Windows 98 on Ryzen 9 9900X: A retro marvel of modern hardware!

In today's fast-paced technological world, hardware becomes obsolete within a few years. But for computer enthusiasts, there's always a way to breathe new life into an old system. Especially for retro computing enthusiasts, a second "chance" is often more fun than practical.

Retro projects are not just about reviving old devices, but also about running old operating systems on modern hardware. Some of the achievements are simply amazing. Among them, the Windows 98 operating system, which runs directly on one of the fastest processors of today, stands out.

YouTuber Omores recently managed to boot Windows 98 on an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X after previously booting Windows 2000 from an NVMe drive. Since Windows 98 is not designed for processors with a base frequency of 4.4 GHz, his first attempts were unsuccessful. Lowering the speed in the BIOS did not help. The breakthrough came with the use of a PCI SATA card with its own BIOS, which bypassed the modern SATA controllers on the Asus X670 Prime AM5 motherboard. The connection was made possible using a PCIe-to-PCI adapter.

Omores also disabled ACPI, used BIOS Flashback, and created an 8.5GB partition on the Gen 5 NVMe SSD. The system then successfully ran retro graphics cards like the GeForce 7900 GS and ATI X700LE, and achieved surprisingly good results in 3DMark tests.