Hi everybody!
I am stanch user of Microsoft Windows 98SE for a last few years.
But my PC is very low configuration for current standard and I want to buy new.
My buyers option for PC configuration is next:

WD3200KS HDD 320 GB 7200rpm / Serial ATA II 3.0Gb/s / 16MB
945GM3-F P4, INTEL 945G, S.775, Core2Duo Support,SB7.1, PCI-Ex16,4xSATAII,GLAN,DualDDRII677, USB2.0, M.ATX
PD-3.4BOX-945 CPU P Dual-Core 945 - 3.4 GHz 2 x 2Mb L2, 800MHz, S.775
TS64MLQ64V6J DDR2 512MB 240pin PC-667/CL5
TS64MLQ64V6J DDR2 512MB 240pin PC-667/CL5
100-714502 VGA PCI-E 256MB GDDR3 Radeon X800XL, All-In-Wonder, ViVO, PAL/SECAM+DVB-T, Remote Wonder, 256bit
DVR-111Bk DVD +R/-R 16x,+RW 8x, -RW 6x, +R DL 8x, CDRW 40x32x32, Double Layer, Black, bulk
[Blueberry] CN-331BKS / Miditower Case 331, 300W P4, 2xUSB+Audio, ATX, 4*5.25", 2+5*3.5", Black/Silver
LG L1970HR - flat panel display - TFT - 19"

I want to know is there any chance to install Win98se on this PC to get fully or approximately hardware support?

It does not look very good.

945G chipset - my INFs will be needed but
- integrated graphics - no Win98 driver from Intel, you may get 2D driver from http://my.scitechsoft.com/
- USB 2.0 - no Win98 driver
- Sound - Realtek ALC883 - no Win98 driver
- SATA controller: no Win98 driver, can work in combined PATA compatibility mode, but not all BIOSes enable to set this mode, some of my Gigabyte boards yes, my MSI and Intel boards no, has to be verified
- LAN Controller Realtek 8110SC: driver is here: ftp://202.65.194.18/cn/nic/PCI_InstallShield_5649_061019.zip
- Radeon X800: Catalyst® Version 6.2 for Windows ME has beta support only, I have experienced some problems with PCI-E video cards with 256 MB RAM

One comment - D945 is cheap but power hungry processor, you may consider some Core 2 Duo unless you have your own power plant.

Petr

Nobody needs dual-core processors. Get a good single-core processor from AMD. Much cheaper than Intel, about the same quality. If possible, get an Athlon XP one. No one needs 64-bit if one isn't processing huge databases.

If you get an Athlon XP, don't get nForce-based motherboards!
It seems that the Windows 98 nForce drivers suck.

It appears that nForce 2-based motherboards require Windows NT-based Windows for them to work properly.

Most benchmarks show that my nForce2 motherboard's performance is degraded when the version of Windows isn't NT-based.

http://www.asrock.com/product/ConRoe865PE.htm

Hello!





Regards, Roman

Ok thanx guys for replies!
After I were thinked about my necessity on PC...I can buy more cheaper PC configuration for my work.
945G chipset is many faster than 865 but unfortunately win98se has not drivers for it.
I can't buy ConRoe865PE motherboard but can some other with 865 chipset too.


Does this combination can fully support W98SE?

CEL 3.2BOX-352 CPU P4 Celeron D 3.20 GHz 512kb, 533MHz, S.775 82.00
RC12D281TA-32BC0550 RC512 DDRAM 512MB 184pin PC-400/CL2.5 38.00
775I65G R2.0 P4, INTEL 865G, S.775, SB5.1, VGA, AGP8x, 2xSATA, LAN, 2xDDR400, 6+2xUSB2.0, M.ATX 53.00
[Blueberry] CN-331BKS / Miditower Case 331, 300W P4, 2xUSB+Audio, ATX, 4*5.25", 2+5*3.5", Black/Silver
MX6V080E0 HDD 80 GB 7200rpm / Serial ATA / 8MB 49.00

Price is about 250e

Or this one!?

HT0A33405 HDD 320 GB 7200rpm / Ultra ATA-133 / 8MB
P4-3.06BOX-524 CPU P4 524 - 3.06 GHz 1Mb, 533MHz, S.775
775TWINS-HDTV P4, ATI RADEON Xpress200, S.775, SB7.1, VGA ATI X300, PCI-E, 4xSATA RAID, LAN, 2xDDR2 + 2xDDR, M.ATX
512-667-TWI-200-U-08-H-5.0 DDR2 512MB 200pin PC-667/CL5 for NB
512-667-TWI-200-U-08-H-5.0 DDR2 512MB 200pin PC-667/CL5 for NB

I wouldn't buy the poor man's Celeron. If you want a cheaper CPU, go AMD.
Pentium IV CPUs are expensive, but if you prefer Intel, then I can't stop you. Obviously, I'm an AMD fan.

One of your video card choices might be problematic. (ATI RADEON Xpress200?) I'm not 100% sure but I believe ATI stopped supporting Windows 98/ME after they released Radeon 9800 series. According to the ATI/AMD driver page ( http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html ), Windows 98/ME is listed as Legacy, and the latest GPU supported is listed as "Radeon 9800 series". Latest driver for Windows 98/ME is dated February 9th, 2005. There is also a selection captioned "Radeon series", but this leads to that same "February 9th, 2005" driver.

There might be some 3rd party ATI drivers (enhanced/hacked/custom?) that might do the job. If not, there are plenty of nvidia cards out there for you.

Thx for this adress Lunac!There is exist ATI RADEON Xpress200 driver for W98SE and ME!lol
But driver is for integrated graphic chip on motherboard,not for standard graphic card.
It seems that ATI RADEON Xpress200 is good for W98SE because it has fully support for
DirectX 9.0c.

Lunac, two things: the Catalyst 6.2 for Win98/ME was released on February 9th, 2006 and you can run also X800 family cards using this driver (beta status).
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2...ease_notes.html

Hmm, really? On this page it says Feb. 9th 2005. http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/98me/radeonaiw-98me.html

By the way, your link doesn't work.

I've actually had experience with ATI x8xx AGP cards this past summer. I purchased both X800GTO AGP and X850XT AGP, (one after the other) on Newegg, and it was a no-go situation. (I would get blue screens on boot up, I couldn't change the refresh rates or the resolution, etc) It would only boot up properly in safe-mode. I think on the driver CDs, the driver versions were 6.2, but I never bothered to read the docs back then. People at Newegg refunded my money even though the specs for both cards said "2000/XP", no mention of other operating systems.

According to the Catalyst 6.2 PDF I've got, it does say there is beta support, but it does not mention Windows 98 explicitly, only it mentions that "Windows 98/98SE is supported through the Windows Millennium Edition driver", which from my personal experience is not true. Beta? Maybe alpha, but I was stuck in 640x480 resolution and 16 colors.

Ati Xpress 200 is officially supported. X800 have indeed beta drivers but people have already tried it with success. WinMe/98 drivers are the same. The beta stage is probably to warn users that they won't get any support. I think somebody on this forum even made a PCI-e x800 work on Win98 but I can't remember who.

However you obviously had a bad experience. Maybe more opinions could be usefull to know if it really isn't supported correctly or if you were just unlucky with your cards.

Plain X800? I don't know about that. But my X800GTO or X850XT didn't function properly, plus the X850XT's fan was stuck @ 5% (a driver issue is my guess) so it would overheat pretty quickly.

I've gone through many cards in the past 2 years, and although nvidia's drivers for 98/ME are not perfect by any means, I've never had too many problems. Other than a fan failure on my 6600GT (a card which I don't even have anymore), but I don't think drivers were to blame for that.

These boards (with these PCI IDs) are supported (beta) by the latest Catalyst 6.2 for Windows 9x:
Radeon X***
and IGP:


Petr

So Petr it mean that,
if I buy AsRock's 775TWINS-HDTV motherboard which has PCI-E slot,
than can buy later for PC upgrades...



...and get fully graphic support in W98SE again!?

I think that AMD procesors are more expensive than Intel's because CPU ids are untruth.
Example some AMD CPU like

cost 82e

but Intel's CPU


cost 75e

Here u can see that Celeron D on 3.2 GHz has 512Kb cache and Sempron on 1.67GHz has 384kb.
But Intel Celeron has MMX technology and its good for 32bit system.

I can vouch that X800GTO and X850XT (AGP versions) do not work right under Win98SE, I tested those on both of my machines. Also, a friend of my purchased a X850Pro just last month (AGP as well), it works just fine under XP, but it didn't work under his Win98SE install/partition. He couldn't even get as far as I did. His computer would BSOD upon boot and he would have to reboot. It worked fine in safe-mode though, which is fine if you like low resolution and minimal color setup. Although, in all honesty I'm not sure which version the drivers were.

As for AMD vs Intel, well... when Intel starts making affordable AND fast CPUs again, they'll have me back as a customer. (I've been Intel free since 2002.)

Intel seems to be more concerned with marketing and their public image than actual technology. Example: Those ridiculous Intel Duo commercials with some really ugly yuppies doing some really bad dancing (on acid I presume).

If Intel spent half the cash on R&D they spend on marketing, they could do wonders.

Not trying to annoy people here but why continue to use an eight year
old OS that cannot handle NTFS and cannot handle files over 4Gb?

The answer to the question of "how can Win98se run on the latest
hardware is - don't use Win98se, just use XP".

If theres any reason to continue using Win98 now we have XP, then I am all ears.

Yea but there are many good programs writen only for W98 and Dos.I have on my PC two OS's:
XP and 98SE and want to make combination of Vista and 98SE now.Ok!?

You can't compare the clock speeds.
The 2400+ Sempron is equivalent to a 2.4 Ghz Pentium in speed.
I don't know what the equivalent would be of the 3.2 Ghz Celeron, its speed is lower in Pentium statistics. For example, my brother's Celeron is 1.7 Ghz, and the equivalent of a 1.2 Ghz Pentium.
They work differently.

Less cache means less time wasted looking through the cache before getting the data from the RAM or hard drive. But then again, there's less chance of finding what you're looking for in it too. There's no better CPU in that area.
AMD has had the equivalent technology for years too.

Because we don't need NTFS? At least with FAT32, we can't have rootkits hidden in our system. NTFS on the whole isn't really that superior. And if we want to, we can read NTFS just fine. The tools exist. Even DOS can read NTFS if it wants to. Writing is another matter.

Why would we need files over 4 GB? That's just insane. Unless you do video editing (best done on a Mac anyway), or are a movie pirate, of course.

Windows XP is a piece of s***. And yes, I do use it (on my laptop, no real choice). Too much eye candy (looks like a toy, too), way too many services, bloated, treats you like an id*** (which slows you down), is a security nightmare because of the tons of services, etc.

Windows 98's interface is cleaner (though not as clean as Windows 95's), barely has services, only the necessary network components, doesn't treat you as that much of an id***, and flies on a Pentium II and newer (can even be used on a 486 if you want).

I have just checked some internet shops in our country:

AMD Sempron 64 2800+ (s754) ... € 33,60
AMD Sempron 64 2800+ (AM2) ... € 41,30
Intel Celeron D336 BOX 2.80G (s775) € 44,90
Intel Celeron D352 BOX 3.20G (s775) € 56,40

(prices without VAT)

Intel processors will have much higher power consumption and the motherboard will be more expensive.

I personally prefer Intel processors but at present, for cheap solutions AMD is better because there are no cheap Intel Core2 processors and also motherboards for Intel Core2 processors are expensive.

Petr

Oh really? So why do you come to says that here. Why do you even bother to come in the Win98 thread anyway? Do we come trash the XP forums to say how bad we think it is?
We've had enough with win98 haters here. If the only thing you can answer to the question "latest hardware for Win98 ?" is "get XP", then go wait for Vista and give us a break!!!

In my country are theft in PC shops!!!!!!MY GOD!
Please post me some price list.
But Petr thats AMD CPU's are for diferent motherboards.Look at socket!

Yes, I'm sorry, I have not noticed "Socket A" but Sempron 2400+ in Socket A is no longer sold here.

Why not to compare AMD and Intel processors in socket 754 and 775 respectively?

Petr

I don't want to start a new topic, so I'm just using this one for my question.

My system is a P4 B (533mhz quad fsb) 2.8GHz with a ASUS P4T533-R - yes, right, the 32bit 1066 rambus board and one of the buggiest boards ever. And now that I have upgraded from my old GF4 T 4600 to a GF 6800 GT@Ultra, my CPU is just a limitation. So I want to upgrade my board and my CPU (and my RAM of course), but I don't know what is the latest hardware that still supports 9x. I had a barebone with a 875 chipset and it just did not work with 98SE, the setup just hung up at the beginning most of the time and the intel chipset software which supports 9x did not work with the 875 chipset. But I'm sure there are people here which run 98SE on newer rigs than a 4 year old board and CPU. So if you have any suggestions and recommendations for a new intel sys, please tell, thanks!

I never had any problems with i875P chipset and Windows 98SE, everything works as expected.

AFAIK just SATA disks in native SATA mode will not work and may cause the problem you have described. SATA disks in PATA compatibility mode should work fine.

This topic was discussed here several times, it depends what new hardware you want.

The official support for Intel chipsets is:
ICH5 + 82865G/PE/P/GV/82848P/82875P/E7210: no driver for native SATA/RAID
ICH6 + 915G/P/GV/GM/PM/GMS/910GML: no driver for native SATA/AHCI/RAID, USB2.0, High Definition Audio
Unofficial support is for
ICH7 + 945G/GZ/P/PL/955X/975X: no driver for native SATA/AHCI/RAID, USB2.0, High Definition Audio, some ACPI (?) problems

For example Gigabyte GA-8I865GME-775-RH supports all Celerons, Pentium 4 processors and Pentium D processors up to model 820 and 940. The price in local internet shop is € 38 without VAT.
Asus P5PE-VM supports also 05B platform processors and costs about € 41,50 without VAT
and many others.

Many other boards were mentioned in other threads here, e.g. AsRock boards etc. It depends on your needs.

You can also use AMD processors (like cheap and good Sempron 64 2800+ in socket 754) with VIA based motherboard, VIA has drivers for both USB 2.0 and native SATA/RAID HDDs.

There are many other options, it depends what do you expect.

Petr

I do not use SATA at all, just IDE drives, so I do not have any use for that anyway.

What I expect...well, the CPUs released by Intel after the Northwood all kinda sucked, but now the Core 2 Duo seriously rocks, so if it is possible somehow, that would be my choice.

Then you can use the above mentioned ASUS P5PE-VM or AsRock ConRoe865PE, ConRoe865GV

Petr

Your opinion is not fact.

Let me make it more specific.

No HOME USER needs dual-core processors.

It's fine that they improve on things, but the mistake is to always mass-commercialise it. We just don't need that s***.

Dual-core or multi-core technology to be specific, just shows how much IT world has regressed. They are simply out of ideas. There is no innovation left. Anyone remember 3DFX's Voodoo5 6000?





This card (photos above) never went retail. Only limited sample versions were produced. It has a total of 4 cores and requires an external power source. (Not internal, it needs an AC adapter. Although it could be modified to draw power from a standard PC PSU) 3DFX was going to declare bankruptcy, but they got bought out by nvidia before they could. Can you guess why things got so bad for 3DFX? I can: no innovation left. Nivida's much smaller, single core cards could run circles around the latest 3dfx offerings. (picture below)



Voodoo5 5500 did go retail (photo below). It only had two cores, but it was massive. Produced right before 3DFX went away


Don't buy into the multi-core hype. That's all it is, hype.

Well, why not buy something that is cheap and has more performance than anything else on the market? 'Cause you don't find it "innovative"? That's a VERY bad argument to be honest. And simple does not necessarily mean bad.

xtrm, multi-core CPUs are not exactly cheap, at this point at least. Also, you have to remember that you would need a motherboard upgrade as well (in most cases), and if you have an older AGP platform, that means a new video card, (PCI-E most probably) which means quite probably no Windows98SE either. Which...well you get the point. Not exactly cheap.

You say: "more performance than anything else on the market", well, that is certainly debatable. More performance under what conditions? What are the real benefits? No, I believe multi-core CPUs are the iPods of the CPU world. Hyped to the MAX, that is. Overpriced, status items. No real innovation there. If I ever decide to decode the chimpanzee genome then I might consider a multi-CPU environment (notice I said multi-CPU as opposed to multi-core), or maybe a cluster based supercomputer.

(Photo below) The KLAT2 cluster supercomputer

Check prices for intels new core 2 duo, it IS cheap compared to other high-end CPUs on the desktop market, and it beats these CPUs easily. If you want new hardware, you will change your board anyway in many cases, and as Petr showed above, there exist new boards with AGP slot - and some old with the same socket would just require a BIOS update. There is really no sense in your argumentation. Just check prices and benches, that's it.

I think most people who p*** on new IT's (anything before 2000) just have trouble coping with how big Windows is, since you're probably some 35 year old whose been using PCs since the day they only needed such-and-such KBs of RAM to run, and with how "insecure" and "unstable" many "pioneers" seem to believe XP is. Don't get me wrong, I think needing 512MBs of RAM just to run a vanilla default OS is rediculous, but it is the way it is. With RAM drives and dual core becoming main stream soon and 1GB sticks of RAM becoming cheaper, the filesize of an OS just doesn't matter to as many people as it used to.
Not to mention all the drivers for hardware and compatibility for devices and new technologies being implemented into games, and M$ not supporting Win9x... bigger harddrives, more RAM, faster CPUs, dual core, SLI, upgradable GPUs, etc... Windows 9x is Dead.
I'm not trying to shove my opinion up anyone's a** here, I'm not saying you can't stick with what you like, but I believe someday... and sooner rather than later... it is going to catch up to you. Let's face it... times change, people change, everything changes. It's inevitable. 1995 was nearly 12 years ago. 1998 was nearly 9 years ago. Technology now changes by the month, if not every few weeks....

I agree with what Jeremy has said for the most part. I'm a Win9x holdover myself and have only been playing around with XP for a little over a month. It's ok, nothing great, and for me personally it offers very little beyond what my MDGx-influenced Win9x does.

I'm no computer expert, there are a lot of intelligent people around here who know far more than I probably ever will. I don't do anything with computers that generates any income for me, I'm just really interested in technical things and computers cartainly qualify on that front. I can build one from parts, partition and format hard drives, make Ghost images, and edit the registry without breaking a sweat. I don't know what kind of 'user' that makes me, or how many others like me there are around here. I guess it's just a hobby for me? (sure consumes enough of my time!)

That said, I do kind of feel like I've been living with blinders on. I feel like I'm an 'expert' as far as Win9x goes (I'm sure I'm not though), and back when Win9x systems were the norm I never ran into a single problem I couldn't solve. I'd talk to friends on the phone, or so-and-so's girlfriend's aunt, and be able to walk them through fixing whatever their problems was. But I was so involved in my Win9x world that I completely ignored XP, and now it's been out almost 6 years I guess and I'm just now getting familiar with it. That's not good even from a hobbiest's standpoint. For anyone involved in it in any career-oriented way, you just have to stay on top of things.

On the other hand, if you don't know or care about how computers work (and are completely unaware that forums like this exist where peoople happily spend hours talking about computers), and just consider having one in the house to be a necessity like a stove or refrigerator and just want to be able to click on a few icons to check your e-mail or look up something on Wikipedia, then it's unfortunate that Win9x isn't supported any longer and people are made to feel like they have to upgrade to a more current OS just to continue to perform the most basic of tasks.

98 isnt almost 9 years old

Windows 95: 11 Years 3 Months 9 Days Old
Windows 95a: 10 Years 11 Moths 28 Days Old
Windows 98FE: 8 Years 4 Months 8 Days Old
Windows 98SE: 7 Years 7 Months 10 Days Old
Windows ME: 6 Years 11 Months 16 Days Old
Windows XP: 5 Years 1 Month 8 Days Old
Vista (RTM): 25 Days Old
Vista (To Consumers): - 58 Days Old

Dates for 3 December 2006 (GMT+10:00)

@E-66,
I understand all that as well. However, even for the most basic person may become exploited by some flaw and have their personal info that's saved in IE's AutoComplete feature stolen. M$ wouldn't be able to help them with it since 9x is in the dust now. I'm not saying I know of a particular exploit that results in this, it was just an example.

@awergh,
You remind me of Commander Data from Star Trek - The Next Generation. Always trying to give time down to the very second. 9 years and 8 years, 4 months, 8 days... I'm not trying to get the time exactly right, I'm just pointing out that it's been a long time and it's old.

Your opinion is not a fact.


Now again... you want to say you don't like Win98. Fine, you have the right to do that but DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE! At least do what DukeBlazingstix did and write your thoughts in a dedicated thread.

The question is Windows 98SE on the lastest hardware so if you're not trying to help, GET OUT OF HERE !!!

It's a Win98 forum where people have made their choice to stick with 98. And we don't have to justify everytime some XP fan wants to start a fight. Thanks for ruining this thread.

That statement defeats your entire argument. It IS ridiculous, and we choose not to follow that.

As if our older computers will stop running. We don't have to go with this.
You are succeeding in doing that.

As if that doesn't have on XP. Look, there are precautions you can take, and apply common sense. Get your computer behind a router, and activate its firewall. Run a secure browser. That's it.

The issue is this: (and I have said this many times in many threads before) Windows 98SE does everything for me an NT based OS could (photo/audio/video editing, website design, gaming, word processing, web browsing, you name it) , plus Windows 98SE does some things an NT OS can't (primarily legacy DOS support and support for legacy hardware as well), and does all of it with much higher overall performance and less fuss. By fuss I mean the lack of a crappy Hardware Abstraction Layer which can be found in NT based operating systems. (2000/XP included of course)

Hardware Abstraction Layer is one of the primary reasons I stay away from NT based operating systems. I've said this before in a previous thread but, HAL was a half-assed attempt at pushing NT into the mainstream by attempting to correct the obvious lack of hardware support NT kernel had at the time. HAL was supposed to assist developers in creating device drivers much faster by writing less code and letting HAL itself deal with any portability and compatibility issues. One way HAL does this is by emulating hardware and/or hardware features that are not even there to begin with. (Which is not unusal for an OS) In theory this was a dream come true. You could write minimal code with maximum results in record time. In theory of course. Problem is, the abstraction layer in NT operating systems is seriously flawed and simply inadequate when it comes to what it was designed to do. Also, HAL depended (and still does) on the driver creator to be responsible and create a retail strength driver in the time it would take to create a alpha driver for the same device. This is many times impossible, which ends up giving the user or consumer a buggy alpha strength driver.

For basic information on what HAL is and what it does go here:
http://www.answers.com/topic/hardware-abstraction-layer

I can throw virtually any type of hardware setup at Windows 98SE and it will boot, it might not support the hardware in question, but it will boot. In Windows 2000/XP when it came to hardware upgrades I had to deal with all kinds of issues that are non-existent on Win9x platforms. Can you say Windows Stop Messages? I can! Nothing nicer than installing a new piece of hardware and then having a nice Windows Stop Message induced BSOD, courtesy of s***ty implementation of HAL. Sure, I got hardware induced BSODs on my Windows 98SE system every now and then, but not nearly as many as I did under NT based operating systems.

Another primary reason I stay away from NT based operating systems is the clownish bul*****. XP is a toy OS, Vista is even more of a toy OS. Only Vista is even more bloated and restricted, and colorful. All the hallucinogenic color themes and LEGO-like shells are a major turn off to me. When XP was released one of the first things I noticed was all the colors, almost neon in their intensity. The window bars were over sized, all the buttons were huge and illustrated, there was even an animated dog in the search window! My first thought was: how clownish! It looked like a toy OS, something for kids to play with. Then I noticed the bugs, lack of performance, and lack of software and hardware compatibility. It was a toy alright, not even a good one.

As for the multi-core CPUs, well, my single CPU along Win98SE handles everything just fine.

Mine does too, but if you do not want to stand still and move with time, you have to upgrade your system from time to time. I do everything to NOT have to update to 2k/XP/(not to mention vista), but I do update my hardware from time to time - and after over 4 years, it just is about time.

I don't understand why you would need to update your hardware when you're on Windows 98SE. There's also no law saying you should move with the times. "because everybody else does it" is never a good reason to do anything.

Like, playing games and stuff?

Ok, we're 40+ posts into this topic. My Win9x system that I love dearly software-wise, is old, hardware-wise. So let's get this thread back on topic. Maybe not the very latest in hardware, but how about some good hardware suggestions, both AMD & Intel, for a stable running Win9x system? I think I read that you should stay away from nVidia chipsets and look for a VIA based motherboard? That's all I know, really.

Like I said earlier, I'm no expert, and I never even considered that Win9x wouldn't run on the newest systems. I mean, I knew that there was other hardware that didn't support Win9x, but I guess I thought a motherboard was different somehow, like it was 'root' hardware that would work with anything. But since that's obviously not the case I'd be very interested in seeing what kind of system can be built that will still run Win9x.

Lets's see some examples.

I have been an Intel user most of my comp time, and the one time I had an AMD was with a VIA chipset, and that was just a complete mess, it was a horrible experience. I will not use a VIA chipset again, so I hope that this ASUS board and/or the ASRocks really are conroe ready (some big german hardware page says that a BIOS update is not enough and you do need a new board for the conroe, even if you have an only 6 month old socket 775 board).

Games will always be an exception. The newer ones require the newest hardware and OS. PCs weren't designed with games in mind in the first place, though. If you can avoid it, don't play newer games on your PC, but on game consoles. They were designed for that.

Shooters just don't play any good on consoles . Also, playing around with hardware is quite fun, and we do not have 98SE2XP for no reason here in this forum .