/vr/ - Retro Games

go for 98se/me unless you have a very specific reason to use 95.
you may also want to add a second drive installed for dos 6.22 or 7.1 (7.1 supports fat32). some games just don't run under windows (jill of the jungle is the prime example) and you'll need that native dos support for them.

>>6171371
also forgot, if you install a second drive xosl is a very easy to set up and user friendly bootloader.
unless you don't mind having to boot windows first when you want to exit to dos prompt.

>>6171362
Win98SE of course

>>6171371
Is there a reason 98 is preferable?
Also I didn't want to consider ME because I heard it was unstable and just not the same quality as 98 or XP, but I've never had a PC with anything older than XP so idk

As for native DOS, yeah, I figured native would be better but I thought I would through it out there.

>>6171385
98se can do everything 95 can and more, so no reason to go for 95 unless you really need to run something that only works on 95 because reasons.
also I had me installed at the time and didn't had more (neither less) problems than people rocking 98se, so dunno if I was lucky or not, but never saw it as the mess everyone talks about.

>>6171415
Thanks for the help man

>>6171362
I am going for J-Win98SE for its unique properties of Japanese games I missed out on. Even having an old 486DX4 for DOS already, It is nice that 98 does have its own DOS layer to play the games I still like there too.


I messed up big time getting cheap 120GB SSDs, as 98SE does not have any trim tools, so I am currently saving up to get some 256GB SSDs for a 120GB partition with the remainder left for the SSD's own garbage collection.

>>6172924
Did you fell for the Philtard's meme of using SSD in these old school builds?
Actually in this one he didn't use one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFaWs136eY

>>6173171
>>6172924
Why can't you just use this program TRIM? https://rloewelectronics.com/catalog2.htm

Scored a Turtle Beach Montego II for $25, so I'm pretty happy about that.
As for best OS, I'll also support Win98SE for this purpose, but you have to keep in mind that even if you're running that OS, there isn't really a machine that's the best for such a large span of time. Your best best would probably be a Slot 1 board, so that you can use a Pentium II or III if you desire, IIIs will be better for very late 90s/early 2000s Win9x games, but even less suitable for early 90s DOS games that a Pentium II would be, plus certain cards, like the Voodoo 1, aren't really compatible with a CPU over 500mhz. If you aren't planning on playing a select few earlier Glide supporting titles, or are fine with software/early DX support for them, you don't really have to worry all that much about the Voodoo 1.
You'll also want something with an ISA slot if you're going to want to play some DOS titles, since since there's really only a select few PCI cards that have any kind of DOS support, and you'll typically run into some issues as well. If you only care about certain titles like Doom, or especially later stuff like Duke Nukem 3D, you shouldn't even need to worry about booting into DOS to tell you the truth, though.

>>6172924
120gb is already overkill.
with 256gb the motherboard might not even recognize the drive correctly and limit you to 32gb.
also, the os doesn't need to do the trim, most if not all modern ssd's can take care of themselves.

>>6172924
whats the advantage of j-win98 opposed to western versions? Does it just have more soul or will some games only work on j version. I would like to try some japan pc stuff too what would you recommend?

Those are some nice parts kudos for building from scratch you should get an old ass beige case to house it. I picked up an old rig from a car boot sale and like a complete faggot passed on the crt that came with it because muh space. It was pretty big at least 20in I must have been low-t that day. Anyway this thing is yellowed to fuck and loud but it works and I love it. its got a celeron 633 with 128mb ram and a rage 128 pro.

Win 98 is comfy af just need some themes and papes to finish the look. Preferably 90s anime with sound effects. ganbare with the build anon

>>6173734
Mainly due to the fact that outside of certain specialty programs that may be difficult to obtain nowadays, you can't display Japanese characters on the standard English release of Windows 98, well, at least outside of a web browser or something.
Most games will still work though, so if you want to play something that isn't text heavy, like Seihou or Touhou, don't worry too much about it.

>>6173742
thanks anon just downloaded an iso of japanese version for aesthetic reasons even though i can't read moon runes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omLgv9lJ9jE&list=WL&index=191&t=0s

>>6173209
better yet, who gives a shit? Bought 4 120 gb ssds for dirt cheap, aligned partition, done.

>>6173783
I've only tested J-Win98SE a little, but English titles also seem to work fine. My testing was limited to Need For Speed II SE and Interstate '76, though.

>>6171362
8088 to 286: DOS
386: DOS and win 3.x
486: DOS, Win95 and Win3.x
Pentium 1: DOS and Win98 (not SE unless you want to use USB)
Pentium 2 and later: DOS and WinME, note that ME by default can't boot into DOS mode but is superior to 98SE

random thoughts:
Win95 is pretty annoying to use, you constantly notice things that are missing in the GUI
Win98SE doesn't seem to run as well on Pentium 1 and earlier than the original 98
If your games run on XP then get a cheap core2 duo. Avoid Pentium 4 machines but consider getting an athlon XP machine for Win98 and early 2000s games
Almost all AGP GPUs have drivers for Win98, even the newer ones from the mid 2000s
If you want to play DOS games properly you'll have to get a Pentium 1 or earlier + a good ISA sound card

>>6173171
I watched a video, I think he recommended those hybrid drives which at this time I can find Seagate Firecudas at a minimum of 500GB, but more commonly 1-2TB. At those sizes, partitioning a 120GB just for 98 to read and leaving the rest alone seems wasteful and more likely to be used with a more recent computing parts.

>>6173209
Thanks, will bookmark to refer to later. I cannot hunt down 98 software easily these days. I still have to find a way to align the 98SE OS on the SSD too.

>>6173285
I have a lot of games compatible with 98. I read that 98 can only work with 128GB of space, and it starts to have issues past that point. I never got an answer if I could have two 120GB drives on different IDE cables (I don't think the SATA to IDE adapters have master/slave jumpers). Also if the SSD can take care of themselves, don't they still need some free space (in the 256 case, the non-120GB partitioned space) for garbage collection?

>>6173734
As mentioned the fonts for the Windows level for Japanese games. I have a couple of J-Win games, screensavers, desktop accessories from the 95/98 era which I just want to take advantage of. That is one of the last things I have to find too, cases. The fan noises do worry me so I am looking into changing to newer fans with less wear&tear and may run quieter. Cute 98OS-tan.

Been thinking about it for ages, what should I get for Lucasarts adventures and Thief Gold?

>>6173842
have you checked if your motherboard even support large drives?
I have a p3b-f and had to settle with an 80gb hdd because it doesn't support 48bit lba and the 160gb one I was gonna use was being wrongly recognized as a 32gb drive.
and btw I was using that very same 160gb hdd with linux on the same machine without problems. linux doesn't care about what the bios says (and supports 48bit lba) but windows 9x do.

>don't they still need some free space (in the 256 case, the non-120GB partitioned space) for garbage collection?
no. if the ssd can manage itself why would you waste space leaving it empty?
if you can even use the 256gb drive with windows 98 anyway.

Not entirely relevant, but why does everyone hate Pentium 4's?

You can install Windows 98 on most early Pentium 4 motherboards. You have more memory and many more times increased clock speed. And Pentium 4 machines are currently worthless. Is it just about recreating the look and fell of a specific era of gaming, or is there something more obvious I'm missing.

>>6173785
This method is superior but if you have pleb taste and want to do it your shit way go for it, no one is going to stop you dumbass

>>6171362
either 95 or 98. XP removed all "native" DOS compatibility so I wouldn't reccomend ok mend it for anything retro.

>>6174210
18+ tiktok

>>6174169
>or is there something more obvious I'm missing.
I suppose if you've been living in a cave.

>>6174169
I personally hate them because they were a pos back then. I had an athlon that outperformed the p4 for less money.
but as you say, nowdays are a good option for retro builds, but it has a fatal flaw, no p4 motherboard has isa, so no sound blaster for you.
aside from that high clock speeds are very problematic for dos games.
but if all you want is windows 9x games, then you'll be fine.

almost all people want "muh period accurate hardware" though, so everyone goes for p2/p3 maximum.

>>6173209
>$1 shipping&handling
>for a download
kek.

>>6171362
>I want it to be able to run games from the early 00's
It's gotta be XP then, which also supports DosBox.

>>6171362
dualboot Win98 and WinXP.

>>6171385
yeah, 98 is basically just Windows 95 except it doesn't crash every 10 fucking seconds.

>>6171362
I have had zero luck with 98 the last few years. Installing drivers is like playing the slowest, ricketiest game of Jenga with the registry; I literally do not understand how i was able to make this work back in 400mhz P2 days. Unless you've got something that non-negotiably REQUIRES 98 like a Rage Fury Maxx then consider dual-booting DOS and win2k instead. 2k is basically XP with less eyecandy and no UAC or activation; it's become my go-to on everything down to Pentium 1s.

>>6174169
Willamette was weaker mhz-for-mhz than a Tualatin P3 for everything except Idtech3 games, and Prescott ran hotter than the surface of the sun for very little gain in performance. Northwood, sandwiched in between, was actually fairly decent but is overshadowed in everyone's memories by the flops.

>>6175080
>2k is basically XP with less eyecandy and no UAC or activation
XP doesn't have UAC or require activation. Vista was the first.

>>6175094
XP had online activation introduced in 2004, and SP3 had a version of UAC that was similar to Windows 7.

>>6175097
then stay on sp2?

>>6174474
how is what I said wrong? On XP you'd have to use dosbox or something for dos programs. If they're asking about a retro gaming PC then windows 95/98 would cover that era fine.

hey check it out, I found this PCI geforce2 MX at a thrift shop for a dollar yesterday. 64 megs of 64 bit DDR. Two of the capacitors were snapped off but i soldered on a couple replacements and it seems to run okay now. Gonna stick it in my ~Never Obsolete~ eMachines celeron since it doesn't have an AGP slot and this seems like about the right amount of GPU for it.

>>6175347
Clean your keyboard!

Wouldn't VMWare be fine?

>>6175338
>get called out for being underage
>deflect
>fool anyone

How's ReactOS for dos gaming? Heard it can run dos programs natively, but gaming isn't something they are concentrating work on.

>>6175820
okay then how am I underaged?

>>6171362
Install GNU/Linux on your current PC, WINE is great for old Windows games (to put it in perspective, it has better compatibility than Windows 10). There's also DOSBox for DOS games.
You could also just run W98SE on a virtual machine, or QEMU.

>>6171362
virtual machines

>>6176073
Your age is >18. Mentally, physically, clit size, etc.

>>6176051
why not use freedos or dosbox for dos-stuff?

>>6171362
Install PCEM.
Same shit except you can change a drop-down menu to get something to run instead of rebuild your PC.

>>6171362
>ME
>XP
Not retro.

>>6173842
Holy shit where did you get the gainax mahjong game? Are they two different games as well? Only ever seen the one on the right and it seems to be impossible to find online

>>6171362
For me it's Windows 98 Plus.

>>6177696
>requieres windows 98
not an os, anon

>>6173915
I used to play the LucasArts point & click adventures on my 386DX-40 without issue, but Thief will require a 3D graphics accelerator especially with TFix and texture mods a powerful one.

>>6173981
I have a couple of motherboards which could host a good J-Win98SE machine. I am not sure if they'd work with 120GB, but the limits of 98 should be 128GB. Linux is nice, but I still have to familiarize myself with it more, when I have enough for modern parts. As mentioned, I still have to find out how to align 98 on the SSD and make sure only the first 120GBs are partitioned for it, also if I cannot have 2x 120GB SSDs on two separate IDE cables, one drive could fill up fast and would need space (unpartitioned) for garbage collection.


>>6174169
I just chose a P3 because back then I skipped over P3s, and for budget reasons I was a fan of AMD thus I went for their Athlon XP line with Windowss 2000, so I never experienced 98/ME. The motherboard on the left has an ISA slot good for old OPL2 or OPL3 sound, but even though I read it can handle a 1.4GHz P3, it will still register as a 1.266Ghz P3 so I may just go with a 1.266Ghz P3 on that instead of a 1.4. The one on the right can accept the 1.4Ghz P3, but has no ISA slots, its negative is the 512MB limitation of RAM. I have no hate towards P4s, just no experience as Intel is for the rich and Linux users.

>>6177659
I got them from Gainax. They are both mahjong games. The one on the left is R15, so they only go topless, but will not de-panty themselves, but has charaters and story with Blue Water characters. The one on the right is R18 and will de-panty themselves, with a greater emphasis on Gunbuster and Eva characters but dropping the Blue Water characters and storylines. These games are reasons I want specifically a J-Win98SE machine.

>>6178095
>I got them from Gainax.
Like in the past a long time ago? Or you stole from the HQ stash or some shit?
I'd buy it if I could find it somewhere where it isn't 5k yen or more, I look through the usual auction sites every once and awhile but no dice most of the time.
Cool little project you got going though, I'd do the same if I had some physical games like that.

>>6171362
I just got an old Dell XPS I'm putting 98 SE on. Between DOS compatibility and being the most compatible with the games I want to play it's a no-brainer.

>>6171362
XP if you're running games 2002 - 2007
98SE if you're running games 1993 - 2001

>>6178095
>garbage collection
I'll repeat myself on that topic.
no, you don't need to do anything with modern ssd's. they can do fine by themselves.

on the topic of drive capacity:
windows 9x doesn't have native 48bit lba support, but for what I've read, if you can find 48bit lba drivers, it can support it.
your motherboard has to support 48bit lba first, of course.
28bit lba maxes out at 137GB approx. so a 120GB drive should work just fine.
a drive with more than 137GB of capacity would be wrongly recognized (as a 32GB drive in my case) due to cutting the number of sectors of the drive to fit into the 28bit limit.
if your motherboard does support 48bit lba and you don't want to mess with drivers on win9x, you can create 2 smaller partitions and be done.
https://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/Limits.htm#137

Fellow DOSfags, a dumb question: is there any resource out there for the recommended cycle counts for games? It seems to be a sort of trial & error procedure to find the sweet spot for each game.

>>6178095
Thanks. I hate texture mods though

>>6178120
I wish I were as cunning and able to pull off such a heist but no, I got them long ago. Back then the Gainax shop and Falcom shop were right there with the studios, and they welcomed the sales. Wonderful small storefronts for their fans. It is not easy to get some of the software because a lot of these kinds of games feature characters under the age of 18 which is unacceptable and unlawful in North America.

>>6178203
That's good to know. Since I cannot find any such drivers on the official websites, I will have to constrain to just a single 120GB SSD for now. I hope it works at that capacity, but until I start putting it all together, I at least now know of potential headaches that may arise. Thanks for the warning. I hope to figure out if I can have maybe 2 drives soon too.

>>6178214
There were some old games like Wing Commander 2 which I remembered played well on a 286-12 but was getting a bit fast on a 386DX-40 near unplayibly fast on a 486DX4-100, so a 286-16 or 386SX-33 may be the sweet spot. Privateer felt right on a Pentium-75. Most of my DOS fun was had on the 386DX-40 so around there is a nice place for the games I played (prior to Doom/FPS games).

>>6178319
I believe there are also sound enhancement mods too. The TFix should also allow for extremely high framerates too. So any modern graphics card can do.

>>6174659
That's interesting. I have 3 old Pentium 4 desktops complete with their respective monitors, mice, keyboards, speakers. And a Pentium 4 Server.

It'll be interesting to see if they follow the same crazy ass demand curve as the Pentium 3 hardware or whether they'll always be the ugly stepsister.

>>6171385
Winme is not unstable on decent hardware. It got a bad reputation at the time because hp and emachines were flooding the market with trash.

>>6179434
that might explain why I never had problems with it.
I think I already had my athlon 1333mhz when I installed me.
tried xp and it was a pos at the time, nothing worked and the little thing that did, worked worse than 98, but I loved the qol additions it had.
stupid things like being able to expand the control panel from the start menu made me try me. It was a nice stopgap between 98 and xp.
2000 was a server/enterprise os as fas as I knew at the time, so I never grabbed a copy to even try it.

>>6177704
it got a stand alone release I just could not find a picture.

>>6179605
>athlon 1333mhz
Problem is that fast cpu will lead to some speed issues with DOS/Win95 games. I found the sweet spot is a Pentium 3 550mhz.

>>6180889
You can slow a machine down but speeding it up isn't so easy

>>6180945
That's why you have another machine for XP era games.

found this dell dimension recently
p iii 933mhz which seems a little fast
trying to decide what gpu to install since I have yet to get the stock tnt2 m64 to not crash windows

are voodoo 2's worth the meme? I had a 3 that I got rid of, can't really believe the prices now

>>6181056
Unless you can find a voodoo for cheap, don't bother. Get a Radeon 9250 or Nvidia ti4200.

>>6180889
I don't have that machine anymore.
But at the time it was sweet, I had already moved from dos games and probably the only old games I played from time to time were doom, duke3d and wacky wheels.

>>6181759
I liked that era for sure. I just remember a threshold for cpu speed that rendered some DOS and early Win9x games unplayable.

>>6180889
>>6183627
Look into the setmul utility for DOS. It allows you to set the multiplier, disable the L1 and L2 cache and other things. You can get a fairly fast CPU running slow enough to play old ass games.

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=38613

>>6183636
Thanks anon. I know about it, but it doesn't solve the Win9x problem games. I know that the caches can be disabled in bios, but I find it easier to just have a few different machines for different game eras.

>>6181056
>>6181070
>Radeon 9250 or Nvidia ti4200

9250's crap. ti4200 is a good fit for a p3 but lmbo@ those ebay prices. Maybe a geforce3 ti200? actually does your motherboard have an agp slot op or is it pci only

>>6185179
Not him, but I have the very first geforce (256) and it's good enough for my p3 866mhz.
I haven't ran many things but at 800x600 Unreal runs at 90fps.
On top of that is the deluxe edition so I can capture video and stuff.

>>6181056
>gpu
GeForce FX5200
they're abundant, dirt cheap and will run any retro game just fine. also glide wrappers work well with it

>>6173842
>At those sizes, partitioning a 120GB just for 98 to read and leaving the rest alone seems wasteful and more likely to be used with a more recent computing parts.
I use a 240GB drive in my Win98 box, but I also have a good 100+ gigs of ISOs on it so I can just simply mount an ISO and go. Its nice.

>>6175097
>SP3 had a version of UAC that was similar to Windows 7.
No it didn't. I had SP3 as my desktop for years, and used it in work for years as well. There is no UAC style prompts in it. Thats Vista and on.

>>6171362
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enZP6YPNjh0

>>6185216
Have you tried the PCI version?

>>6185263
I have. It's pretty decent; they used 128-bit RAM in it.
Funny thing though: according to Everest it's got 1 more vertex shader than its AGP version, or the PCI 5500. Not really sure how that stacks up against the 5500's higher clock speed as i don't have one of those to bench it against.

>>6185301
Only difference from a 5500 FX and a 5200 FX is about 25 to 50mhz clock speed. No difference in RAM on the board, shaders, etc. When everything is said and done its only about 5-10% faster. It basically exists to sell a new SKU.
That said I fucking love them for retro Win98 boxes. They're fantastic. Nvidia's VGA bios gives fantastic DOS compatibility, and it can run basically almost any game that would run on Win98 at 60FPS at 1024x768 (APG version, PCI version is about 40% slower due to choking the PCI bus)
AliExpress for a while was selling NEW pci and agp 5500 cards for quite a while. Some manufacturer got their hands on new old stock of the chips and made new boards with them. I picked up 4 of them.

>>6185326
Nice, I remember seeing quite a few retailers selling these pretty cheap too a few years back. PCI versions though.

GeForce 4 MX is also a good card for old Pc games and it’s cheap and abundant. Might actually be better than FX and 4Ti because I noticed some of those cards don’t like some (rare) EGA modes in DOS. The reason could be because the 4MX is a basically a spruced up GeForce 2 so it inherently has better backwards compatibility being based on a card from 2000 (or even 1999 cause the 2 was basically a turbocharged 256). Only thing mine needed was a font fixer TSR for very rare DOS fonts but its very tiny in memory usage.

For those who want slowdown for fast CPUs, I found that the program THROTTLE works really well. It’s not a conventional software slowdown, but takes advantage of hardware functionality present in some motherboard chipsets to make shit officially go slower. It’s not supported by every motherboard, but when it works it’s fantastic.

Also ME being bad is an old meme based on the buggy initial release. It’s more stable than 98SE with all the official updates installed. Only thing ME is annoying for is real mode DOS is disabled by default and needs an workaround.

>>6186012
Never had a issue with DOS titles on the FX series myself, but I don't doubt you. Curious, do you know of any titles off hand that do? Was looking to test it out.

>>6186091
One of them I think was Populous in EGA mode (but that game has a VGA mode)

>>6181056
Oh hey I have almost the exact same machine. I recognized the front of the case without the cover almost immediately. A pentium 3 at 733mhz instead, but it has an ATI 7000 in it. Any game that NEEDS a better graphics card probably works fine on my XP machine.

The power supply is dying and it needs a new one needs an adapter thanks to Dell's stupid proprietary power connector standard on their motherboards.

finally got around to trying out this radeon 9600pro I found at a thrift shop a couple months back, and turns out it's pretty fuckin legit. first directx9 card I seen that'll run Psycho Circus on its stock drivers with ZERO blinking glitchy purple horseshit on the menus and transparencies; I didn't think it could be done

>>6175080
>>6175094
>>6175097
sure is awfully zoomer itt

>>6185326
>Some manufacturer got their hands on new old stock of the chips and made new boards with them.
Interesting, hadn't heard about this. Wish somebody'd buy up the piles of VSA-100s just lying around on ebay and bang out some new Voodoo4s with em.