Older PC gaming

[Anonymous No.2173224]

So growing up I was always a console kid, we had a PC but it was mostly only used by my father for work and the occasional flight sim or educational game. I always wanted to get into PC gaming back then but we were pretty poor so I unfortunately had to skip it and I feel like I missed out on a lot of really good titles. from the 80's to late 90's and even early 2000's. Lately I've had this weird urge to get into older PC stuff but being a console kid at heart I have no idea where to start. I don't want to just emulate on a newer computer either, I want to play everything like I would have back in the day.
So where should I start? I don't even know what hardware to buy or where to buy it, things to look out for, etc. I haven't been to goodwill in a while but I don't think they keep anything before XP or non LCD in stock do they? Most thrift stores seem to follow suit so I have no idea how much luck I'd have. Sorry if this post is really rambly and hard to read, I have a bunch of questions and I have a hard time articulating things well.

[Anonymous No.2173252]

Just because a PC is capable of running XP doesn't mean it has to. You might be able to install DOS onto it instead.

If not, i'm not sure where you'd get ancient PC's these days. Maybe junk shops, or garage sales, or PC businesses that have been around forever.

[Anonymous No.2173262]

>>2173224

I was thinking of buying a GeForce 5700 Leadtek WinFast A360 128MB for my win98 machine, is the GPU any good (the price is good) ?

[Anonymous No.2173282]

>>2173262
I'd suggest reading the OP. He's asking for advice, not offering it.

[Anonymous No.2173302]

>>2173224

It sounds like you are just trying to experience "retro" pc gaming for the first time. Most of these guys who talk about buying specific CRTs/consoles/carts are looking for authenticity - they are trying to replicate their video game experiences EXACTLY as it was when they were kids.

Since you aren't hunting for that nostalgic feeling, you can purchase pretty much and run of the mill laptop or desktop. I'd go to ebay, look in the $300-$500 range of refurbished laptops/desktops (make sure it comes with a new warrantee), and select from their. No netbooks/notebooks/tablets.

[Anonymous No.2173319]

>>2173224

When talking old PC gaming, one of the best thing you can do is build a win98 machine.

A decent CPU (PIII-IV or athlon XP) a more than good enough GPU (radeon 9700-9800 or nvidia FX from 5500 to 5900) and 512 mb of ram.

The really tricky part is the audio, a good asus motherboard from 2000 to 2003 should have a pretty compatible audio driver that will give you a good general midi for DOS games.

[Anonymous No.2173334]

Truth be told OP you can save yourself Alot of time and money by just trying the games out on your current system. I've got a modern pretty beefy rig but I largely just use it for games from the time period you describe.

So long as you've got win 7 (8 seems to be very unfriendly to older games) most games ought to work with a quick fix or two.

Heck start yourself off with DOSbox, have some fun there, will run on any modern rig.

[Anonymous No.2173339]

>>2173334
Also I might add you're going to have to be torrenting / downloading all these games, so if you go through with your construction make sure you've got a means to transfer the games / isos over to your machine, assuming you wouldn't be torrenting on it.

[Anonymous No.2173342]

>>2173339

He can create a winxp partition and dual boot between systems.

[Anonymous No.2173419]

>>2173334
>DOSbox
A godsend. Even on Win98, it was a pain to get many of those games to work. DOSbox easy use and compatibility makes you able to experience these games in a superior way to how you would have done it back in the day, with options like Roland MT-32 emulation and save states.

[Anonymous No.2173452]

if you like oldschool western RPG's and DOOM-style FPS's, maybe you'll like DOS games. otherwise, skip to the win95/98 era.

[Anonymous No.2175931]

>>2173224
What titles? You could still find computers that support Windows 98. It doesn't necessarily have to be period correct to run most retro games. Pic related, my old hideous PC that I spray painted a long time ago. I made another thread about this topic a while ago, give it a look
>>2172019

[Anonymous No.2175938]

>>2173452
Here's my list of personally recommended games made up to 2000.

First-person/third-person shooter:
Unreal
Unreal Tournament
Quake 1, 2, and 3
Doom 1, 2
Chasm: The Rift
Duke Nukem 3D
Blood
Powerslave (known as Exhumed in Europe)
Wolfenstein 3-D, Spear of Destiny
MDK
Descent 1,2
Forsaken

Shooter/RPG hybrid:
Deus Ex
System Shock 1, 2

RPG:
Dungeon Master
Eye of the Beholder
The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Fallout 1, 2

This is just barely a taste of great retro PC games, just a few I have good memories with.

[Anonymous No.2177071]

>>2173334
I agree but I want to point out that I have never had issues with Win8 playing older games. In fact, my Win8 machine has less issues playing THPS2 and Diablo.

[Anonymous No.2177074]

>>2175938
Unreal before quake... wrong

[Anonymous No.2177075]

>>2173452
Or Flight Sims
Or Turn Based Strategy
Or Real Time Strategy
Or Point and Click Adventure

[Anonymous No.2177094]

Posted this on the other thread

Best Windows versions ranked for /vr/ gaming:
>Windows 98 - supports DOS and DirectX 9.0c
>Windows ME - partial DOS support but can't exit to DOS, built in USB support
>Windows 95 - Supports DOS but has less features than 98, better for old hardware like a 486 or early Pentium, requires less RAM also
>Windows XP - Emulated DOS support, can handle some DOS games with sound but is very finicky - Runs all but the newest games
>Windows 2000 - Hardly any DOS support even with NTVDM, slightly lower hardware requirements than XP, still supports DX9
>Windows 8.x - Runs fast on new computers, still handles most 9x games
>Windows 7 - Same as 8 but with a more traditional interface and no PAE/NX requirement so it runs on older processors
>Windows Vista - Same as above but reputed to be slow, with updates pretty much the same
>Windows NT 4 - Pretty much no Direct3D support, no Plug and Play, relatively few games will run
>Windows NT 3.51 - Even worse, no DirectX whatsoever, difficult to install, only supports really old graphics cards, Unreal engine games can be made to work but that's as good as it gets.
>Windows 3.x - Not a true OS, more like a front end for DOS but with its own drivers. There are Win 3.x games like the Microsoft Entertainment Pack but all 32-bit Windows versions can run them, even Windows 8.1. A good front end for DOS games but not as versatile as 9x.

[Anonymous No.2177098]

>>2177074
That wasn't intended to be a ranked list per se, but I disagree and prefer the Unreal series.

[Anonymous No.2177309]

I just got done playing Beneath a Steel Sky. There were some frustrating pixel hunty and bullshit logical leaps for some of the items for me, that I needed a guide for, (for example: you take the glass and GRAFT NEW FINGERPRINTS on yourself? Given all the magical science tech we see in scifi these days, that is definitely the kind of zeerust scifi only the 90's can come up with), but it was fucking awesome and comes highly recommended.

And on Point-and-Click adventures, the King's Quest series and Hugo's House of Horrors and its sequel (Hugo's Island or some shit, I think?) are absolute musts. I hear good things about Leisure Suit Larry and Day of the Tentacle, but I missed out on those.

King's Quest VI is one of the games that raised me, man.

[Anonymous No.2177315]

>>2177094
>Windows ME ranked that high

All I remember of ME is terrible instability and memories of it being the worst windows OS I've ever encountered. A literal downgrade from 98. Is that just because people were trying to play then-modern games on it? Am I misremembering?

[Anonymous No.2177506]

>>2177309
Hugo has two sequels, 2 is far better than 3 but is also harder.

[Anonymous No.2177527]

>>2177315
It worked fine for me. Keep in mind this is only for playing games. It has built in flash drive support so it helps if you are just transferring files that you downloaded.

[Anonymous No.2177548]

>>2177315

Before dropping ME for playing arcanum on XP, i remember the same problems i had on 98SE; hell i played mafia at the time on ME and i had no problems.

[Anonymous No.2177553]

>>2177315
I never had a single problem on ME that didn't exist on 98SE. You can't access pure DOS in ME but the only game I couldn't run out of a Win98 dos box was TIE Fighter. Even games that complain about it usually work, you can also check a box to hide Windows from the DOS program if it tries to refuse.

[Anonymous No.2177613]

Ok, to answer the OP better, here is MY Win98 rig.
CPU: AMD Athlon "Pluto" Slot A - 550 MHz
GPU: ATI Rage 128 Pro - 32 MB
RAM: 512 MB PC100/PC133 SDRAM
M/B: AOpen AK72, VIA KX133 chipset
Here's an old picture of it in its excessively fugly spray painted case.

[Anonymous No.2177632]

My favorites from the era are Doom, Warcraft I and maybe Quake.
For former I would recommend a 486 based system and latter a P233 MMX.

[Anonymous No.2177640]

>>2177613
Very nice - the original Athlon was a beast for its time. The only machine capable of enduring Outcast in 512x384.

[Anonymous No.2177670]

>>2177640
It is pretty good, but honestly it's just better to go with a newer processor like a Pentium 4/Athlon XP for a 98 build. Early 2000s PCs are much easier to find and they are faster, but with old enough chipsets that have 98 drivers.

[Anonymous No.2177695]

>>2177670
>Pentium 4/Athlon XP
if a game doesn't shit itself on those, it will probably run as good if not better on a modern computer
a dedicated retro rig only makes sense if the games you want to run don't work on a fast CPU (or if you're into old computers and not just old games, in which case a P4/Athlon XP is still a bit too new)

[Anonymous No.2177697]

>>2177695
The Athlon was giving me some issues with certain DOS games (obviously a lot of 80s games won't run at all). On Daggerfall I couldn't swim, later found out that was a CPU issue. Jazz Jackrabbit doesn't run, I read that it won't with any CPU faster than around 200 MHz.

[Anonymous No.2177702]

>>2177695
I forgot to say that the OS is usually the reason to have a 98 rig. The CPU speed isn't as much of a factor usually, at least with 90s games.

[Anonymous No.2177709]

>>2177702
>I forgot to say that the OS is usually the reason to have a 98 rig.
the OS itself is irrelevant, it's about what software (games in this case) you want to run runs on
no point in installing Win98 just to have Win98 installed and do nothing with it

[Anonymous No.2177743]

>>2177709
>OS is irrelevant
No way. The OS is the main compatibility factor. System Shock 2 will run on a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 running 98, but it won't run on a 300 MHz Pentium II on XP. If your OS doesn't support DOS then you can't play those games without Dosbox. MechWarrior 2 doesn't run on XP.

[Anonymous No.2177789]

>>2177743
you want to run an old game - you install the system it works on
the games come first

[Anonymous No.2177809]

>>2177709
>the OS itself is irrelevant,

[Anonymous No.2177813]

>>2177695

You only need CPUgrab, it works wonder on single core CPU.

[Anonymous No.2177823]

>>2177695

Anon you can never trust a new pc, i installed ati drivers 14.12 and now it glitch skyrim and some old games.
Single core CPUs in conjunction with a good old GPU and win98 can make you play almost everything from 2003 and down in 720p; even those mysterious piece of software like messiah.

[Anonymous No.2177832]

>>2177789
That was my point. You need Windows 9x to run some older games so you can install it on even a 2000s system to play more retro games then you could run on XP. The OS is DEFINITELY relevant.

[Anonymous No.2177854]

>>2177832
did you miss the 'itself' part

it's because of the _games_ that work only on windows 98, is why you would install windows 98 at all

installing win98 to play, say, Worms Armageddon is fucking pointless because it runs fine on modern hardware and modern OSes
if you install win98 because System Shock 2 or whatever doesn't run on anything newer, you install win98 because of the games, not because of the system itself

[Anonymous No.2177872]

>>2177854
Worms Armageddon lags on modern computers without a fix. I get where you are coming from because I play a lot of 90s games on my Windows 8 hexa-core 8GB of RAM machine with a HD 7850. Some games don't run though. My GPU is also strangely unable to work with my CRT monitor. I think it's a power/voltage issue. The OS itself is relevant since most games are designed for a certain OS. If I could find 98 drivers for my modern machine, (I would have to install a fairly small RAM chip as well) most 32-bit Windows 9x games would probably work. Most DOS games made in the 90s don't have CPU or video card issues.

[Anonymous No.2177880]

>>2177872
>The OS itself is relevant
no it isn't

[Anonymous No.2177893]

>>2173224
This is probably the most authentic DOS system I have. It was the original Dell XPS line from the early 90s.
Weak ass 4MB
Tiny 500MB hard drive
etc
I installed DOS 5 and Win 3.1 on it from a blank hard drive. and i'll be honest it was pretty fun getting it set up. For times when I needed a ton of drivers and installs, I'd burn a disc on my regular computer and run the disc on the DOS machine and have 700mb of data instantly.

But trust me you dont want 100% authetic "circa April 1990" dos rig. There were too many limitations and non-compliant hardware that getting games to run was a lucky bet. Do what others have said, build/buy a Win 98 system, it's good enough for DOS and Windows games.

pic related. Dell XPS P100

[Anonymous No.2177974]

>>2177670
From a practical stand point - yes. From a "feel" perspective the hardware matters. We live in a time of tech garbage abundance so the right tool for the right occasion may enhance the experience. I'll never forget booting up Doom with a 486 some years ago... was enormously cool and put things into perspective.

[Anonymous No.2178146]

>>2177974
I agree, but for what the OP wants, a Pentium 4 build running 98 should be okay. I have not seen a 486 just getting thrown away in a long time, anywhere. I see throwaway Pentium 4 era PCs everywhere. PCs from the era in between aren't too hard to find but it takes extra effort.

[Anonymous No.2178148]

>>2177893
Though keep in mind if your processor is too powerful you will have to rectify that. Some games are unplayable if your machine is too fast [for instance, WC2 (non b-net edition) scrolls so fast even on the slowest scroll setting that you can't do shit].

[Anonymous No.2178161]

>>2178148
Some DOS games do that, but that kind of issue is very rare with Windows era games. You can use Moslo or something like that in DOS. Unreal engine 1 games have an issue sometimes with newer computers, if you can pull over 200 FPS the game will actually speed up, especially in small corridors or when looking at floors. No build older than the mid 2000s is powerful enough to cause this bug though, and the issue is easily fixed.

[Anonymous No.2178168]

>>2178161
Yeah, just something to keep in mind if one is getting a Win 98 PC from the late 90s since there is a good chance that you might run into issues playing older games and won't be able to just install and go for everything.

[Anonymous No.2178175]

>>2178168
Generally the only DOS game my Win98 PC couldn't run was the original Jazz Jackrabbit. Most others have been fine. Daggerfall had a CPU speed issue where my character couldn't swim.

[Anonymous No.2178341]

>>2173224

>Most thrift stores seem to follow suit so I have no idea how much luck I'd have.

Most thrift stores, especially ones that get a lot of donations, automatically shitbin anything older than XP-era hardware

find the manager and see if they have a dumpster or pallet where they keep them before they send off to the recycler

[Anonymous No.2178576]

>>2178175
Even Jazz Jackrabbit has a fan-made patch that makes it run perfectly fine in Windows 98.

[Anonymous No.2178590]

>>2177074

No, is not..

[Anonymous No.2178593]

>>2177315

I have the same memories as you, an OS made to randomly crash...

[Anonymous No.2178954]

>>2178590
Unreal and Quake are a lot different. Unreal has huge worlds, smart enemies that are damage sponges, and a much less dark setting than Quake. Both games try to mix sci-fi and fantasy but the overall theme is very different.

[JAP No.2180112]

I made a PC of winME

[Anonymous No.2180580]

>>2180112
Nice! Any games you plan to play on it?

[Anonymous No.2182298]

>>2180112
Unreal, Hexen II, Quake II, all FANTASTIC games.

[Anonymous No.2184194]

>>2180112
VIA processor? Very interesting. I've been trying to find laptops on eBay with AMD processors and I found one with a Transmeta Crusoe.

[Anonymous No.2184263]

Anyone on this thread want to get a VPN set up so we can play some networked /vr/ games? Everyone who wants to play games together, lets shoot around some ideas. If there is enough interest I will make a separate thread about it.

Games:
Doom95 (because of LAN support)
Unreal, Unreal Tournament
Quake 1/2/3
Re-Volt
Diablo
Blood 2
Carmageddon 2
Age of Empires 1/2
Starcraft
Worms 2/Armageddon/World Party
THPS2
Nerf Arena Blast

[Anonymous No.2185180]

I got my Compaq Laptop to play Ultima Underworld with sound. Still can't get actual sound in other games, but Sound Blaster/Adlib music works.

[Anonymous No.2185512]

>>2173224
You can compromise with the retro setup by just getting a CRT monitor and plugging it to a contemporary computer via VGA cable.
If you need to run DOS games, use DOSBox. It's served me very well for my really ancient games over the past decade.
If you need to run anything that only works on XP or earlier, get a free virtual machine software. I use VMWare Player, which is free, and runs really smoothly.

[Anonymous No.2185521]

>>2184263
>Blood 2
>no Blood 1
nigger what are you doing?

I'd play if my internet wasn't wank

[Anonymous No.2185552]

Star star starcraft it up my friend

Thank me later anon.

[Anonymous No.2186010]

>>2185521
Blood 1 doesn't support TCP/IP. If you can show me how to set up a VPN that supports IPX networking, and get it to work on Win98, then I'm all for it.

>>2185512
I compromise my hooking my Win98 computer to an LCD. My regular PC doesn't play along well with my CRT and I don't like to move it just to hook up my Win98 rig. A lot of LCD monitors can scale almost as good as a CRT can. Most 4:3 LCDs are good for DOS games. My Compaq laptop's LCD scales really well also.

[Anonymous No.2186015]

>>2175931
Can that Compaq in the background run Windows 98? Looks like an Athlon XP or Pentium 4 machine. It might be worth a try.

[Anonymous No.2187238]

>>2185512
good crt monitors are getting rarer

[Anonymous No.2187247]

>>2185512
My issue with DOSBox is that it's not very good at displaying the resolutions DOS games actually used, even with a CRT monitor, at least to my knowledge. I've had to setup custom resolutions just so DOSBox could display proper 320x200 and other such modes, and even then a few games like Jazz Jackrabbit use really oddball resolutions for which I cannot find the proper modeline to.

Not to mention if you use a CRT as a secondary display, you can't actually fullscreen to it unless you set it as primary, which is annoying to have to do every time.

All in all, if you just wanna get DOS games to work, DOSBox is pretty good, but getting it to display them accurately to how they would work on a real DOS or Win9x machine is a royal pain in the ass.

[Anonymous No.2188916]

I have been looking to get an old PC gaming machine running for a while now, so I decided to look through my storage for a good candidate.

I have this Thinkpad 770.

It's got

Pentium I 266mhz
128mb of RAM
3.2gb hard drive
1024x768 TFT screen

I'm waiting on a power adapter in the mail for it. Think it will make a good choice? I'm particularly interested in playing the PC ports of 32-bit era games like Final Fantasy 8.

[Anonymous No.2188919]

>>2188916
Nevermind, it looks like FFVIII is out, since it requires 4mb of video ram, and the 770 has only 2. But there will be other games.

[Anonymous No.2188939]

no point in having a computer for dos when dosbox exist. there is no windows box, especially one that will emulate all proprietary graphics and sound apis

[Anonymous No.2188950]

>>2188916
266mhz is a tad too weak. the Win98 will have trouble running let alone video games like FF8

[Anonymous No.2188973]

>>2188950
Windows 98 will run just fine on 266mhz. My first PC had a Pentium I S running at 120mhz and it was fine. I played some games back then too.

[JAP No.2188975]

VIA、c3、1.3GHZ、450MB、RAM
IDE3GBHDD、
The PC which I made with parts on hand

[Anonymous No.2188976]

>>2188950
thats funny i coulda sworn ff8 just got released on steam

[Anonymous No.2188978]

>>2188976
It did but I want to play the old port because I'm funny like that.

I have an older HP desktop I might turn into a win98 machine as well.

[JAP No.2188979]

unreal
Because is weak in English, cannot answer; I'm sorry

[Anonymous No.2188982]

>>2188979
very nice

[Anonymous No.2189072]

>>2177893
>But trust me you dont want 100% authetic "circa April 1990" dos rig.

Yeah, I'm with this. I've been working with getting some of my old hardware up and running and it's been reminding me what a pain in the ass things used to be. I got my first blue screen of death in years a couple of days ago.

[Anonymous No.2189079]

For fun tonight I installed Metal Gear Solid for PC.

Man it looks good on my PC CRT monitor. I never played PlayStation game in RGB before (well maybe years ago fucking around with epsxe) so I imagine this is something like it would look like.

[Anonymous No.2189081]

For fun tonight I installed Metal Gear Solid for PC.

Man it looks good on my PC CRT monitor. I never played a PlayStation game in RGB before (well, maybe years ago fucking around with epsxe) so I imagine this is something like it would look like.

[Anonymous No.2189087]

>>2188939
Dosbox is emulation, some prefere real hardware.

[Anonymous No.2189136]

>>2189087
I prefer real hardware too, but only when it's not too fucking hard or too much of a pain in the ass.

[Anonymous No.2189230]

>>2188975
>>2188979
motherboard with embedded CPU or socket CPU?

[Anonymous No.2189438]

>>2189230
That's an early mini-ITX, my guess is embedded. If it is a socket, then it's a socket 370.

[Anonymous No.2189545]

>>2189072
you gotta choose your hardware old enough to run old shit by itself but not too archaic so it's actually usable

[Anonymous No.2190619]

Got 640x480 working.

[Anonymous No.2191019]

>>2173224
Building an old PC is a lot of fun/works the best. But if you have a decent computer now you can run windows 95/98 in a virtual machine pretty easily too.

[Anonymous No.2191124]

>>2190619
what is the maximum res that game runs in

[Anonymous No.2191439]

>>2191124
Highest it lets me pick is 1024x768, but it doesn't correctly with my graphics card.

[Anonymous No.2191446]

>>2173262

Hell, this thread is still up.

At the end i bought the GPU, it works like a charm with old games, and i'm even able to play splinter cell with everything on max (on my modern pc the game has a lot of glitches)

[Anonymous No.2191491]

Virtualbox

[Anonymous No.2191741]

>>2191446
>Ancient thread is still up
Welcome to the 2nd slowest board on 4chan. I'm glad you like the graphics card. I'm pissed that my ATI Rage 128 Pro doesn't support certain widescreen resolutions (and you can't force them either). It does 1080p but it won't allow me to set it at 1360x768 or 1366x768. My Nvidia card supported widescreen fine and even the S3 Trio did. Should I try a Radeon HD 3650 with 1 gig of RAM on my Athlon rig? A card from around 2009 on a 550 MHz computer? Imagine the bottlenecking. I wouldn't be able to install that card on anything older than XP though, so that wouldn't let me use 98.

[Anonymous No.2192453]

>>2191741
>I wouldn't be able to install that card on anything older than XP though
win2k should work because both are NT-based
it definitely works the other way (win2k drivers on XP or even 32-bit win7)

[Anonymous No.2192923]

>>2191741

I would also recommend you a 4:3 lcd monitor, most of them show 800x600 and 1024x768 as if it was native resolution, and you would solve most problems related to the resolution with old games.