order two startech adapters and use an ide cable with them.

As for the CF cards, I got industrial grade because they should last way longer:


Regarding the soundcard... I'm kinda psychotic about sound and the difference between emulated OPL3 and real OPL3 are enough that I actually picked up one of these for DOSBOX-X gaming: https://shop.sudomaker.com/products/ret ... l3-express - I also tried to get this working in FL Studio so I could use it to make music... and I did get it to make sounds and such, but it only worked in mono and that sucks... I can't figure out how to get it going in stereo... so I am literally thinking about ordering another so I can have left and right separation.

Anyway, I gotta have that real sound card for DOS. If nothing else Blackthorn sounds so much thicker with a real SB compared to emulation.

The Audigy was really tempting... But my goal is basically nothing hacky... I want things to just work as intended... hence the choice for SB Live rather than Audigy 1 or 2 even though they do sound better. I am slightly jealous of real EAX 3/HD in the Windows 2000 FPS games... but Deus Ex is only 2.0... and really, I play most of those 2000s FPS games on my Windows 10 rig which has an X-Fi... so it's good to go. I'll read up about the Audigy and DOS SB 16 emulation just out of curiosity though.

The SB 16 that I have is this one: Sound Blaster 16 ISA WavEffects SB4171
It's kinda like an AWE32/64 in that it has a built-in soundbank for soundfont games, but you can't swap it out, so it's not as fancy. Regardless, I usually prefer MT32 or SC-55... and I don't currently have one, but my dad is moving and just emailed me that he found a couple Roland sound modules... the MT32 and the SC-55... He said, "Didn't we use these for DOS games?" So those are in the mail, lol. Anyway, the drivers for the SB 16 WaveEffects should be better than the PnP models, which were NEVER plug and play... I kinda miss all the old plug and pray jokes.

So, I guess I'll see how it goes. I've done tons of research, but some shit always goes wrong... I'm ready for it!

ward wrote: Mar 25th, '26, 09:18
CF cards are natively IDE, so there's no nonsense there... hopefully it'll just werk. I might have to mess with the pins because it looks like pin 20 is present on the adapter, but not on the board... so I'll just snip that off. If this doesn't work, I'll order two startech adapters and use an ide cable with them.

I keep forgetting about that. CF cards are indeed related to IDE/PATA interface, which is why there is more success using that type of storage for older systems, second to IDE hard drives.

But man, these cards are a challenge to find in higher capacities, up to 64GB.

ward wrote: Mar 25th, '26, 09:18
Regarding the soundcard... I'm kinda psychotic about sound and the difference between emulated OPL3 and real OPL3 are enough that I actually picked up one of these for DOSBOX-X gaming: https://shop.sudomaker.com/products/ret ... l3-express - I also tried to get this working in FL Studio so I could use it to make music... and I did get it to make sounds and such, but it only worked in mono and that sucks... I can't figure out how to get it going in stereo... so I am literally thinking about ordering another so I can have left and right separation.

Anyway, I gotta have that real sound card for DOS. If nothing else Blackthorn sounds so much thicker with a real SB compared to emulation.

The Audigy was really tempting... But my goal is basically nothing hacky... I want things to just work as intended... hence the choice for SB Live rather than Audigy 1 or 2 even though they do sound better. I am slightly jealous of real EAX 3/HD in the Windows 2000 FPS games... but Deus Ex is only 2.0... and really, I play most of those 2000s FPS games on my Windows 10 rig which has an X-Fi... so it's good to go. I'll read up about the Audigy and DOS SB 16 emulation just out of curiosity though.

The SB 16 that I have is this one: Sound Blaster 16 ISA WavEffects SB4171
It's kinda like an AWE32/64 in that it has a built-in soundbank for soundfont games, but you can't swap it out, so it's not as fancy. Regardless, I usually prefer MT32 or SC-55... and I don't currently have one, but my dad is moving and just emailed me that he found a couple Roland sound modules... the MT32 and the SC-55... He said, "Didn't we use these for DOS games?" So those are in the mail, lol. Anyway, the drivers for the SB 16 WaveEffects should be better than the PnP models, which were NEVER plug and play... I kinda miss all the old plug and pray jokes.

That's better than anything else that is. I haven't personally tested out the SB16 emulation yet on my Windows 98 machine. As for the mono playback issues you're facing have you read up on this page regarding the SB16 cards with the real OPL-3 chips? https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/sb16.php

BTW, that site helped me a lot. I am in the progress of putting together maybe a Windows 95 build just for the enjoyment, lol, and I have used that site and a few others to help me through this. I got the parts for the next build. Just have to get a Coppermine Pentium III, since I only got Tualatin processors, and they don't work with older socket 370 boards that only supports Mendocino, Coppermine and Coppermine-T processors.

Destroyed007 wrote: Mar 25th, '26, 09:55
That's better than anything else that is. I haven't personally tested out the SB16 emulation yet on my Windows 98 machine. As for the mono playback issues you're facing have you read up on this page regarding the SB16 cards with the real OPL-3 chips? https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/sb16.php

BTW, that site helped me a lot. I am in the progress of putting together maybe a Windows 95 build just for the enjoyment, lol, and I have used that site and a few others to help me through this. I got the parts for the next build. Just have to get a Coppermine Pentium III, since I only got Tualatin processors, and they don't work with older socket 370 boards that only supports Mendocino, Coppermine and Coppermine-T processors.

I'm glad you're talking about the sound card... I started looking through that site and realized that my SB16 Wavetable is actually terrible... There were two models... one was a cut down AWE32 type card... the other was a damned SB 16 Vibra which doesn't use a real Yamaha OPL3. Hell no am I using that. II still have it new in the box, it was a cheap impulse buy a while back... so now I have to get a real SB 16... or an AWE 32 if I can find a good one.

Regarding the mono, that's just with that little USB OPL3 chip and only when using FL studio, so it's no big deal... just annoying when trying to make music in Windows 10.

ward wrote: Mar 25th, '26, 09:18 SSDs can be problematic as well

They've been hit & miss for me with IDE adapters, Kingston drives from a few years ago seem to reliably work but cheap newer drives aren't detected usually.

Spooky wrote: Mar 27th, '26, 04:13
They've been hit & miss for me with IDE adapters, Kingston drives from a few years ago seem to reliably work but cheap newer drives aren't detected usually.

Which is the problem I am having for my IDE SSD. The times that the BIOS would at least detect the drive it couldn't find the SMART data. So there's like no way to test or tell if it's a dud drive or just the poor build quality meant it doesn't get detected most of the time.

They do have something called a DOM or disk on module. Has anyone tried using that?

ward wrote: Mar 26th, '26, 05:27
I'm glad you're talking about the sound card... I started looking through that site and realized that my SB16 Wavetable is actually terrible... There were two models... one was a cut down AWE32 type card... the other was a damned SB 16 Vibra which doesn't use a real Yamaha OPL3. Hell no am I using that. II still have it new in the box, it was a cheap impulse buy a while back... so now I have to get a real SB 16... or an AWE 32 if I can find a good one.

Yeah I didn't have the guts to break the bad news that your particular SB16 is one of those ViBRA models that has the cut-down FM synth, because I was afraid to tell you the disappointment. The one in the pic below is supposedly what yours is?
I have one that I bought with no knowledge about FM synth and why this is needed for DOS games. Regretted that. But I have since obtained one with the real OPL-3 synth, and it wasn't cheap, because some other bidder went to war with me over the sound card at a last minute of the auction. But on the flip side, I did get another sound card; an ESS ES1688 AudioDrive sound card. Apparently has better SB Pro compatibility, meaning DOS games will work perfectly with it. It also has ESS' version of Yamaha's OPL-3 synth chip, which people say it's still a lot better than CQM.

Destroyed007 wrote: Mar 27th, '26, 05:51
They do have something called a DOM or disk on module. Has anyone tried using that?

I got a 64mb one once for free with a Via ITX board, it worked fine but I was only running DOS on there. The ones I've seen for sale tend to be low capacity and expensive, probably not ideal for a windows machine.

Here's something I learned. If you have a dedicated or built in wavetable synthesis you'd be able to store a lot more samples, meaning whatever MIDI audio it is playing will sound even more precise and clean due to the extra available samples, or instruments. Now to have more samples, there are 2 ways"

• First one is that you have a soundcard that has a built-in sample and effects processor, and that you can expand the amount of RAM to store more instruments. Now obviously the SB AWE32 and AWE64 soundcards can do that. From the recommendations I've read elsewhere, they say to go with the AWE32, since earlier version of these cards still retain Yamaha's OPL FM synth, while having the built in EMU8000 sample and effects processor, EMU 8011 1MB sample ROM and expandable SIMM memory up to 28MB to store more samples.

• The second one is if you have a soundcard with a wavetable header you can use that to plug in a daughterboard containing the ROM with a huge collection of samples. One of the well known boards is Creative's Wave Blaster wavetable daughterboard that was an optional add on sold separately to go along with your compatible soundcard, such as their SB 16 cards. Ever since then there have been newer wavetable ROMs made in recent times, and you can find more at this link: https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/wavetable_audio.php

So in summary; if you can find an AWE32 that has the OPL synth and the wavetable built in, that's the best option. Or you can suffice and go with a sound card with a decent FM synth processor and it also has a wavetable header to plug in the daughterboard.