/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8561130
Some thrift stores still sell them. My nearby Savers often has one or two old XP-Win7 era towers.

>>8561130
Vintage PC parts tend to be pricy these days. Your best bet is looking locally on Craigslist or somewhere where old electronics are recycled with ebay being a last resort because of the prices. I would definitely go for buying a complete PC then adding or removing components as it saves money and time in this case.

>>8561130
In addition to this, >>8561180, you can search for PC cases on eBay and a lot of them still have most of the parts.

>>8561130
Have you considered using a virtual machine?

>>8561203
oh yeah I forgot those exist

>>8561203
>>8561217
Games will be a hit and miss when running on a VM.

If you live in Freedomland, I can almost guarantee your local classifieds (Craigslist, FB Marketplace, OfferUp, etc) will have one. If you want an XP do-it-all, get a Pentium 4 machine (cheap due to low collectability), then max the RAM and get an appropriate GPU. All of this should cost less than $100.

>Pic kinda related, my Duron build with Win 98 and XP

>>8561242
that's beautiful. Nowadays you have to get an external DVD/Blu-Ray drive

If you really have a reason to own legacy hardware you should already be swimming in it.

>>8561242
>get a Pentium 4 machine
Most P4 machines are in dire need of recapping due to shitty caps being used by Intel and the manufacturers if memory serves. Might be better off getting an old AMD and using that.

>>8561242
p4 pcs got hit by the RETRO RARE VINTAGE bug a while ago too, even though historically they were the butt monkeys of old shitty computers :(

>>8561242
Do you know the brand/manufacturer number/etc of that case? We had the exact same ones growing up, except they were purple and green varieties.

>>8561130
Look in unexpected places and you can still get them for free or next to nothing. Call local shops, factories, law firms, check thrift or e-recycle centers if you might have one nearby.
Some places might have a stockpile of old P4 Dell Optiplexes. They were everywhere.

>>8561241
I've personally never had an issue

>>8561351
Unfortunately not. Funny enough though, there’s a very recent post on r/retrobattlestations with a link to the same case, plus a bunch of other neat ones.

>>8561334
Also eBay prices are a meme. Local is the answer. I know not everyone is going to be so lucky, but there’s no fewer than 6 mediocre P4/C2D towers on my local CL for under $40.

>>8561334
Almost all computers sold on eBay is "retro". People will sell a stock Windows XP shit box and ask for a lot for it. Shit boxes with Celerons, 128MB/256MB RAM, and onboard Intel Graphics as "Retro Gaming Machine"

>>8561491
This. Hell I found a Vista era machine in the dumpster that has a Quad Core AMD, 8GB DDR2, 640GB SATA, Onboard ATI Video. Going to use it for a XP Pro machine running the 64bit version.

Windows XP can be installed on a lot of different systems. I got a i7 2600 Dell for free right before the wuflu hit and it runs XP perfect.

>>8561626
I think hardware drivers is the main concern.

>>8561130
I actually built a christmas 2006 style XP build a couple years ago.

Sorry to sound like a retard, but I'm genuinely curious as I've seen a lot of retro computing lately.
What's the appeal of old PCs? Is it just the look of them? Or the fact that running shit like XP or 98 with modern parts is a nightmare?
Do you guys just use them for older PC games or other things too?

>>8561874
>older PC games
This. It's 100% nostalgia.

>>8561874
Some people just like owning old metal and plastic. They know they can just use VMs to play old games, but that's not enough for them

XP-era software and beyond can, in theory, be run relatively problem-free on modern hardware running current Windows but YMMV.

I would start at >>8561203 and then only pursue a vintage XP-class machine if you're just not satisfied. I built an XP machine recently but that was mostly because I already had a good GPU for such a project and I had a case I thought would make sense for such a build so I figured why not. It's about as good as an XP machine can be (kind of Frankenstein but certainly the most capable you could find running in an XP environment).

9x and prior I would say go for the good stuff. There are certain nuances that you just can't replicate on modern hardware (audio is the thing that sticks out most to me).

>>8562140
As someone with an excess of 90s computer hardware, dosbox-x is actually amazingly capable of reproducing a solid windows 98 environment.

>>8562158
I actually hadn't heard of this. I thought the only solution out there for 9x emulation was a full-on VM or PCem (which is apparently dead).

>>8562175
And apparently PCem is not dead, it just got moved to a new maintainer.

Oh well, guess we'll see where that goes...

Does anyone know how well a Core Solo processor will work with older titles? I noticed it was a 32 bit processor released at a time when everything else moved onto 64 bit

>>8561626
XP was regarded as officially supported until third gen Core i-series CPUs (I built a system on an Ivy Bridge CPU to run POSReady 2009 in its final year -- it runs Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro now).

Old PC hardware specially Pentium 4 is a huge pain, 478 is the shittiest socket ever and all the Asrock motherboards are dying, good luck running a Pentium 4 Prescott under 55º C even during winter.
Just get any 775 board, a Pentium 4 Prescott 775 which will run much cooler, DDR2 600 and whatever wankfest graphics card you can get and presto you have a XP machine.

You can find tons of XP machines on Craigslist/Facebook market for free or next to nothing. Grab them now because in a few years they will be just like W95/98 machines and fall victim to retro assrape prices.

There's no reason to go Pentium 4/Athlon XP era hardware, you can run XP on modern hardware without any issues, any system that supports DDR3 should be fine, just don't go over 4GB.

>>8561130
Why would you run XP for old games? Literally all games for XP will run on modern Windows, either natively or have patches.
It makes sense you'd build a Win9x machine for DOS, Win16 and Win32 games also with native API support for Glide, EAX, A3D, etc.

>>8561180
>>8561189
eBay and local online marketplaces are totally fine, as long as you give yourself time and know what to search for.
You can even get Voodoo 2's, SS7 boards, AWE cards, etc, etc, for a couple euros each if you don't expect to find them straight away but spend 5 minutes every evening going thru new listings related to what you're looking, also search for writing on the parts and not the common part names plus go thru bulk sales.

>>8561203
VMs and API wrappers are hit and miss, never 100% compatibility.
Plus that's still "emulation", same argument as real hardware vs emulation exists, a real CRT and proper era-appropriate parts add to the experience.

>>8561626
>>8562210
Anything with CSM will still run XP, just pop in a graphics and sound card with drivers and set your SATA to IDE mode if native SATA drivers for the board don't exist and off you go.
But again, making a dedicated XP machine if you already have a moden computer is pointless.

>>8561874
It's been a thing for years, /g/ had retro threads 10 years ago already, but for the past few years, it's been the "new cool thing" on reddit.

>>8562134
VMs blow for gaming and you know it.

>>8562207
Should be OK if the clock speed is decent, core solos are pretty anemic but most older games don't use more than 1 core afaik.

>>8562207
Even a P4 will run anything up to 2010 fine.

>>8561690
Hell yeah, brother. Christmas 2006 was exactly when I built a computer. Back then I opted for the K9N Diamond instead of the one you have there because I had to cheap out on a sound card, but the Diamond one had a Creative Audigy on the mainboard. I wish I never threw out the Superflower TT-201 case it was in, even found its matching power supply. Looks like I also threw out the ridiculous Zalman circular cooler too, which was cuts to hands at all angles, but it was part of the looks of the time.

>>8561241
not when you're running a game that needs windows XP to run

>>8562207
I never saw Core Solo CPUs. I think the only time I ever had one was when I got a Sony Vaio VGN-UX380N and it had a Core Solo in it but that was long after it had faded into irrelevance.

>>8562625
uh oh bulging caps

>>8562175
I ran 3.x in vanilla dosbox years ago and thought it was just a neat thing, but after getting a hankering to play SimCopter recently I set up a 98 vm just to find out that it ran too fast even on a c2d. VB doesn’t have a way to slow down the virtualized processor, which led me back to thinking about dosbox. Lo and behold dosbox-x has a whole fucking wiki dedicated to getting 9x running with sb16 and voodoo emulation. It was easy as pie and works phenomenally.

>>8562634
fffffff ... I did not even notice, thanks for the help. I have to start learning Chinese so I can understand how to use this stuff. I also got to figure out the components and save up for the materials to fix it. So sad to see these things in storage just go like this.

>>8562674
I should get one of these but I think I need to get the balls to just practice soldering itself before bothering with the big boy toys.

>>8562682
Get the Pinecil, it's cheap and excellent. I need to get a de-soldering gun one of these days as well.

>>8561130
if you want an XP specific machine and you're not looking to dual-boot into 98 or play DOS games, you're better off getting an i7 4790, the best micro ATX motherboard you can for it with a free PCI and PCI-E slot, a GTX 750ti and a PCI sound card that supports hardware accelerated 3D Audio like an Sound Blaster Audigy ZS.

When it comes to XP games, they're not speed sensitive and you can always disable 3 cores on the CPU to go strictly single-core.

In fact, you could do this with an ITX build and a Quadro K1200 GPU and play like 99% of XP games on max settings.

>>8562682
Same. The youtube video is so long and boring in that 60/70s style cadence which just puts me to sleep more than instructs. I've got solder, wicks, flux pens, ventilation fan, etc. in my Amazon wishlist, but never have found the time nor money to just jump in. That youtube video is like the biggest hurdle and I'm getting filtered. I've considered trying to change out keyboard switches as a good first project to learn before I attempt repairing that motherboard.

>>8562682
This is the desoldering gun you want with the station.

https://www.banggood.com/ProsKit-SS-331H-Electric-Solder-Sucker-Desoldering-Device-Anti-static-High-Power-Strong-Suction-Desoldering-Pump-for-PCB-Circuit-Board-Repair-p-1375060.html

The replacement gun is around 34€.

>>8561130
I just took shit home from the office when no one wanted to use it any more. Company was a developer so it was all high end stuff in it's day.
I can't imagine having to pay the ebay hipster tax on that shit today.

>>8561130
I really like that case.

I think I've got one like that in the garage in case I want to build a sleeper but it's black, not white.

>>8561130
with virtualization is this even necessary outside of coomlecting? genuinely curious

>>8561874
I never understood the appeal either. Between a VM, DOSBox and patches to play on newer OSs, I never had any issues playing the games I played as a kid.
I still have some old hardware collecting dust and I hope I never have to turn them on again.

>>8562915
This is the way to do it. I didn't buy a "new" computer from 2014 - 2018 because I could just take decommissioned stuff from the various jobs I had. Even if you buy this kind of gear from resellers on eBay it's still quite cheap. Old Lenovo and Dell workstations, etc can do pretty much whatever you need them to.

>>8562701
>When it comes to XP games, they're not speed sensitive

Well I don't know about that. I had problems with this game running too fast, for instance.

>>8562905
you don't really need a desoldering gun if you're just replacing caps. They're two pins; melt one and pull it out, melt the other and pull it out. maybe dab up the leftover solder with some wick after if you're feeling fancy. i managed it easily with my broke-dick $15 harbor freight iron and my soldering skills basically don't exist at all.

>>8563134
VMs have limits. Early Windows games can't use 3D acceleration in VMs (that I know of), EAX and A3D are not supported either.

>>8561130
I like how XP itself and it's games are retro now since 90% of people here are 18 - 28 and XP is their first OS.

>>8563258
What? PCem and DOSBox-X can even emulate Voodoo cards, yet alone OpenGL/D3D.
But wrappers for glide, EAX, A3D, etc exist.

Compatibility can be a problem, but so is it with real hardware too.
The real argument for real hardware is the feel and that's as valid as any, if not the most.

>>8563245
Depends on what you're working, cleaning the solder from the through-holes can be quite challenging in some cases like motherboards. Desoldering is the easy part, cleaning up is where the gun comes handy. Above all getting AMTECH NC-559-ASM is the most important thing you can get, it makes a huge difference.

>>8563134
fun to tinker with real hardware and their different quirks they have

>>8562465
If you have a shit PC, sure
Displaying a VM on a CRT monitor is true kino though

>>8564481
This.

>tfw external PCIe box with 4 slots and PCIe hub
>Have PCIe to PCI adapters in each slot and PCI to AGP in one
>GeForce 4 4600 in the AGP to PCI to PCIe slot
>Voodoo 2 in the PCI to PCIe adapter slot
>Audigy 2 in the PCI to PCIe adapter sott
>PS2 + USB combo PCI card in PCI to PCIe adapter slot
>tfw it counts as single PCIe root in the IOMMU
>pass the all thru into a Windows 9x VM and they work like native PCI and AGP devices
>hooked up separate keyboard, mouse and CRT to the external PCIe box
Sure, the PCIe/PCI and hub hardware itself costs more than a decent retro PC but it's kino af.

>>8562207
>>8562632
Core Solo was mostly in laptops immediately following the Pentium M era. Performance between the two is similar. They're dual-cores like the C2D but only one core is active by design. They are also 32-bit only.

>>8564510
That's radical, but at that point, why not stick it in a case? Seems strange to me to run all that passthrough, are you saving space or just think it's cool as shit?

>>8564479
No, unacceptable, you are killing the planet and ruining the hobby for everyone else.

>>8564576
Both, the external PCIe box isn't big, just a small power supply with PCI/PCIe slots.

Pentium 4 laptop, doubles as an heater.

>>8563982
>cleaning the solder from the through-holes
Solder wick and flux, cleans vias fine
The better you are with an iron, the less you need, you hear people bitching about solder pump pens a lot for example, even though they are totally valid and work great, if you know how to use it

Doesn't matter you shouldn't use a desoldering gun, there's no point in making your life harder

>>8564689
neat, thanks anon.

>>8564764
>weighs 800 lbs
>needs a full-sized desk reinforced with steel brackets to hold it
>upgrading Windows XP to SP2 makes the fans stay on overdrive permanently
>nice screens sometimes

>>8561130
I might be easier to run a virtual machine with Windows XP at this point

>>8566670
What's the point in having a XP VM or machine in general?

A while back I trash picked a Dell 990. i7 2600 and I added a GTX 960, they both have XP drivers. I dual boot windows 10 and xp just because I only have space for one pc setup in my game room. Down the road when I get a bigger space ok debating making a win98/DOS machine but with all the tools they have on XP I'm trying to think of a game that can't run on XP. Plus dosbox is very very good.

I gotta say, going back to a buckling spring keyboard has been hard. I've been using cherry black switches for so long I'm struggling going back to a big chunky buckling spring keyboard

>>8566693
There is certain games ,software that won't work on VM or modern PC ,the only way to get em working without it being a major project is Old Metal

>>8566697
Cool rig anon, dual booting like that is a nifty solution.

>>8566702
None of which are XP era games, your point?

>>8561130
Call up recycle centers near you and say you want to buy scrap off them. Some will say no but the ones that say theyll let you will charge based off only the weight of the object. So if you find a pretty nice machine it probably wont cost you much.

>>8566742
Thanks, got a old computer case to put it in too. Gonna be real nice

>>8566693
so you won't have to buy an old working pc

>>8566670
whoops I didn't read this >>8561203

Here is my proposal.
1. Download VMWare for free
https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-player/workstation-player-evaluation.html
2. Download Windows XP ISO if you don't already have one
3. Open VMWare, start a new virtual machine using that Win XP iso

From there you can play the same on there

>>8566819
Why would you buy a XP machine though?

>>8566830
VMware sucks for gaming, plus why XP?
Use KVM with a real GPU passthrough that's supported by the OS, otherwise enjoy your horrible latency.

>>8566836
op anon asked for obtaining a legacy pc for playing old pc games. I was saying you could just run virtual machine with your existing hardware. It would be cheaper

>>8566920
OP specifically said XP machine, not legacy machine.

>>8566840
Anon..... come on
>VMware sucks for gaming,
Its the only good VM software for gaming. It has full Dx1-11 acceleration and OpenGL acceleration as well. It works with XP. Also the latency is rather good with VMware Workstation, I've played plenty of action games and FPSs in it.
>plus why XP?
Many older games don't run correctly on Vista and later. XP is a nice sweet spot that also has good compatibility with 95/98 era stuff too (although not perfect, but MUCH better then Vista/7/10)
>Use KVM with a real GPU passthrough that's supported by the OS,
You'd have to forward a GPU that XP can even have drivers for, and most (older) PCI-E GPUs get stuck in a hung power state when attempting to be forwarded. Forwarding GPUs is only really reliable with the past few generations of chips, none of which would have XP compatibility. You'd have to find an old workstation card for this to work reliably.

>>8567332
>Its the only good VM software for gaming. It has full Dx1-11 acceleration and OpenGL acceleration as well. It works with XP. Also the latency is rather good with VMware Workstation, I've played plenty of action games and FPSs in it.
For most of /vr/ you'd want PCem. VMware isn't that great and doesn't offer that good compatibility either.

>Many older games don't run correctly on Vista and later. XP is a nice sweet spot that also has good compatibility with 95/98 era stuff too (although not perfect, but MUCH better then Vista/7/10)
Then build a 9x machine, XP will have plenty of problems too, while modern OSes actually have better compatibility layers and patches available, both first and third party.

>You'd have to forward a GPU that XP can even have drivers for, and most (older) PCI-E GPUs get stuck in a hung power state when attempting to be forwarded.
You didn't even read the post you're replying to?
See >>8566840
>that's supported by the OS

>Forwarding GPUs is only really reliable with the past few generations of chips, none of which would have XP compatibility.
Not really, everything from PCI to AGP with PCI to PCIe adapters works fine, it's built to do this, the IOMMU doesn't care if it's a GPU or something else.

>You'd have to find an old workstation card for this to work reliably.
No? Literally any card can be passed thru, where are you taking this from? I think you're thinking of modern Nvidia cards where they mostly lock new GeForce cards so people buy Quadro, XP era drivers and GPUs, even Nvidia's, didn't have this.

>>8566830
>>8567332

>>8566836
because it amuses me to do so; stop me if you can slapnuts

>>8561130
thinkpad t41

>>8564510
Model recommendations? This stuff seems really sketchy.

>>8568794
Literally the only person I've ever heard use "slapnuts" was Jeff Jarrett in WCW...

>>8568794
One thing is to be amused by building computers, that's not related to building good hardware combinations for /vr/ purposes.
Both are valid reasons though, but maybe you should go to /g/ instead.

>>8561130
literally, here you can just grab a XP pc with 15-30€. Or just go to the nearest recycling center and take 1, 2 or 5.

>>8568794
>slapnuts
Wow, I bet it's been 20 years since I heard this.

I needed a new case for my newish 5 years old fm2+ motherboard, which has native XP drivers. And since new cases are ugly as hell and I like the style of late 90's - early millenium, I went for a picrel PC from ebay. Planning on dual-booting that baby, and using two monitors. One modern IPS-LED 1280x1024 5ms Monitor for XP games, and one 17" CRT Monitor for playing DOS & Win98 games through dosbox or PCem. The 1280x1024 shall be my daily surfing monitor connected to a thin client. The PC will only be used offline for gaming when needed. That way I save space and stay 99% retro.

>>8571512
>FM2+
>PCem
PCem and 86Box are insanely demanding on single threaded performance, I don't think you will have much luck running Windows 95/98 on it.

>>8567332
>VMware sucks for gaming,
Its the only good VM software for gaming. It has full Dx1-11 acceleration and OpenGL acceleration as well
that doesn't mean it's good anon...

>>8561130
you can probably get free disused pcs from your family. if not then craigslist or something. you can easily get a sandy bridge i5 office pc online for $100. XP is officially supported on intel cpus up til 2013. if you don't want to buy a gpu the integrated graphics should be enough for most older xp games. Unofficially, you can run xp just fine on fairly new hardware. I can run it on my system from 2018, but I only did that to see if I could. If some of your drivers aren't supported, that's what expansion slots are for.

but what game are you going for that works on xp but not win10? do you just want EAX/A3D?

>>8562207
you have that in a laptop right? or perhaps a mac mini? It was a great cpu for the time, before core 2 duo came out. but the integrated graphics suck ass. mine even drops frames in touhou games. I did use it to play alpha centauri, but it's absolutely no good for 3d action games.

>>8564510
>agp to pci
but why

>>8561130
>How to obtain a legacy PC for running Windows XP?
You can sometimes find them for free at the side of the road, and on craigslist or equivalent sites
Don't pay more than 20 bucks for a regular (non-gaming) obsolete PC made after 2001

>>8571541
You might be right, my Athlon X4 845 is too weak. This guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWQuygV2-Ts struggles with Ryzen 3700X beyond Pentium-II-233mhz emulation. Damn! I won't upgrade. I'll try dosbox, wrappers and other emulators.

>>8572971
AGP is actually just PCI, just wider having more transfers per clock, like DDR.
You can run any AGP card at just 66MHz PCI, it's the same as AGP 1x.

The good thing about PCIe though is that the PCI adapter is getting the full PCI bandwidth, unlike old PCI graphics cards that had to share the bus with other PCI devices.

>>8564510
>>8573348
You should try to track down a AGP to PCIe adapter, those did 2x or 4x even, but only came with a few very specific cards and are super rare.

>>8573332
>Don't pay more than 20 bucks for a regular (non-gaming) obsolete PC made after 2001
Agreed. Dells, HPs, and Gateways made in the XP era (mostly s478 P4) were everywhere in much larger numbers than any generation prior.

>>8572960
>but what game are you going for that works on xp but not win10?
I just assumed XP would not have drivers for new hardware.