Using a 1998 Pentium II as a Daily Driver - in 2026!

This video is a deep dive into the short lived Pentium II machines from 1998, how they came to be and what sort of processing power they had. Then an introduction to this specific PC, which is pretty much the top offering from the Pentium II world (a twin 450mhz setup with 1gb of PC100 ram) - aside from the special Xeon variants intended for the enterprise market. The graphics cards used a mostly an FX5200 (from 2003) and sometimes a GT610 (from 2012), both PCI bus versions.

This followed by a good look at what it can actually do today. A number of operating systems are tried including Haiku, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, ReactOS, Linux (several distro's), Windows XP and Windows 7 - with interesting results.

Lots of applications tried including web browsing (YouTube, Amazon, BBC, Nvidia etc), Microsoft Office, Open Office, Libre Office, content creation, video playback etc.

Lots of games tried too including Minecraft, Call of Duty, Lego Star Wars II, GTA San Andreas, Unreal Tournament, FarCry, Classicube and more.

It's taken me nearly two years to make this video in my spare time. I hope that you find it interesting and that you enjoy watching it.

Errata - At one point in the video I mention that 1GB is the maximum memory for a Pentium II. This is actually not true, the 1GB limit is a chipset limitation, not a processor limitation. Some late Pentium II motherboards and chipsets could actually handle more than 1GB.

Production Notes

This video is presented in 4:3 format so it actually plays nice on older hardware (and I do all my video editing using a 4:3 monitor anyway).

This channel isn't monetised and the video has no sponsorship. If you're seeing adverts, I did not put them there and I'm not getting any money from them. Hopefully YT will keep the video ad-free.

All the recorded screen footage has come from this PC, mostly recorded from the analogue output of the FX5200 graphics card. For some parts I switch to a GT610 card and use it's HDMI output. Often the recorded content is played back faster than actual speed, especially the various desktop GUI's. Where it matters though (such as the multi-tasking stress test) playback is at 100% speed.
I use some creative effect filters at times. There is also some stock video/music added in here and there but it's licenced correctly.

The recordings are not made from a camera pointing at a CRT screen. I don't find that method gives a very clear result, with the footage flickery and low contrast. The footage is therefore digitised directly and overlaid onto footage of the monitor that is basically showing just black underneath. This in my opinion is much more clear and better represents what the user actually experiences rather than try and get a camera to interpret a fast-scanning dot of light in the way the human brain does. This video is not about displays but about the computer. I wanted to explain this creative choice as someone always comments that they think it is fake or AI generated.

The presentation style is not intended for those with a Tiktok attention span. It's nearly an hour long and that's already with cutting out huge amounts I really wanted to show (such as using Spotify, AnyDesk, other Linux Distros and more games). It's my own voice, which is maybe not going to land me a voice acting role in a major Pixar production but I try to speak at a pace that is clear and well delivered. I don't want to just use an AI voice like so many people do, I think this dehumanises it.

All comments welcome.

The Music Track on the video assembled on the PII is "Like a Bi#%!" from Sweedish duo "House of Say". link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtrp--aQDFE

Дата на публикация: 18 януари, 2026
Категория: Наука и технология
Ключови думи: In driver II As 1998 Daily 2026 using Pentium