is my pc getting all it can from 98se?

spec's
2.0ghz celeron running at 2.7ghz
1024mb pc2100 ram
52x32x52x liteon cd-rw
16x sony dvd-rom
40gig WD hdd
128mb TI4200 X8 agp Asus

am i getting all i can useing win98se or should i upgrade my os? and what would be the best to upgrade to useing this system?

 

That look like a fairly decent spec.

It depends really on what you want to do with your PC. If it is just send the odd e-mail and surf the web then hell yeah it's just fine

If you want to play games like Doom 3 then yes you'll need to upgrade your OS (because certainly Doom 3 wont play on a Win98SE Pc - I know I've tried )

If you want to make real use of USB2 hardware then it may be easier to upgrade the OS rather than buy USB2 add-ons.

But again it really does depend on what you want to do....

 

yes i think all i do is play games and i do play doom3 on it theres a update for doom3 that makes it play on 98se

 

Well that's interesting to know.

But if your PC is doing what you want then let it be - almost a case of " if it ain't broke don't fix it!"

 

i know but on my old computer i never had one problem with 98se i think that computer was a 500mhz but on this computer it seems to want to crash alot and cant handle the games like GTA: vice city or GTA:3 it seems after awhile it will crash and i know its not a heat problem because the temps stay below 47C so could it be just that 98se cant handle it nomore? should i just try and save up the money for xp? (it might take months)

 

Well it sounds a bit strange that it can't handle games like GTA becuase I'm on a W98SE system too and it handles GTA with no problem.

Have you tried all the usual checks for spyware and other assorted crap?

 

yep no spyware or virus's i am useing spybot and norton2001 all up todate it also does the same thing with battlefield1942 even on hard trucks 18wheeles of steel i dont have no problems on doom3 who would of thought lol

 

no wait vice city works fine its just gta3, battlefield1942 and hard trucks might be otheres that i dont know of but them are the main ones i like to play

and hey can you wait for gta:SA to come out for pc this june?

 

As far as I can ascertain all of those should play on Win98SE. Itake it that they all installed properly with no reported problems.

As for GTA:SA I've not seen any info on that yet but I'll certainly look out for it.
Just another thought : What version of DirectX are you using?

 

maybe 98se just cant do the job nomore anyone know of a good site to get a ome copy of xp home or pro? or maybe idk it was a bad install of se?

 

i am useing DirectX 9.0C thats what came with the updated driver for my video card

 

So did these games EVER work properly on your system? And are they the real deal? Coz if you just downloaded them from a dodgy site then I'm afraid you get what you paid for ie nothing.

 

yes they are the real deal and they did work fine befor but i had to format and reinstall everything because i updated a peice of hardware and 98se did not like it so i had to start fresh for it to work and the hardware i updated was the ram i went from having 512mb ram too 1024mb ram
btw: i am trying to remember where i heard that 98se wont work so good with a processor over a certen speed

 

Well mine works just fine with a 3.2GHz cpu.

You say that your problems started after you added the extra RAM.
Have you got the following lines in your system.ini file?


[vcache]
MaxFileCache=524288
MinFileCache=0

 

Your problem may not be the hardware, then it could be. When exactly did you start having problems? When you added RAM? When you OC'd? How long ago did you OC the CPU? There is really no need to OC the sytem. The added speed isn't worth the problems it can cause with the hardware.

 

nope does not say that all it says is

[vcache]

thin
[Password Lists]
ASUS P4X8X=C:\WINDOWS\ASUSP4X8.PWL

Shadow_Puter_Dude it started after i formated and reinstalled windows
the oc is not doing it nighter is the ram

 

Good point Shadow. Maybe the additional RAM he put in with the OCing took it over the edge.

 

The you need to add those lines because Win98SE will fall over without it if you have more than 512Mb RAM.

 

well thank you i will try that now and should i also restart lol

 

Yes restart after you've added the lines. Then give one of the games you are having problems with a go.

Anyway hope it all works out. I've goota go but I'll check back again tomorrow.

 

I have to say even editing the system.ini file, Win9x was never good with memory management.

And yes you will need to restart for system.ini to take effect.

 

ok i will bbl to give yall a update i have to go anyways

 

ok gta3 not crashing anymore but stll for idk the games will lag for nothing there would be nothing around me and it lags and thin goes back to high fps and thin after afew mins it will lag thin back up again how come i dont get nolag at all on doom3 or gta:vice city but gets lag on bf1942 gta3 and so on?

 

Glad to hear that GTA is not crashing anymore. Have you got any other programs running in the background when the other games stutter?

 

only the programs needed by windows and my av but i disable my av when i play games

 

Check the refresh rate for your monitor is set to a high enough value.

And then, I'm sure you won't be keen to do this but, the next thing I'd try would be to back-off the Over Clocking.

 

N5638J, I would like to add a few comment.

1. I note that you have 1Gb ram running on Win98SE. A poster suggested making appropriate entries into the [vcache] in the system.ini file. Even with theses entries the likelyhood is that Win98SE will probably NOT work correctly with more than 512Mb of RAM. Symptoms that it cannot handle the extra ram come in the shape of games crashing and win98se itself can become slower.
I myself tried (unsuccessfully) to run 98 on 1Gb of ram and failed. Must have read about 200-300 threads on this subject.

A quick and easy test as to whether 98 can work with 1Gb of ram is to run the Dxdiag tests. Start>Run>Dxdiag>Display and then run the DirectDraw & Direct3D test.

2. As regards max cpu, I am running 2 dual boot systems with XP/98, one with an XP2600 T'Bred the other with an XP3000 Barton. No probs at all.

3. As regards games ie Battlefield 1942, GTAVC & CoD; they all run very smoothly on my 98 partition (XP3000) powered by a (modded) Leadtek 6800 n/u

In the first instance my suggestion would be to go back to 512Mb ram and test your system either through playing a game or through Dxdiag and see if the problem is elliminated (which I very strongly believe it will).

Hope this helps ....(sorry long post)

 

Interesting mine says the same MaxFileCache but a value of 8192 for MinFileCache. The upper value was taken on advice from running the diagnostics at PC Pitstop

I originally used Cacheman to set these values and changed them on the above advice.

However, there seems to be some conflicting information on the value of these numbers in the system.ini file, especially since Windows 98 seems to have problems with memory over 512MB: Enable use of large amount of memory


Similarly there also seems to be issues with Windows 98 with fast processor speeds, see for example: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=312108


N5368J, do you get any particular error messages with the problem games?

 

Maxwell, question please. Are you running 1Gb ram on win98se and using the Min/MaxFileCache values you indicated. If so is your system running stable.

Cheers

 

No, only 256MB RAM nowhere near 1GB I'm afraid, but the system is fast and stable .

Although, following through the articles at Snakefoot's site and the corresponding Microsoft references to large mamory in Windows 98 systems suggests that the following setting or variations of the numerical value may help:

 

I know you put this question to Maxwell but to let you know that I have been running with 768Mb RAM with the settings I originally gave for probably three years now with no problems at all.

 

i do have to say that site was handy i am going to have to restart now to see if it worked but i also liked this lol

 

Many thanks for your reply Yarwell. Apologies, I was not ignoring you at all just missed your original comment.

I am still trying to find a solution, if one exists for my system as to making 98se work with more than 512Mb of ram installed. I dual boot 98se/xp and only maintain my current amount of ram for stability with 98.

I must admit if the only thing you changed were entries in [vcache] ie 0-512Mb then you are lucky. I tried every combination including editing the [386Ehn] section with MaxPhyspage to try and get 98 to only see/use 512Mb of ram with 1Gb installed. I had no luck.

Oh well maybe in the next life

Cheers

 

its still doing the same thing but now when i quit gta3 it locks the whole system so should i try and go back to the 2x256mb pc3200 duel channel ram untell i can get xp?

 

LOL Ok, instead of getting a blue error meesage you get another wierd colour but more importantly is what the error message says!

 

this is starting to pi$$ me off now when i go to start BF1942 i get that little bf1942 screen but when it goes to fullscreen and you know you see the ea thing thin some other stuff well i cant even get past the ea thing it starts to play just fine but thin it just starts repeating EA,EA,EA,EA,EA saying it over and over but the little video for it plays so damn slow its like it moves one frame per min what should i do? i dont have any spyware or virus on it should i try and reinstall windows over this one and see if that works?