Best W98(SE?) CPU/MB combo
I know this issue is greatly speculative, but I have some delineating factors to help define my goal. I am into stereoscopic gaming, and there are some older games I would like to play that are not supported by the latest, greatest hardware configs - specifically games designed to work under OpenGL. There are drivers, and hardware that will run some of these games, still available, and I'd like to narrow down the choices for hardware specs , and find the "best", superPC for this goal. For obvious reasons, I think the CPU/MB combo is the place to start this project, and with the limitation of running W98(se) as the OS, I think that there should be some realm of definability.
By default, I guess we start with the limit of single core CPU. There are single core I7's, so I guess we start there. Now finding a MB that W98 doesn't have too much trouble with is next. I do not need to have W98 drivers for hardware that isn't utilized for gaming specific concerns - as long as I can disable that hardware in the BIOS. I guess I just don't want to have W98 recognizing the presence of hardware it cannot talk with, even if it isn't utilized. Nor do I want to just create a hardware specific profile where W98 has to constantly ignore something. One thing though, if there is MB specific hardware that isn't utilized, but does sit well with W98, I still want to be able to disable it on a hardware level. I am looking for as much power as possible, while being the leanest possible.
Eventually I want to tear the guts out of the OS as well, via LITEPC ideas, and remove all unnecessary W98 functions (even the Explorer shell). I want a superPC dedicated to doing one specific thing, running one specific game. I guess I'm looking for some opinions more than guidance, but I am kinda limited in knowledge too. Anyone care to chat?