Windows 95 or 98 for Windows 9x games?

[Sandi1987]

I have old computer with AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 512 MB RAM and GeForce4 Ti 4200. Should i install Windows 95 or 98 for old games?

 

[elbert]

Windows 98SE as finding update could be problematic. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/234762/description-of-windows-98-second-edition

 

[mdd1963]

The XP1600's were into Windows XP territory.....

 

[captaincharisma]

if its true they were around the same time as XP then any windows 9x OS may not work

 

[Dugimodo]

98se is the best of the windows 95 family so I agree with that.

However as someone who once upon a time gamed on such hardware and OSs I really don't think it's worth the effort, do you really like vintage games with tiny pixelated graphics enough to bother?

A few of the classics have been released on steam and can be made to run on a modern machine, the rest I wouldn't bother with.

 

[elbert]

Here is a nice retro video using the Athlon XP with windows 98. Look at what parts used to make the process easy.
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Xi_cVhIIg"][/video]

 

[Solandri]

Win 95 and 98 were like Win 3.x - they booted to DOS, then ran Windows as a program which presented a GUI. In Win 3.x, DOS was explicit (you installed DOS, then installed Windows). With Win 95/98, Microsoft integrated the Windows and DOS install into one to try to make it harder for DR-DOS to compete. But it still ran a modified version of DOS under the hood.

Anyhow, bottom line is neither 95 nor 98 are very good. You're basically running Windows programs on top of Windows which is running on top of DOS. Not very stable nor reliable. The multi-tasking is cooperative. Windows hands control of the CPU to a program, and kindly requests the program hand control back in x milliseconds. If the program doesn't or it crashes, then Windows never gets the CPU back and the computer freezes. If you weren't into computing during those days, it was really bad. Rebooting due to a crash once or twice a day was normal. That's why we have all sorts of cute names for ctrl-alt-del like "the three finger salute" (ctrl-alt-del would cause the motherboard to initiate a soft reboot after a crash).

For that reason, if there's any way to get the legacy games to run on Windows XP or 2000, that'd be much better. Those two OSes are based on Windows NT, which uses pre-emptive multi-tasking. Windows always controls the CPU, and controls how much CPU time a program gets. If a program crashes, only the program crashes. Windows and your other programs keep chugging along. It was common to go weeks or even months between crashes on XP, and most of the crashes were due to buggy drivers. 512 MB of RAM will be fine for XP. 256 MB is a safe minimum (with modern anti-virus).

But if you must use the DOS-based Windows, 98 (specifically 98SE as others have mentioned) is preferable. The last DOS-based Windows was ME, which was considerably worse than 98. Lots of ambitious new features like built-in backups and system restore which didn't quite work right in their first iteration and just slowed the system down.

A better choice IMHO is a newer computer with Win 98 or XP running in a virtual machine. Processors and GPUs from back then didn't throttle down under low load like modern processors. So your vintage system is probably going to burn around 150-200 Watts continuously. Compared to about 30-50 Watts for a modern system. If you use the computer for any extended period of time, that extra power draw is going to translate into an extra tens of dollars of electricity per year. After a few years, you'll have frittered away enough money on extra electricity to buy a decent new GPU. Some old things just aren't worth bringing back to life again.

 

[Sandi1987]

A better choice IMHO is a newer computer with Win 98 or XP running in a virtual machine.

Windows 95, 98 doesn't have 3D-Acceleration in VM. I tried some old games in Windows XP in VM (VMware and VirtualBox) and it doesn't work or works with bugs. Even in Windows 2000 in VMware 3D games doesn't work (No Direct3D). Works only with software. In Windows XP Direct3D works in VMware but many games not working properly or crashing.

In PCem and DOSBox in Windows 98 many games not working too. In PCem almost all games lagging.

 

[190221]

i would also recommend 98se.

 

[captaincharisma]

i would also recommend 98se.

if you like living on the edge you could always go with Windows ME

 

[190221]

i would also recommend 98se.

if you like living on the edge you could always go with Windows ME

or just use 98SE2ME and get the best of both.

 

[ragnar-gd]

Use W98SE, it's the most stable of the 16-bit Windows, and there are still active communities supporting it (aka patching, writing software, making it run on modern hw, i.e.: http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/8-windows-9xme/ )

 

[Carnaxus]

Windows 98SE is actually still for sale on Amazon for $90. New, original, unopened copies.