/vr/ - Retro Games

>>7806567
I'd say K6, there's nothing the Pentium III will give you with 90's games, possibly even have worse compadability and speed issues

>>7806567
DOSBox-X or PCem

>>7806567
That thin client is actually a pain in the ass to use as a dedicated DOS machine. Also the PC speaker is louder than anything I've ever heard and cannot be adjusted.

>>7806582
>pcem
>supporting tranny software

>>7806584
Duh, it's a PhilsComputerLab video, shits just for clicks and views.

>>7806584
>and cannot be adjusted.

>>7806592
I wasn't about to stick a pot in a $5 thin client, I just sold it to someone else.

>>7806592
Why not do it like old Sound Blasters did? Just disconnect the speaker and hook it up to the FM/MIDI audio out of your sound card, even if it is onboard. Then you can adjust the volume from your normal speakers.

>>7806607
These things are all integrated, they're not even meant to be used standalone.

>>7806614
You can still desolder a speaker from the PCB and run a jumper wire to the 3.5mm jack.

>>7806567
I'd take the K6. It's more "special". Everyone still has has their lame Pentium III

>>7806567
I have an old PC with a pentium 3 500MHz.
It works good enough.

But i'm thinking about buying some old Dual Core PC for 20 bucks, put WinXP on it, put DOSBOX on it and run everything else from GOG. I think that would also work nicely.

>>7806628
Based

>>7806628
This

You won't need SSE or 800MHz for DOS and early Windows games

Plus Socket 7 boards have better ISA and DOS compatibility

Also like anon mentioned, everyone is fixated on parroting each other, most people don't even know what a K6 is because they just want what everyone has

>>7806632
Sounds good
What do you play?

>>7806632
>But i'm thinking about buying some old Dual Core PC for 20 bucks, put WinXP on it, put DOSBOX on it and run everything else from GOG. I think that would also work nicely.
Just buy a cheap Ryzen 3400 shitbox and use the integrated graphics and run PCem. For 200 bucks you'll get perfect everything (in terms of hardware you can emulate and games you can play) up to early 2000's.

>>7806640

>>7806650
Based germanbro

>>7806567
That K6 should cover everything /vr/
If you have a board with AGP and a decent GPU, you should even be able to play anything you can talk about here, PC wise

>>7806579
>possibly even have worse compatibility and speed issues
>>7806636
>Plus Socket 7 boards have better ISA and DOS compatibility
Is there any proof to it? My Pentium3 runs just fine.

>>7806567
>P3 800MHz
the k6 just isn't powerful enough for some of the later 90's games

>>7808173
Example?

I've got two separate 90's gaming machines that combined play everything I want
>550MHz P3, GeForce 4, Voodoo 2 SLI, 256MB RAM, Windows 98SE
>133MHz P1, S3 Savage4, Voodoo 1, 64MB RAM, Dual boot of MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 95
Games that need a better machine are XP compatible and games that need a worse machine would want a 386 at most and I'd just recommend DosBox at that point

>>7808191
alien vs predator

>>7806632
Good luck finding a 775 for 20 bucks, maybe only in the US, in Europe it can get quite expensive.

>>7806616
stop anon, I can't take i

>>7806585
Are the trannies in the room with you right now, anon?

>>7808417
Local eBay in Europe, you can literally get the boards and CPUs for free.

>>7808197
>not doing the ultimate combo build
Literally plays everything without issues and at right speeds, early 80's to early 00's. Supports most APIs and renderers natively.

>>7806567

K6 was a ghetto CPU... take the P3

>>7809072
You okay? K6 was the fastest concumer x86 chip on the market for a short time.

>>7809775
>short time.
only until 500+ mhz P3's came out

>>7808229
hope this is a joke
shit runs fine with a GPU on a pentium 266

>/vr/ talking about computers
This is always so painful to watch.

>>7809810
k6 fpu just isn't that good

>>7810003
"That good" is pretty accurate
Compared to a P3 at same clock the FPU lags behind around 10%, which is nothing, while having better integer performance
The actual difference comes to play in games made after 1999 and that use SSE, which the K6 lacks but P3 was introduced with

>>7808957
Only the Pentium 4 crap, you won't get the best chipsets for that price range or for free like the P45.

>>7808437
Dude don't post gore outside of /b/ wtf.

Pentium MMX @ 233MHz Socket 7
Matrox G200 PCI
3dfx Voodoo 2 PCI
Intel 10/100 Base-T PCI
Sound Blaster AWE32 ISA + Max RAM
Rockwell 56k modem ISA
64MB EDO RAM
NEC 8X+ CDROM
Iomega ATAPI 100MB
WD Caviar 2 X 1GB IDE
NEC 19"+ Monitor
IBM PS/2 keyboard and maus
>fucking Windows 98

>>7810497
Ackchyually make it 166MHz Pentium MMX with Voodoo 1 and some period appropriate 2d card. Maybe Trident something or another. That or Pentium 2 with Riva TNT2 AGP. This stuff all bleeds together in my mind. I really dislike the Slot 1 and AGP it makes everything icky.

Pentium @ 200MHz Socket 7
Matrox Millennium PCI
3dfx Voodoo PCI
Intel PRO/100 PCI
Sound Blaster AWE32 ISA + Max RAM
Rockwell 56k modem ISA
64MB EDO RAM
NEC 8X+ CDROM
Iomega ATAPI 100MB
Seagate 2 X 1GB IDE
NEC MultiSync 19"+ Monitor
IBM PS/2 keyboard and maus
>fucking Windows 98

>>7810276
Not anon but of course you can
I actually picked up a lot of motherboards for free recently that had a P45 board, also several nForce, all with CPUs
Just keep your eyes open

I tested, cleaned and recapped them all
Kept a few for myself and selling the rest, unironically it's on sale right now, weeks already, for 15€ and nobody has wanted it yet (Germany)

>>7808985
I'm gonna need a rundown on what those cards are, and ideally also how you manage them in software without a billion driver conflicts.

Athlon Thunderbird

>>7811168
>how you manage them in software without a billion driver conflicts.
Very carefully.

>>7811478
Cont.

>>7811478
gave me PTSD

>>7811168
>I'm gonna need a rundown on what those cards are

>Pentium 3 Coppermine 1GHz
>2x256MB / 512MB PC133 (OC 140)
>VIA Apollo Pro 133A
>Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS 256MB AGP
>2x 3dfx Voodoo 2 12MB SLI
>Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
>Creative Sound Blaster 16 OPL3
>3Com Gigabit ethernet 3C2000
>Initio INIC1623 SATA controller
>WD Raptor 78GB 10000RPM SATA HDD
>WD Blue 500GB 7200RPM SATA HDD
>WD 160GB 7200RPM IDE HDD in the front caddy
>IDE DVD-ROM, 1.44MB 3,5" floppy, onboard USB 2.0

Back then I specifically wanted it to be a Pentium III, today I'd probably use a Athlon.

>>7811481
Welcome to IRQ Hell, enjoy your stay.
Believe me when I say I set it up all by hand to work together and it took literally hours.

>>7811478
>7800 GS
Garbage.
Has about the same compatibility as any modern Nvidia card which is terrible. The drivers available for it are shit too.
For a true retrogaming experience you'll want a GeForce FX at the latest with a 4 preferred and a 2 giving you the highest compatibility.
Not only can you not play games like Splinter Cell or MGS2 properly but your DOS compatibility will be garbage beyond belief with stuttering scrolling all over the place.

>>7811482
>Believe me when I say I set it up all by hand to work together and it took literally hours.
you have my most sincere respect

>>7811484
Except it was picked on purpose, it has no problems with DOS, no scrolling problems like some cards from the time either. Didn't try MGS2 but Splinter Cell worked perfectly. This even depended on the specific G7* core used in the 7800 GS.
If I wanted to use a GeForce4 Ti 4600, I'd use one. Pic related.

I think people these days just parrot things they hear without trying/testing or reason.

>For a true retrogaming experience you'll want a GeForce FX
Lol.

>>7811489
What about GeForce 2?

>>7811489
Splinter Cell has fucked shadows on newer cards. There's workaround for this but none look quite as good as on older GeForce cards.
It's far from the only game to do this though. Many Xbox-to-PC ports have problems. Memorably the retail version of MGS2 refuses to boot on anything newer than a GeForce 4 and on any Radeon cards because it simply wasn't tested. A patch known as ATI Fix was later made available.

>>7811489
>7800 gs
have you tried high resolution in duke 3d? Im looking for a fast gpu that still can run duke in SVGA and up

>>7811492
What about it?

>>7811496
Of course there can be compatibility issues, but I noticed none in my testing where it mattered for me. DOS was fine, Win9x/Win32 games were fine, D3D and OGL worked fine, drivers aren't even officially supported for Win9x but the newer ones that you can shoehorn onto 9x work just fine without any problems, even better than some older cards with their old drivers that might BSOD for fun sometimes.

Don't think I noticed any issues in Splinter Cell and I'm pretty sure I didn't use a patch.
Also if MGS2 has a patch, then that's really a non-issue too, at least not big enough to give up the possibility to play many late 90's and early 00's games with ridiculous resolutions and refresh rates on a nice 130 kHz CRT.

Thanks for your input though, it's interesting to hear.

>>7811503
SVGA and VESA modes worked perfectly fine. If your CPU can handle it, 800x600 in Duke3D won't be a problem on the 7800. Same goes for other VESA modes in other games.
A fun thing these days is EDuke32 for DOS that works fine on old hardware too, feel wise it feels somewhere between original and a source port on a modern machine.

>>7811510
Could you try out Supaplex on the 7800 real quick?
It tends to have issues on certain cards.
https://www.elmerproductions.com/sp/dlinst.html

>>7811521
Sorry bud, I don't have that machine setup or even in one piece anymore. This was years ago.
I'm sadly more space restricted these days.

The thing with 7800's is that you can still sell one today for probably the same or better price if you can find a good deal yourself. So there's no much harm in getting one and trying if everything you want it to run works on it, if not, it won't be that much work on getting your money back.

Good luck.

>>7811150
Just searched it and I didn't find any for 15€ for a decent board, for that price it's all Dell, Fujitsu, HP...

I need to recap my 478 board but I have no idea of what to order, the caps were bad in this period, my Gigabyte P35 on the box it even made a big deal that the caps were all Japanese and long lasting. Speaking of it I need to get another P35 Gigabyte board as a backup, don't like Asus ones because they don't have an option to disable HPET on the bios.

>>7811579
The cap plague of the time is well known. Just write down all the cap values on the board and order sets for each value, it's good to have extra anyways.

>>7811579
>don't like Asus ones because they don't have an option to disable HPET on the bios.
That's irrelevant, if you disable HPET in the OS, the fact that it's enabled in BIOS makes no difference.
Even back then though I'd use combined clock and not disable HPET. People are poking with things already fixed for them just because randos on internet claim things. Yes I get the irony of this post too, but do your own testing instead of believing others.

>>7811623
>but do your own testing instead of believing others.
there's a nice timer benchmark suite now to do platform specific configuration on timers that even works under XP

>>7811623
Different combinations will give you different timers, try it with WinTimerTester, the one I use I need to disable at the bios since I always dual-boot XP and Win7, you can see that the latency changes depending on the HPET in Win7.

>>7811676
Not arguing about that, just saying that all those combinations can be configured in the OS, no matter what HPET is set in BIOS.
OS lets you pick CPU timer, HPET or combination of both.

>>7806585
>giving a shit about a devs poltics/mental problems
the product still werks faggot

>>7811484
Geforce FX many cards have a max digital resolution of 1600x1200, which can be a problem depending on what you plan on doing and what monitor you're using. On XP you're limited to the 175.19 driver which limits the resolution too, many issues. For retro gaming you need a 4:3 monitor so this isn't an issue specially since VGA doesn't have this resolution limit but I found this the hard way.

>>7811531
>7800 GS
I'll keep my el cheap ATI cards thank you very much.

>>7812096
did LGR make a video about 7800's or something

>>7812110
They're the highest end card you can shove into an AGP PowerMac when flashed with a custom bios

>>7812110
7800's have been in value for a long time, way before LGR was a thing.
As >>7812161 said, they are one of the fastest AGP Mac and PC cards, fastest Win9x cards too, even though there's faster AMD AGP cards for WinNT.

The picture of the machine with the 7800 in this thread was made over 6 years ago already.

>>7812082
FX cards are more of a joke anyways, only the very high-end models were actually decent GPUs.

AMD before Athlon is trash.
The only redeeming quality is 3DNow, but anything that makes use of it will struggle to run well on it anyway.

Intel loves floats. A bunch of DOS games love floats. Ergo, Intel is good for DOS.

>>7806567
Don't know but i actually had (and have i guess) a P450 with a Voodoo3. Shit was suckin wind by 2001.

>>7812276
your math doesn't really hold up in the real world and your argument about pre-Athlon doesn't either, compaging K6 to PII in benchmarks

>>7812276
yeah k6 was a stinky turd for gaming but good for office work. Only Q2 3dnow patched ran good

real talk, do you use your retro PCs for any specific games that don't run on any other computer or you just use it for games you could play either way but with more "authentic" experience?

I was attempting a retro build several times and gave up each time when I realized i'd just play the same games I can already play on emulator or virtual machine (if it doesn't run on windows 10 at all)

>>7812430
Mostly for games that I can't play better on a modern PC. I.e. no good emulation or source ports or patches.
I still sometimes find myself playing those games on the old shitbox instead though just because I'm already behind it. But for the most part I could happily play the same games on the modern machine.

I mostly like the fact that there's no distractions, there's no alt-tab to do something else to make you forget or distract from the game.

>>7806567
K6, it's more fun and more than enough for anything /vr/
p3 for anything /vr/+ but then you might as well use a modern computer

>>7810276
Makes me feel awful for destroying so many nice P45 and other P4 chipset boards, just as donors for parts
I thought these things will never be worth anything again anymore, I mean why would they? But I guess the retro boom is strong

>>7812276
>Intel loves floats. A bunch of DOS games love floats.
Most DOS games use fixed point math though

>>7812524
>desntrying netburst trash
Thank you based anon.

>>7806602
Why lie to then lie?

>>7806567
I would use two separate ones, since there is quite a span of requirements in the 90s. For DOS games that K6-III would do well, maybe consider a Pentium MMX for more adjustable options in slowing it down for various DOS games. The Pentium 3 will do a lot better for later Win98SE games.

>>7808571
He's not wrong that it was made by a tranny, but it works well.

>>7812635
Keyword: A bunch

That includes Duke Nukem 3D.

>>7812353
Cope.

>>7806579
>speed issues
What is throttle.exe and/or disabling l2 cache? I can run most shit on my fucking Pentium 4 in DOS natively.

>>7806567
Pentium 3. It's fast enough to run just about everything in 9x smoothly too. HOWEVER, if for whatever reason one's lacking an ISA slot, get the one with it. ISA Soundblaster is the most crucial thing about DOS compatibility.

>>7814360
P3 is really just a Pentium Pro on steroids anyway.

What matters more is probably the chipset. Pentium 3 is split between 440 and 815, and some tests verified real issues with using the latter.

>>7811579
>>7811623
What's wrong with HPET?

>>7813390
Damn that pic takes me back to a long gone place

>>7814345
damn the k6 is that slow holy shit

>>7814451
Because that's a K6, not a K6-II or K6-III.

>>7813606
It was made by a group of people, it's a open source project. Just because the main idea and program was written by one person, doesn't mean they wrote the most code for it.

>>7814360
>What is throttle.exe and/or disabling l2 cache? I can run most shit on my fucking Pentium 4 in DOS natively.
More annoyance and problems than worth. Most S7 boards still have a configurable turbo button for on-the-fly easy switching too. There's no point in the Pentium 3 if you go for just DOS gaming.

>>7814626
>and problems
I mean with general compatibility, not just speed (that can easily be fixed with several different utilities). As >>7814372 said, it's not just about the CPU.

I have this machine that I recently reconditioned. It is an intel model D815EEA2 with a PII 866Mhz, 128mb p133 of ram, a TNT2 32mb and a DIAMOND SONIC IMPACT S100 sound card for which I am not able to find the drivers because I am too useless. If some good Samaritan could give me a hand, I'll touch his dick.

>>7814783
looks like it could do with a bit of a clean
the cpu clock speed sounds high for a pentium ii, do you mean pentium iii?
>drivers
take a picture of the card in question, both sides, could be misidentifying

>>7814783
>DIAMOND SONIC IMPACT S100
http://www.soundcard-drivers.com/companies/382.htm?o=8

Uses a ES1989S chipset, try some of the files with the 1989 in their name from that site.

http://vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=17&menustate=48,38

Also generic ESS PCI drivers might work.
Just try.

>>7814923
srry, i mean PIII yes.
>>7815330
Oh thanks dude let me touch you ding dong.

>>7816241
Did it work?

>>7817816
yes :)

>>7819030
goodfellas out take?

>$70-100
>has dedicated Quadro GPU that can be overclocked
>Core 2 Duo CPU
>drivers for XP and 7
>drivers available in a single archive file due to it being a business line laptop
>VGA and DisplayPort output capability to take full advantage of low latency / display lag monitors
>replacement parts are cheap
>built for serviceability

>>7820429
>no integrated Sound Blaster compatible, would have to limp along with some weird PC card at best
>no way to get a 3DFX or legacy Geforce card working
>no Win98 drivers for a ton of shit in it, and mobo/CPU is likely way too modern for it and DOS, who knows what you'd run into
Wow cool fucking *90s* computer, dolt.

>>7814628
>>7814626
Can we be honest and ask who *really* wants to go with pure DOS? Win9x is the harder platform to emulate and its games require far more patching and fucking with on modern computers. It's nice to have that processor speed in 9x, and oh no, you may have to throttle a *few* games in DOS.

>>7821106
It's nice to have Windows, also, for file management, at the very least 98 but ideally 2K or XP for far faster and more stable transfers over USB/network. A better CPU helps with this. Loading new shit by removing the internal storage, burning discs, or god help you DOS networking which I'm sure 99% of /vr/ isn't up to doing, will get real old, real fast.

Why does everyone recommend AMD CPUs for retro builds? When the Pentium was the shit, people with "just as good" K5s and Cyrix CPUs couldn't run Quake. When my friend bought a K6-2 believing all the hype about this P2 killer he was frequently frustrated by worse performance than the college P2s.
It seems half the youtube videos of people building retro PCs have the same issue. They wax lyrical about how awesome the AMD CPU they got is and then in the last 5 minutes of the video they are trying to figure out why Duke3D runs like baked on shit, looking at you LGR.
Yes, the Athlon was better than the P4, yes the Ryzen is better than the current Intel Core series, but for most of history AMD CPUs were the discount option for office machines where intel was the expensive balls to the wall performance champion.

>>7812430
It's all emulated. You can convince every goddamn game from DOS, to 3.1, to 9x, to XP to work on a modern computer through emulation, virtualization, or general/specific patches.

It's just fun to get the old shit working on a CRT and hardware you chose, though. It's just a project. That and VMware and PCem are laggy.

>>7821127
The P3 is by far the best choice especially if he wants to do Windows. Anyone choosing the k6 here is a contrarian faggot.

>>7812430
Based Hibiki poster.

>>7821127
K6's are much easier to configure to run slowly (disabling cache, low multipliers, etc.) for older, speed-sensitive DOS games.

That's pretty much it.

The final pill is that DOSbox is better than any single DOS computer ever made. 9x is still worth building for, but you'll quickly find out that native DOS fucking sucks dick for several reasons, but namely memory configuration, CPU speed adjustment, and sound card jankery.

>>7821209
Oh; can't forget, redbook audio NEEDS a real drive and a disc burnt. There is no way to virtualize a drive that'll play CD tracks in DOS. So have fun replacing a belt on some old IDE drive and needing to actually use materials to play a game. There is some expensive hardware ODE you can get for DOS but fuck that.

>>7821186
Via C3 does that job better

>>7821209
It's basically this:
>Want to be a retro geek and love to mess with old PC components that are compatible with DOS 6.22 and perhaps play some games?
Get old hardware, do it oldschool
>Want to play the old DOS games plain and simple, and don't want to be bothered by hardware limitations?
Get DOSBox, better yet get the preconfigured pack that goes around here so you won't even have to go through setting up your games

>>7821530
Yeah, I still love fucking with it and have an old computer just for that, but it's really for when I want to make running it the game.

>>7821118
For file management on DOS I'd recommend dual booting with OS/2 and a real DOS install
In fact if you're looking to run games that work like shit in every other alternative (DosBox, Windows 9x, Virtual Machines etc.) then you might have better luck with OS/2 and especially its later deriatives
It's also fun to boot ArcaOS on a modern machine and run old DOS games at infinite frame rates when real DOS isn't capable of handling that hardware and emulators would need more resources than you can currently have in a home PC

>>7814404
It was a great time with DOS games. Moving onto a new paradigm with Windows95/98.

>>7821186
I had gotten a K6 but this video convinced me to try out a Pentium MMX 233 in a Super Socket 7:
https://youtu.be/xcBmEjXg2ME

>>7820429
Hahahah.
"no"

>>7821127
>>7821131
That's because you have no idea about the difference of a K6 and a K6-III for example.

>>7821106
>Can we be honest and ask who *really* wants to go with pure DOS?
Me. I have dedicated DOS and Win16/32 environments.

>It's nice to have that processor speed in 9x, and oh no, you may have to throttle a *few* games in DOS.
I have both CPUs OP talks about, no noticeable speed difference in 9x. Both are way overkill for Win9x.

>>7819030
I remember when you used to post in /g/ retro threads.

>>7821127
Depends what you want to do. AMD had good drop in replacements for old chipsets that had better beformance than any other CPU, including Intel, on the same platform.
If you want to build a balls to the wall Socket 7 system, then you have to go AMD for example and that will run anything designed for Socket 7 era and older, no reason to go with newer or fast hardware and possibly introduce more problems.

I think you're just missing the point and think that everything should be as good as possible, but often that's not what people want to do. Some people like have several different machines for different periods with maximum era correctness and compatibility.

And then there's people like >>7808985 or >>7823235 trying to get the best overall compatibility while sticking to somewhat compatible hardware and best performance for said compatibility.

>>7821819
>What is Norton/Volkov Commander

>and emulators would need more resources than you can currently have in a home PC
Cheapest Ryzen APUs today can run PCem up to P3 with Voodoo.

>>7823235
>no SCSI or SATA
Retrotuber tier.

>going with late Pentium 3
Why not just go with Athlon and a board with ISA at this point?

>>7824230
>Retrotuber tier.
they linked a phil video so I don't know what you expected

>>7824230
>Retrotuber

>>7823235
>no memory in the AWE

>>7808985
>>7811478
>>7811479
That's beautiful

>>7824230
>Why not just go with Athlon and a board with ISA at this point?

Hard to find (reasonably priced) Moden PSU's with a 5V rail good enough to run an Athlon system. Even 600Watt PSUs these days only pack 20Amps or less.

Even if it's rated for 20Amps+, some will have regulation issues that will cause 12V rails to go up beyond spec when the 5V rail is loaded.

>>7824498
Seasonic. Running a Athlon XP 3200+ with a modest OC on a budget Seasonic PSU.
Also best Socket A boards use 12V for the CPU VRMs, so I don't get your concern.

>>7824230
>no SCSI
I had SCSI in my Windows 2000 system. It was for a 10000rpm Segate HDD which was used for the OS drive at the time. The many cables inside the machine really affected the airflow so in remaking the system here I opt to just go with the limits of IDE.

>Why not just go with Athlon and a board with ISA at this point?
My Windows 2000 machine, was an Athlon XP. That's the processor. The previous image was for Windows 98SE. Even back then, the Athlon board I had did not have ISA slot.

>>7824379
There is no memory in the AWE because I have not decided which board and sound card to use in the 98 build. The left motherboard has an ISA slot while the right one does not. The left can only handle 1.2Ghz processor while the right can handle the 1.4Ghz processor. The AWE is an ISA card, but maybe the Pro is a better choice if going with ISA for DOS from 98.

>>7824759
>The many cables inside the machine really affected the airflow so in remaking the system here I opt to just go with the limits of IDE.
That's a common bullshit people bring up.

1) Cables in a CASE don't fuck with airflow, since that's why you have a case and fans on the case, it works as a box that air moves thru, cables have barely any volume.

2) There are both SCSI and PATA cables that are NOT flat, even though it doesn't matter for airflow unless you actually block intakes or outlets with the cables.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDCMMf-_ASE
As much as people hate Linus, this is a good example and similar tests have been made by dozens on credible people.

Just as people think cable management is important for airflow, no, it's important for ease of use.

>>7824730
>Also best Socket A boards use 12V for the CPU VRMs
These tend to be newer boards without an ISA slot.

>>7824759
>The AWE is an ISA card, but maybe the Pro is a better choice if going with ISA for DOS from 98.
Just use all the sound cards pictured. You'll have AWE, OPL, EAX and A3D.

>>7824767
I mean if you don't have patience to wait for a good board or don't want to pay out of your ass for one instantly, I guess. Also as mentioned, you won't have any problems running several hundred watts off the 5V rail of modern Seasonic budget PSUs and that's enough. Even with several high end SCSI cards and a OCd Athlon, plus a bunch of PCI cards you'll be hard pressed to draw more than 200W on the 5V.

>>7811482
>>7811478
I don't see the SATA controller
Am I blind or are those different computers? Quite sure that motherboard does not have onboard SATA

>>7824790
>you'll be hard pressed to draw more than 200W on the 5V

I have a hard time believing that even Seasonics would be able to deliver 200W on 5V

>>7824891
>I have a hard time believing that even Seasonics would be able to deliver 200W on 5V
As I said, that's a worst case scenario and even a 25A rated good PSU (since most can easily deliver more than they are rated for), like most Seasonics are, will handle that even 24/7 without any negative effects except life of the PSU itself. The thing is, you'll NEVER be able to load your whole system to get that kind of power draw, it's just theoretical.
Any PSU that is rated for 20A on 5V and had good reviews and comes from a quality brand will handle a Athlon shitbox.

>>7806567
>What would you pick for a 90's retro gaming PC?
I just went full overkill with 1GHz 440bx setup. Shit''s just fine enough to run almost everything from 93 to 2002 butter smooth.

>>7824759
>It was for a 10000rpm Segate HDD which was used for the OS drive at the time.
Just get a bunch of 15k 300GB SCA drives and 5€ 68pin adapters. Costs pennies in total and better than most SCSI and ATA drives.

>The many cables inside the machine really affected the airflow so in remaking the system here I opt to just go with the limits of IDE.
I fail to see how a single SCSI cables with several devices running from controller to drives is worse than two ATA cables running to 2x2 devices? If anything, it's less cable in total.

>Even back then, the Athlon board I had did not have ISA slot.
Plenty of Athlon boards with SB compatible ISA buses though.
There's no need to say Win2k or Win9x, most hardware from that period is fully compatible with both, up until the mid 2000's.

>>7824765
>>7824908
>>7825375
Bro, I don't care about your dumb /g/ shit, I just want to play games

As someone new to dos gaming (and currently using dosbox), is there some knowledgebase for what speeds all these games are supposed to run at? Its hard to tell if somethings running correctly when I dont have prior knowledge

>>7826039
Usually it's pretty obvious, it's like listening to music that sounds too fast, you'd know.
Otherwise, refer to YouTube and someone else playing the game on there.

>>7824209
baste

>>7826039
You can often get it right on feeling, or you could look into the dosbox info page to see how many cycles equal which processor speed, see pic related
For many later DOS games you can leave it on dynamic/max though, they usually have a built-in limiter

>>7827534
Fujitsu made PC-98 compatible laptops??

Bros I have a question.
My stepfather (guy who fucks my mother) gave me his old ass PC to scrap it. Should I bother to do shit with it for some DOS and 98SE games?
https://www.asus.com/supportonly/a7v8xx/HelpDesk_CPU/
I can buy better CPU and RAM, Radeon 9200SE for 15kHz but is it worth the pennies I can throw at it?

>>7828632
Depends if you need it. Almost everything is doable on a modern PC and that machine isn't old enough to be much different than modern PCs.
It could be nice for a low end emulation machine for MAME and other older consoles via TV out on a real CRT TV, either VGA or component/composite (reccomending RGB over composite tho).

>>7806567
My grandma's old home office PC is as weak as it gets for Windows XP which is what she had on it for a long time, but works pretty decent for Win98 and DOS. Has a 633mhz Celeron, a 32MB Geforce2, 512MB of RAM, and a 120GB HDD.

I'm planning to build a companion machine soon for Windows XP, using the same keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers, but with an Intel Core 2 Quad, 4GB of RAM, two 300GB HDD's, and an AMD HD 7770 1GB. Maybe just a bit modern by XP standards but it should run pretty much any game made to run on XP and finding good drivers shouldn't be too much trouble.

>>7828661
Not really, but I'm able to pull the trigger for those games that does not run well on anything that WIN98. I have BVM and CRT monitor, Mister and consoles. I guess Mister will cover most DOS stuff...

>>7824886
It's the shared PCI/ISA slot, you can't easily see it.

My latest acquisition- HP Omnibook XE3

>>7829481

>>7827556
What does the chart mean?

>>7808985
I want a PC case that has that 90s beige while still having a good compromise between those old sleeper PC aesthetics but with good airflow. Not the typical RGB stuff used for yet another Cyberpunk setup.

I want to build a retro pc, In terms of locally available parts Core 2 Duo's are everywhere for dirt cheap, but no Pentium 4's/III's and especially no AMD athlon's/K cpu's. I'm trying to go mid 90's early 2000's gaming. What sort of motherboards do i look out for and from reading this thread Seasonic PSU's are the way to go for power?

>>7830472
That's a 90's race case modded to desktop

>>7830963

>>7830331
Top chart is which emulated DOS machine your own host machine can emulate at max speeds, so if you have a slower host computer you can also expect slower emulation for some demanding late era DOS games. I would say though now we have come to a point where pretty much every DOS game can be played at max speeds if you have a top-end modern CPU.

Second chart is (approximately, because aforementioned host computer speed also matters) showing you how many cycles you need to run Dosbox at to reach a certain equivalent of an old machine, such as 486, 60mhz pentium etc.

>>7806567
>K6-III 450MHz or P3 800MHz?
I recently went from a 400MHz K6-III to a Coppermine 833MHz and the jump in Quake FPS wasn't as big as people here pretend it is, from 90 FPS to 140 FPS.
The bad rep and misunderstandings come from people here confusing K6, K6-II and K6-III and thinking it's all the same K6 and using K6 (not II or III) benchmarks are reference.

>>7830943
Just avoid those s.370 boards that have integrated graphics and no AGP bus, they are cheap but not really worth it

>>7831360
Then why did you switch

>>7831460
Got bored of 90's and wanted to play some early 2000's like Halo and Dungeon Siege, SSE helps a lot with that

>>7830963
>race case
rack*

>>7831518
>833mhz pentium
>Halo
lol

>>7832647
I think minimum requirements is pentium 3 for Halo. But yeah fuck playing Halo with that cpu

>>7832647
>>7832685
Nothing wrong with Halo on that CPU, 833MHz Coppermine with 256k cache is quite faster than the mobile Celeron used in the OG Xbox with 128k cache and 733MHz.
Pair with a nice GeForce4 Ti and you're good to go.

bump

>>7821237
>VIA C3
Have a decommissioned mini-ITX fileserver with one of the suckers clocked at 800mhz, coupled with an intergrated S3 ProSavage GPU. I installed Windows 2000 to take advantage of the full 1GB of RAM (~20% is reserved by the GPU) and to use an OS more modern and robust than Win98.
(98 ran fine, I just had to install the graphics driver by right-clicking the .INF files because the installer was borked)
(XP might work too, I just had a hunch that 2000 might be more lightweight and appropriate for it)

Performance is fairly mediocre for late 90s gaming. Half-Life and Revolt should absolutely fly on a machine from 2002/2003, but they run somewhat choppy at 640x480. If nothing else it runs Midtown Madness at higher settings and the same resolution pretty well. It also runs Battlefield 1942 at ~5-9fps (Bocage, 7 bots) and with a struggling intro FMV. Not playable, but still worth noting.
Will things run better if I shove in a dedicated graphics card, or is the Cyrix-designed CPU just plain inadequate for Windows-era games? I'm pretty tempted to add a P3 Tualathin, as it'd be cheaper than a PCI video card (at least in my region) and do away with the bottlenecks.

>>7834719
You're missing the point, we're talking about old DOS games.

>>7821186
>for older, speed-sensitive DOS games.

>>7834719
>Will things run better if I shove in a dedicated graphics card, or is the Cyrix-designed CPU just plain inadequate for Windows-era games? I'm pretty tempted to add a P3 Tualathin, as it'd be cheaper than a PCI video card (at least in my region) and do away with the bottlenecks.
Both the CPU and GPU suck, the GPU is the bigger bottleneck in your system than the CPU and the reason you're having a bad time, that GPU is worse than a TNT. I'd upgrade both but if you have to get a Voodoo 3 PCI or better.

>>7834741
Yeah, it's a weaksauce rig but there's definitely upgrade potential.
I might replace the irritatingly wide case, but the manufacturer thought it was a good idea to glue the power switch cable right into the motherboard connector.
My Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, RX800 and SB Live setup runs Windows 98SE and every game I've thrown at it very well, I just think it can be fun to mess with a little underdog "project rig" from time to time.
>>7834737
The onboard AC97 chipset has SoundBlaster compatibility for DOS games right in the BIOS menu, I just haven't tested it that much.

>>7834719
via c3 is very slow but it allows for a huge range of finetuning for speed sensitive games

>>7834773
>little underdog
I understand what you mean but calling it underdog is kind of false, the CPU is meant to be cheap office chip and it did well for that and the GPU isn't bad, just old and you have a even slower integrated version than the dedicated card was, again, just as a basic framebuffer.

Year 2000 rig, GeForce2 Ti/Ultra/GTS or GeForce3 Ti?

I mean this is all very cool but I could never justify building a piece of shit PC when I can play all these games on my current PC plus new games.

>>7834907
Read the thread.

True, 99% of the time you're better off with emulation, patches, mods, ports, or VMs. Even if you have to hook up a actual CRT to your modern shitbox.
But it's not just about compatibility, some people prefer the feel too or restrictions, like not being able to alt tab and have distractions or being able to actually deal with the hardware directly, not much different than people using old cards or bikes even though modern ones are faster, more efficient, comfortable, etc.

>>7834907
old pc hardware is fun. If you dont like messing around with it, just emulate.

>>7834907
/g/tards

>>7834910
>>7834907

Not him, but- there a VERY few games that require hardware period specific configurations. If you miss Aureal Vortex, or Processors before they ran older DOS, 95, 98 games too fast (or even EAX in actual hardware mode) I totally get it, but those components aren't cheap like they were 5 years back. More RETRO tech channels keep covering older PC parts because they got bored of the stagnating modern pc market, so its just totally fucked in terms of niche hardware interest. Good luck finding half the stuff the Voodoo build guy earlier in the thread found at a DECENT price. I'm not building some old POS Win 95/ 98 rig for 400 or 500 bucks, but I'd definitely rescue one from a dumpster.

Hope you know how to solder on old capacitors and replace all sorts of components as they continue to die due to old to anon.

>>7834804
I get it, it's just that my question was very tenuously related.
>>7834896
Of course, you don't want a file server or cash register to use more electricity than it really needs. That server's expandability factor was just a side effect of using a standard motherboard.
Expansion slots may not be 100% necessary to a cash register, but the decision to give it a Pentium 233 MMX instead of some equivalent Celeron was probably just a price/supply thing:
https://youtu.be/8D0k8zXNv28
>>7834925
Yeah, the architecture is pretty damn flexible. My aforementioned P4/SB Live build would make a decent daily driver with just a RAM upgrade and newer OS. The mobo also has the same CPU socket as a Core 2, if I'm not mistaken.
I could easily just run XP on it and run 90% of the same titles with minimal compatibility issues, I just wanted the funky desktop themes and a taste of that "birthright" native DOS compatibility.

>>7835059
>Tech Tangents
Based

This is now a retro toober thread

https://www.youtube.com/c/RetroSpector78/videos

should I go with a via chipset or intel??

>>7824759
>10000rpm Segate HDD which was used for the OS drive
I too love reboot, it's my favorite game, hence why I try to make it as quick as possible.

Seriously though, how much are you spending on opening Internet Explorer or booting the machine compared to using it for games? Makes more sense to make the game launch faster / load faster than Windows on old machines like that.

>>7808197
>90's gaming machines
Retro tech is doomed

>>7835324
what?

>>7835059
>The Tiniest Pentium Gaming PC
Pop in a 600MHz K6, a Voodoo 2, a AWE64 and 10k RPM PATA Raptor HDD (or CF card, SD card adapter or SATA bridge to SSD if you're gay) and it's a perfect up-to-late-90's gaming machine. You can probably even fit a 29160 SCSI controller between the Voodoo and AWE if you remove the connector and run a SCSI HDD instead, mad.
Beautiful.

>>7835059
>>7835370
kind of funny how retarded the guy is with the hardware and tries to excuse it for socket 7 being weird, which is just a dumb excuse for being a retard yourself

>>7808197
Why DOS 6.22 and 95 on the same machine? 95 has a real DOS mode that's more versatile than the former. I can't think of any games or software that absolutely require 6.22 aside from some SoundBlaster application (already patched to run on 7.x) or Windows 3.x (can be patched too, but why even bother if you have 95 installed).

>>7835495
Cleaner environments. Native DOS mode with DOS drivers and native Win9x mode with Win9x drivers.

>>7835495
Fucking around with extended memory in 95 is a pain in the ass
Early 3DFX stuff also plays better with MS-DOS 6.22. Some FMV games also require (not need, not want but REQUIRE) Windows 3.11 instead of 95
On top of that 95 drivers tend to suck big dick so DOS ends up having better stability

>>7835370
>You can probably even fit a 29160 SCSI controller between the Voodoo and AWE if you remove the connector and run a SCSI HDD instead, mad.
You're gonna cook any decent SCSI drive in that case.

What's the deal with SCSI? Why do so many people here like it? Why not just use CF cards or modern IDE drives?

>>7806567
What amount of RAM was slightly above average in 2000 but still realistic for a power user? Like 32GB is today.

>>7834910
I'd love to build one of these, but as another anon said, these things are no longer cheap, I have a crt for console gaming and I am a hardwarefag on the whole but I can't find an affordable crt monitor for the life of me and thus can't justify this undertaking cost-wise. Even though I could technically afford it, the benefits are so small, I have to just emulate and play GOG ports of old PC games that win10 can't handle and on my LCD screen unless I stumble across a really good deal.

>>7835818
>these things are no longer cheap
HUNT and PATIENCE.

A Voodoo 2, GeForce3, P3 build with a AWE/SB16 and SCSI, etc for less than 150 eur? Even including a decent VGA CRT and appropriate ATX case/PSU?
Totally doable in a few weeks if you keep your eyes open and bother spending time on it. Heck, even throw a pair of nice PC speakers into that budget and a nice PS/2 kb and mouse.

The bigger problem is that most people don't have space for such setups.

>>7835370
Voodoo 2 limits you to DX6-hardware / DX7-software when it comes to D3D tho and OGL is limited to old MiniGL, a K6 that high end is just wasting money at that point

>>7835519
>>7835630
But you could still boot into real mode DOS without using a floppy or mashing F8 on boot (I'm not talking about that v8086 mode Windows puts you in **by default** when you "return" to DOS via the shutdown menu).
Look at pic related. You could create any custom-tailored DOS environment. You could even modify the behavior of the "Restart in MS-DOS mode" option on the shutdown menu since it was just a shortcut to a PIF file called "Exit to DOS" in the Windows folder. Heck, you could even tell Windows to automatically back up and replace the default CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files with alternates that could be completely barren, filled with networking shit for gaming over IPX, or use whatever memory manager instead of the ones that were bundled with 95. You didn't even need to boot into Windows every time you intended to go back into real-mode DOS; just power on or power off your PC in DOS mode until you typed the word "EXIT".

>Some FMV games also require (not need, not want but REQUIRE) Windows 3.11 instead of 95
Name 3 games that require this. All I remember were games that relied on WinG, which was still around natively until 98SE. The ones that did break under 95 and later usually involved screwing with the color depth if it was above 8-bit mode.
>On top of that 95 drivers tend to suck big dick so DOS ends up having better stability
We're talking about real-mode DOS. 95 drivers would have no involvement here.

>>7836145
I know, that's not the point anon. This is just a official workaround for a problem that doesn't exist when you just have two seperate clean environments.

>>7836145
>You could even modify the behavior of the "Restart in MS-DOS mode" option on the shutdown menu since it was just a shortcut to a PIF file called "Exit to DOS" in the Windows folder.

>needing a GUI for that
>not just editing dosstart .bat and .sys files manually with edit or notepad
And you try to teach others

>>7836145
>>7836150
kek this reminds of people who tell you to use linux and run windows programs with wine and ree when you say you don't want to bother and just run windows instead

>>7836153
found the elite hacker from /g/

>>7836153
>"shiggy-diggy GUIs"
>recommends fucking notepad
if you were really hardcore, you would've recommended editing files involving data cassette tapes with recordings of you whistling.
>>7836150
To each his own, anon. I understand preferring a dual-boot setup with separate, unadulterated environments. Personally, I've always found them to be redundant. Luv my DOS with FAT32 support and loads of disk space. Simple as.

>>7836231
>>"shiggy-diggy GUIs"
>>recommends fucking notepad
edit is a basic dos text editor
notepad is the most basic of gui tools

>if you were really hardcore, you would've recommended editing files involving data cassette tapes with recordings of you whistling.
no reason to be butthurt

>>7836304
>"n-notepad isn't GUI i-it doesn't count"
cope
>no reason to be butthurt
stop projecting

>>7836356
you realize I'm talking about the >>7836145 GUI posted here? I'm running Windows 98 with a GUI, that was the whole point of the post but I think you're thinking I'm against GUIs in general or something
I'm just against retarded GUIs like posted >>7836145 here since just opening notepad and having 80x40 lines of text instead of a small box is way quicker and easier than having to click a dozen time to edit complex startup configurations with 4x40 lines at once

>>>/g/81952184

Someone wanna tell this retard how to recap a board? Jesus Christ.

>>7836384
what's the problem? I don't see any bulging or leaking.

>>7836384
How are they expensive? Are you on ebay.com?
I see them for pennies, specially shitty Slot 1 boards with AGP.
Ask someone with soldering skills to recap it for you, I could tell you to learn to do it but it's pointless, since you're asking anyways.
If you enable CSM, then yes, DOS works perfectly fine on modern boards, even with sound if you have a compatible onboard sound chip (there's a DOS SB emulation driver for HD and AC97 onboard codecs).

>>7836384
>/g/ these days trying to talk "retro computers"
Cringe

>>7836384
He has a P4 board that died? Yeah a lot of motherboards from the Windows XP era have reliability issues like that. I lost two PCs that way back in the day. I think it was related to moving production of them to China and the quality control just wasn't what it used to be, because I had an old original Pentium Dell PC back when the motherboards were still made in the US and that never died in millions of hours of use, sometimes on hot summer days with no air conditioning.

>>7806567
I hate that p3 but I had that k6-iii in 1999 and there was some incompatibility between it and my ATI Rage 128 Pro that neither ATI or AMD could figure out, I ended up with a Athlon 600. CPU and Video Cards developed too quickly and by the time you got something that had been on the market for 2 months it was replaced within a few weeks, I don't miss buying 4 different mobo/proc/video from 1998-2001

>>7811489
Those blue and purple PCBs are beautiful.

>>7811489
>PC GF4ti
>on a G4 mac
But how? Aren't they supposed to have an additional powerlanes to fit the apple version of AGP slot?

>>7808985
>>7811482
I attempted an all in one but I was bound and determined to have P4, SATA, and USB2 for better Windows/IO performance. Which means no ISA. As you can imagine, the DOS compatibility as far as sound goes is the weakest link. Most stuff works through TSR SB emulation, but there's definitely stuff that won't and simply needs an ISA card.
>HP D330ST mainboard
>P4 2.4ghz HT
>1gb DDR
>Gefore 5900XT for that oh-so-often-utilized fog table shit, and it's generally pretty compatible and fast enough to run Nglide/dgvoodoo decently
>128gb SSD with 98 and XP partitions
>Integrated NIC
>IDE 48x CD-ROM, which only gets used for DOS games that only run in pure DOS with CDDA tracks
>YMF744 and SBLive PCI cards, SBLive's a bit more compatible in DOS but the Yamaha has proper FM synthesis which is rare for PCI.
Works fantastically with Win3.1-XP stuff with my 98/XP dualboot though. I just use DOSbox in XP for the DOS shit that stubbornly won't run right, it outputs low res content correctly to my CRT monitor, and the P4 can emulate even the demanding DOS games well enough, no one gotsta know

Also are you sure about that chipset/mobo type? I can't see SATA, USB on any of the ones I found. Which board exactly?

>>7811482
That's so damn good. I did the combo build but opted for a Pentium 4 board with SATA and USB2 as I was just determined to have a little more Windows/IO performance. It even browses and plays Youtube/modern sites comfortably enough in XP via MyPal, so I don't need to do a lot of fucking around on my other PCs to sideload shit. The obvious weak link of my machine is no ISA, though. I can get a lot of DOS shit to play sound, definitely a small amount of games that'll crash with TSR SB emulation. I just emulate what doesn't work in DOSbox in XP, which outputs the native content resolution directly to my CRT no one gotsta know
>HP D330st mainboard
>P4 2.4 ghz HT
>1gb DDR (limited to 64 visible in DOS)
>128gb SATA SSD dual booting 98 and XP
>48x IDE CD-ROM (used only for pure DOS games with CDDA tracks)
>YMF744 + SBlive PCI soundcards. SB's more compatible but YMF has proper hardware FM playback
>GF5900XT for that oh-so-commonly-utilized fog table shit, decent performance, compatibility, and can run Glide wrappers well
I give myself a B for it. Windows is perfect, DOS is a bit crap, though. Oh well. It was and still is fun.

>>7837851
Pretty sure the additional power stuff is only used for the Apple Display Connector
You can totally just flash PC cards to work on PowerMacs
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/

>>7837851
Correct, additional, the card needs to have hardware for it, not the other way around, so PC cards fit nicely and also >>7837887

>>7837346
Dunno about ATi but NVidia has good AMD CPU support from that time, with 3DNow! supported drivers too.

>>7837884
>Pentium 4 board with SATA and USB2
The setup your replying to had SATA and USB 2.0 too, doesn't matter much, the onboard chipsets on the P4 board share the PCI bus too, in the pictured P3 they are just addon cards.
The additional performance of the P4 does unlock a lot of early-mid 2000's games though, but also fucks with older stuff, but as said, you can work around it.
That's a nice setup though.

>>7837919
Yeah, just didn't think of it at the time, and didn't want the CPU to limit early 2000s games/browsing too much. Would I have taken the hit for ISA? Maybe, and I might still build similarly to his eventually, or see if there's something that fits the bill with Athlon.

>>7837851
>Those Roland speakers
based

bump

>>7806647 >>7821129 >>7821209
Was just reading about documented bugs in Dosbox's emulation of Dark Forces; including the final boss's signature attack not working. They probably exist for other games too.

>>7836304 >>7836362
You could have just said "dedicated GUI" or something.

>>7821217
>Oh; can't forget, redbook audio NEEDS a real drive and a disc burnt.
wrong. daemon tools mounts images with audio tracks just fine and they can be played with anything. even DOSBox mounts multi-track CD images correctly.

of course you do know ISO is only a single track and you need to use mdf/mds or something that supports multiple tracks to have working CD audio.

>>7821217
>>7839549
Just use PCem

>>7839582
PCem is garbage since it doesn't actually do proper low-level emulation of graphics cards so you get scrolling issues in DOS games even when emulating a card that shouldn't have them

>>7806585
>supporting tranny software
Supporting? Were you going to pay for it? lol

>>7839610
You're using the proper ROM + ASIC files?

>>7824765
I just remember having an Adaptec SCSI 29160 card, with two flat cables, one 50-pin and one 68-pin, connecting to a CD-ROM drive, CD-RW drive, and the aforementioned 10000RPM HDD back then. Adding an IDE DVD drive in that setup to the mid-tower cases of the day which had power supplies at the top rear did affect the airflow. That's why I intend on settling for modern SSDs connected to a SATA to IDE adapters for the storage solutions to these retro builds. Leaving as few cables as possible (1 optical drive and one SSD) and settling for the maximum limit of IDE should be good enough.

>>7824780
I think it will run out of resources if all the cards were installed. Besides, the left motherboard has only one ISA slot. Probably best to pick one to avoid driver issues or something.

>>7825375
Oh they are just plans for the hardware I kept. The Athlon boards I do have (the purple ECS and this one) lack the ISA slot.

>>7835321
It was just the system I had back then. The only issue I foresee with using a SSD solution to these time machine builds is aligning the old OS to the SSD. Another stumbling block I am thinking maybe that 128GB total storage limit of Windows 98SE allows, which I'm considering a 120GB SSD, but I should probably not partition the whole thing for garbage collection, so what size would be best to accommodate?

>>7821209
>memory configuration
Running the built-in memmaker program in DOS 5.x and newer will let you free up over 600k of conventional RAM outside of having multiple sound cards and special snowflake TSR's you can't load high. With just CD-ROM, mouse, and sound card drivers, you can easily get 615k free of the 640k, which will run 99.9999% of DOS games just fine. The few DOS games that are a bitch to setup for usually require you to run off of a special boot disk anyways. Ultima 7, I'm looking at you.

>CPU speed adjustment
Only two era's of games require that. The original 8088/8086 era where it expects it to run at 4.77mhz with no L2 cache, and the 386 era where it expects around 20-33mhz with no L2 cache. Very few people are actually playing the former since it's mostly text and CGA graphics, and the latter is easily achieved with freeware DOS programs that can eat CPU cycles to slow it down to the correct range, or in many cases by using BIOS settings to disable the L2 cache.

>and sound card jankery.
You use a Pro if you want OPL2, or a Pro v2 if you want OPL3. You don't use newer cards designed for Windows(16, AWE32). You only use an older card if you only have an 8-bit ISA port for your sound card. What is the issue here?

>>7840881
>mem
Yeah it's not so bad once you figure it out, but you DO have to figure it out, and you still want boot scripts for XMS, EMS, and conventional memory as one won't fit all. Don't act like this came quickly to you and didn't take fucking with over time.
>CPU speed
You gotta run the game, exit it, then dick around with the BIOS and those speed programs and sometimes you still can't get it running smoothly or correctly. Wing Commander comes to mind
>sound/isa
ISA limits just how powerful a multi-era machine can be to about Pentium 3, and that's annoying, but yeah, it's probably something you want to build for anyway.

Yes, GENERALLY DOS is fine so long as you have the right hardware, but the exceptions stick out, aren't so rare, and they are irritating. DOSbox has none of these issues and no real drawbacks. Building for DOS is just something to do for the hell of it anymore. 9x and XP on the other hand, the emulation/virtualization options aren't so hot for.

>>7839317
Link to said documentation? Does it apply to the latest builds?

>>7840881
>Only two era's of games require that. The original 8088/8086 era where it expects it to run at 4.77mhz with no L2 cache, and the 386 era where it expects around 20-33mhz with no L2 cache.
I don't think Dark Forces and Descent are 386 era, and they both have CPU-dependent behavior.

>Very few people are actually playing the former since it's mostly text and CGA graphics
stfu

>>7840902
>9x and XP on the other hand, the emulation/virtualization options aren't so hot for.
Are >>7806647 and >>7821129 wrong, then?

>>7840968
I'm actually the latter person, and you CAN run any game Win9x/2000s XP game in modern Windows but it will finding out which is best among all those options. It's not the best situation, but you CAN do it.

>>7840968
I'm actually the latter person, and you CAN run any Win9x/2000s XP game in modern Windows but it will require finding out which is best among the options I pointed out. It's not the best situation, but it is possible.

>>7841058
I'll hope I can find a solution for Battlefield 1942 next time I try it, I guess. And other games like Crimson Skies or Shadow of the Horned Rat if I want to try them.

>>7841092
Battlefield 1942 was updated to run on Windows 10 and got support for HD resolutions and even enables online play again thanks to a new masterserver, you can find the installer here:
https://mega.nz/folder/CldGAahb#yn_8LkRHraywPgKJMp5pqA
Also shitload of DOS games and many other Win9.x games that work right off the bat.

>>7841141
Thanks. I feel stupid for buying a hard copy now.

>>7840916
There are a number of bugs that can occur due to CPU cycles.
These are not so much bugs in Dosbox as bugs in Dark Forces and Dosbox running faster than the PCs at the time.
If you run on max cycles you'll encounter:
Chirps in the audio
Extremely slow movement on ice if you hit a wall
Mohc's homing missiles being stationary
Being unable to pass through narrow gaps you should be able to
And maybr some more.
If you play on low cycles (say 10,000) you can wall jump and do other things you shouldn't.

The sweet spot seems to be between 50,000 and 70,000. Some custom maps will be a bit chuggy still, but you can adjust the cycles in game as needed. I usually play on 100,000 myself.

>>7840902
>you still want boot scripts for XMS, EMS, and conventional memory as one won't fit all.
Using memmaker you can get both XMS AND EMS, and enough conventional to run 99% of DOS games. The ones you can't, are like Ultima 7 and were always a bitch to run.
>Don't act like this came quickly to you and didn't take fucking with over time.
I read the release notes that came with the 6.22 update disk. It mentioned Memmaker, I ran it, magic was had. Never directly fucked with autoexec.bat and config.sys until years later. If you didn't read the manual in the DOS days, you were going to end up fucking yourself. If you've ever installed DOS 6.x, there's a splash screen during the install that brags about memmaker being easy to use. This isn't some hidden knowledge only known by skilled DOS users.
>no real drawbacks
You can't use any mod tools or non-game applications without severe issues. Wanna edit DOS games using DOS era tools? Wanna use game builders or map editors? Good luck in DOSbox, shit can break at any time. This is known to the DOSbox devs and they have zero desire to fix the issues. They say full well DOSbox isn't suited for anything that isn't a game itself.

>>7840568
>I think it will run out of resources if all the cards were installed.
Hmm >>7811478

>>7841058
Windows 10 has actually really good compatibility itself already.
I'd argue that you'd always have a better experience when configured right than on target hardware.

>>7840902
>Don't act like this came quickly to you and didn't take fucking with over time.
>people that don't read manuals
How old are you? Just curious

>ISA limits just how powerful a multi-era machine can be to about Pentium 3
You realize plenty of newer machines have actual (SB compatible) ISA buses and slots?

>>7841176
Thank you. I'll keep that in mind if I play it.

>>7841374
Alright. I'll bite. Literally how? Every time I try running with XMS, EMS won't work, and vice versa. This has been the case for me with both jemmex and emm386/himem.

>>7841525
I'll bite again, literally which? Are you talking about the SB header or newer/P4+ boards with ISA actual ISA slots?

>>7841525
I'll bite again, literally which? Are you talking about the SB header or newer/P4+ boards with ISA actual ISA slots? Boards/chipsets with ISA slots beyond that point are black swan at best, but post your weirdo examples I guess. I'm sure they're common, have no compatibility issues, and are easy to find/buy.

>>7841870
Not anon but that's obviously your own fault and not because those things don't work in general.

>>7841887
Answer the fucking question then. EMS has always disabled XMS and vice versa for me, faggot. Enlighten me and everyone else.

>>7841876
>>7841886
SB Header if for PCI cards, not ISA cards.

I don't know why you're asking me for proper ISA bused P4 chipsets when Google exist, plenty of the average YouTube, like even Phil have covered them.

Honestly I could go and take pictures from my storage boxes of boards I've tested myself but I don't know why I should, just curious, convince me.

>and are easy to find/buy.
No good hardware is, it's either rare and if you want it now, you're going to pay a lot or if you want it cheap you'll have to check for weeks to get quick on a good deal.
It doesn't matter if it's 486, K6, Pentium 4, etc. The most common hardware is always the most value stuff that wasn't good even back in the day.

>>7841897
If you're lazy use Windows 9x and let it do all the memory configuration for DOS for you.
If you press F8 turning 9x startup and select "Command Prompt Only" and type in "mem", you'll see you have all available conventional, EMS and XMS memory available and already configured (mostly) for maximum use.

>>7841903
Yeah, exactly, so you're talking about black swan shit, and there's a reason most DOS machines cut off at Pentium 3/early Athlon. You're just being contrarian.

>>7841912
Most DOS machines with P3 and Athlon use same common shit hardware cheap too.
The point was that those boards are acquirable and if you're doing a build, I don't think waiting 2 weeks to pay 15 bucks for a proper P4 board with ISA is too much?

So yeah, ISA is definitely not the limiting factor here if you want to build a machine that covers a wider era, your laziness and/or lack of knowledge is.

>>7841921
Building for multiple eras is not a lazy endeavor, and I simply don't want to build another for DOS alone. It's extremely well emulated compared to Windows 9x/XP. One desk/area for a retro PC is enough. Insult me for that too I guess.

>>7841929
I understand your point and it's as valid as any other but I'm only insulting you for your own dumb posts.

>>7841934
Dude, P4 boards with ISA are going to be janky/russky lowend shit. Fuck your dumb posts.

>>7841948
Why would you think like that? Because "ISA IS OLD"?

Most are industrial use boards using very good chipsets and high quality construction, also costed a pretty penny back in the day.
They are the opposite of "janky lowend shit", most of the emerging "gamer" hardware that started to come out turning that time is the janky shit that mostly broke and the ones alive today are the exceptions, not the industrial boards that have ran for 20 years in some places.

>>7841951
You're just being an asshole. Post your fucking DOS-XP P4/A64 ISA build that works. Pretty much no one, even on autist forums like vogons, fucking does this.

>>7841954
not anon but vogons have dozens of super autistic builds like that

>>7841956
Post.

>>7841954
>everyone who doesn't agree with me or disproves me is an asshole
I don't have any builds right now, all my hardware is mostly boxed up as parts, I've played around with hardware for decades, the few PC related /vr/ games I still like to play from time to time work fine on modern hardware.

I don't see what my hardware has to do with this anyways, I've done it, sure but the argument was that ISA is a limiting factor, while it's not. But I guess people are spoiled with picking up low wned VIA chipset Pentium 3's and popping ISA cards into them instead of planning a good build and taking time to gather hardware for it.

>>7841956
>>7841958
I agree, post some builds, even if it's just for fun.
I know they exist, as I mentioned before, even Phil had content about it but I'm out of the loop with modern Vogons.

>>7841958
>>7841962
https://www.google.com/search?q=pentium+4+isa+build+vogons
have fun

>>7841962
Yeah no shit you can run any game on any thing given the right software but I'm talking about a PC that will run ISA soundblaster cards properly, which is important if you're hardwarefagging DOS. It is NOT FUCKING COMMON to do on anything beyond P3/early Athlon. That's my fucking point.

>>7841967
>one of the first results is a topic about a P4 chipset with a ISA bus that supports DDMA
If people only knew Google existed.

>>7841969
It's not common, because P3/early Athlon hardware is more widespread. But people have definitely done that. I've done builds capable of that myself too.
I even remember a friend having a P4HT build with ISA over 15 years ago that he used for a AWE32, so not only now but back in the day already.

>>7841975
You obviously haven't read far enough into those posts to see what else is necessary, like insane ISA bridge cards, or don't meet all the criteria.

>>7841975
why are you still arguing with them? just ignore

>>7841981
The only problem is boards that don't support DDMA, which majority of P4 boards with ISA are, hence why the myth that P4 can't have a ISA sound card is so widespread, if you know what you're doing and know what board you need, you'll have the same experience than a P3 board.

>>7841982
I'm not even the original anon though

>needing ISA
...you can run a old ISA Sound Blaster card from a Parallel port with some additional circuitry and a very basic driver that remaps the addresses and interrupts even on a modern motherboard in CSM mode

>all this uber-fringe shit pitched as yOu CaN ToTTallY run ISA cards on P4+ machines
There's a reason hardly anyone fucking does it though. Any bullshit .0001% exception or costly board to make a point though, eh?

>>7841909
I literally did that, RIGHT now with 98, and no EMS was listed in 'mem', allocated it all to XMS. It ONLY sets up EMS if you flag for it you lying fucking asshole.

>>7842004
>>yOu CaN ToTTallY run ISA cards on P4+ machines
Correct. You can run MOST cards on any P4 with a ISA slot but sound cards require boards that have ISA slots with DDMA support.

>There's a reason hardly anyone fucking does it though.
Of course.
Boards are not as widespread or easy to find and those that are are mostly expensive.
If you want to do a P4 build with working ISA sound card, you have to spend either time or money or both.

> Any bullshit .0001% exception or costly board to make a point though, eh?
The point was that ISA is not the limiting factor. That's where this argument stated, most people just use P3 or early Athlon since super widespread and requires little knowhow, it's hard to go wrong with a P3 board with ISA and a sound card.
I'd easily make a bet I can find a compatible board in less than 2 weeks for less than 20 euros. I don't think that makes it a limiting factor.

>>7842015
>It ONLY sets up EMS if you flag for it you lying fucking asshole.
so it does work? great

>>7842019
You're lucky I hate work enough to feed you so much; you know what I was asking for. You were supposed to tell me how to get XMS/EMS at the same time because I'm so retarded. Help me.

>>7842024
I still don't get your point to be honest.
What do you even need EMS for if you have XMS? Or are you confusing EMS with UMA?
EMS is used to bank switch more memory on 8-bit bus systems that could not directly address more than 1MB, anything that can use XMS can address more anyways and EMS becomes irrelevant. You can still use UMA though, with EMM386. For XMS you use himem though.

>>7842048
Some games will not launch without EMS allocated and vice versa. Enabling one shuts off the other. That's the problem, you have to reboot and ideally have boot scripts for both to make it more convenient, like I said. This isn't an issue in a 9x or DOSbox environment, but I've never found a way to get both working simultaneously in pure DOS.

>>7842051
Windows 9x should do that for you.
I remember games like Dune having that problem, indeed, but when you launched them under Windows, it configured it to EMS or XMS automatically, no reboot needed either.

>>7842057
Well, you remember wrong. A plain undoctored "command line only" will give you XMS. Manually setting up for EMS will shut off XMS. I just did it, on hardware.

>>7842065
No, I said Windows 9x, you have to launch the program from Windows itself.

I think what you need is the startup package for DOS/Windows from PhilsComputerLab.
He has startup scripts with programs that give you a menu on starting the computer to pick either "DOS, DOS with UMS and/or EMS or XMS, Windows, etc, etc".

He has that pack on his site. Good luck.

>>7842072
I have something like that already set up. I was asking about pure DOS though the whole time. Getting XMS/EMS working in a general run, without reboot for all programs to run whenever you want, is not possible in pure DOS as far as I know. I'd like to be proven wrong in that way, but that thing you posted is what I've been suggesting is necessary for XMS/EMS configuration. You can have one or the other per session, but not both.

>>7841870
Use EMS386 with the AUTO flag and RAM flag. It won't activate EMS until a program calls for it, and XMS will be available when EMS isn't asked for. EMS will get pulled from the XMS when required, so you get to have both. Pic related. XMS AND EMS, 618k conventional free, and I rarely have a game not run, usually stuff like Ultima 7 that requires a special snowflake boot disc anyways. I thought the lack of UMB's would be a problem, but I have yet to encounter a game that complained about it.

>>7842137
This is what you get with Windows 9x too when you run games from that.
That's why I was confused since my Command Line Only mode looks like your screenshot when I type mem.

>>7842156
Hence why my Dune works without any configuration for EMS but games like Quake do too.

>>7842137
Thank you. I will try it.

>>7841975
Heck, I've seen socket 775 boards with 2 ISA 16-bit slots. You could go as far as a Core2Quad DOS machine on the high end if you really wanted. The motherboards are about $400, but the option is there.

>>7842195
Odds are memmaker will do most of the legwork for you, you might only need to set the AUTO flag when it's done.

>>7842250
Nooo that's not true delete this post

>>7842250
You do that. You buy that board. Be the ultimate patrician and win at 4chan.

>>7842137
Neat, used a combination of this and himemx to limit my memory visibility to 64m for compatibility's sake. Haven't run a bunch of stuff to see how well it plays along, but it's good to know.

>>7842250
There's even brand new boards based on modern CPUs with ISA slots.
Unfortunately you haven't been able to get a real ISA slot with an Intel or AMD CPU since Socket A days due to modern boards using a bridge chip for the ISA which lacks DMA capability.
No DMA = no sound in most DOS games with a Sound Blaster

>>7842550
There used to be /retro/ threads on /g/ and several people had such builds already and that was like 6-7 years ago.

>>7842676
The problem isn't even DMA itself, it's Direct DMA capability and those modern boards indeed don't have that.
The P4 and Core boards being talked about still had DDMA, more common with P4 ISA boards, very rare with Core ones.

>>7842137
Coulda sworn some games still stop me if they see EMS even with these conditions, and that's what I may be thinking of instead of having both on, but eh I don't remember which ones and I'll have to get back to you on that.

>>7841524
If "configured right" is stretched as far as hacking or replacing the game engine or using straight-up emulation, maybe. And even then, it's possible to not even know that it's not "configured right".

>>7809968
The sheer premise of this thread, with 450 and 800 being considered "90s retro" is painful by default.

>>7846184
No, I mean just using the original game files and binary. Plenty of mid to late 90's games work fine with 64bit Windows 10.
Point was that the compatibility has even improved compared to Windows 7 for example.
Most D3D and DDraw stuff has no problems.

And I'm talking about original Windows 10 compatibility.

There's projects that add native, transparent, Win16 and DOS support on 64bit Windows (no DOSBox, more like Wine). Overbust those aren't always as compatible though.
Love the ability to just play Chip's Challenge natively like I'm running Windows 3.1 though.

>>7846241
Technically late 90's. Intel still made 800 Mhz in '99.
Most of the 90's were 33 - 400 Mhz though.

>>7841912
Is that black shit from a swan, or shit from a black swan?