dormcat wrote on 2024-10-11, 13:59:

That's why I asked OP if it's necessary to run both SoMI and HL on the same machine natively.

Another option here would be a system that can run both Win98 and XP (eg Pentium 4 Northwood). DOS games could be run under either Win98 or XP via DOSBox.

The latter option would also allow for things like MT-32 emulation for those early 90s games.

And for Windows gaming such a system could cover everything up to the early 2000s.

Hmm. I suppose I'd favour SoMI over Half-Life, but I certainly wouldn't mind being able to play games like Half-Life, Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, Hexen II etc. Again, I'd love to play and experience those with a retro PC and CRT monitor. grinning face

So if a Soundblaster 16 is from 1992, I'd be better suited with an AWE64...? And for the mobo - a Katmai P2/3? Sooooo much choice... ^^;

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 14:17:

Hmm. I suppose I'd favour SoMI over Half-Life, but I certainly wouldn't mind being able to play games like Half-Life, Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, Hexen II etc. Again, I'd love to play and experience those with a retro PC and CRT monitor. grinning face

If you are familiar with ScummVM (requires XP or newer OS) then it's probably better to build a Win9x / WinXP dual boot build, like a P4 Northwood suggested by Shponglefan.

So if a Soundblaster 16 is from 1992, I'd be better suited with an AWE64...? And for the mobo - a Katmai P2/3? Sooooo much choice... ^^;

If you don't intend to play DOS games under native DOS (6.22 or earlier) then you don't even need an ISA sound card; use Live!, Audigy, or Aureal Vortex instead.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 14:17:

Hmm. I suppose I'd favour SoMI over Half-Life, but I certainly wouldn't mind being able to play games like Half-Life, Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, Hexen II etc. Again, I'd love to play and experience those with a retro PC and CRT monitor. grinning face

So if a Soundblaster 16 is from 1992, I'd be better suited with an AWE64...? And for the mobo - a Katmai P2/3? Sooooo much choice... ^^;

FYI, a modern PC just needs an inexpensive DP to VGA dongle to let a CRT work with it. Phil recently did a video covering this. Even modern games can look interesting on a CRT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ-DWEY3E7M

An AWE64 in terms of digital audio is a SB16. But has better onboard playback of MIDI, and can do some effects with it's Adlib playback. A small number of games had custom files for their music on an AWE64. But overall other MIDI options will still give better sounding music.

My advice is to put together a list of what you actually want to play.
I think there was only one title in your list i I wasn't sure about, and the rest I'm fairly sure work fine on modern windows.

If you absolutely want to build a box, go mainstream.
Something like a 440bx. Because frankly via 4in1drivers were fucking garbage and a headache. Sis? Lol. Don't bother. Hence I don't recommend amd. Just because of the headache Chipsets.
+ p3 800-1200 slotket optional
+ gf2/3
+ voodoo 1 if you must run one of the handful of v1 only dos titles
/or/ +v2 if you just have to have genuine glide instead of translated like dgvoodoo and not those few v1 games
+ sb16 or awe 32

I'd suggest an ipxe bootable lan card. Either an Intel e100? or realtek 8139. They were common as dogshit. Intel was better, but whatever.
Ipxe means zero fucking around with cds and floppies. Ipxe. Not the novell thing from the early 90s.

Hdd absolutely use an SSD. Compact flash or ide disk-on-module will be the least likely to cause headaches. Ide-to-sata adapter if you must.
Don't worry about it having cache ram. It'll be plenty fast without.

That, above should run everything from win95 through to windows 7 - which with 512mb ran acceptably on a 600mhz eeepc

If you haven't already, I would suggest watching Phil's Computer Lab videos on YouTube.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:06:

If you haven't already, I would suggest watching Phil's Computer Lab videos on YouTube.

He's now slinging LGA775...

myne wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:00:

My advice is to put together a list of what you actually want to play.

Oh man, now you're asking... winking face with tongue

Let's see...

• Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
• Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror
• The Secret of Monkey Island
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
• The Curse of Monkey Island
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Half-Life
• Doom
• Doom II
• Blood
• Indiana Jones and the Emporer's Tomb
• Under a Killing Moon
• The Pandora Directive (crashes in DOSBox at a specific area)
• Tex Murphy: Overseer (a pain to get working and even then has issues)
• Titanic: Adventure Out of Time
• Dust: A Tale of the Wired West (unavailable to buy digitally)
• Dr. Drago's Madcap Chase (unavailable to buy digitally and doesn't appear to work on modern OS)
• Tomb Raider 1-5
• Max Payne
• Max Payne II: The Fall of Max Payne
• Unreal
• Wolfenstein 3D
• Super Bubsy (unavailable to buy digitally and a pain to get working right, if at all)
• Quake
• Quake II
• Possibly the Zork series
• Theme Park
• Theme Hospital
• RollerCoaster Tycoon
• Little Big Adventure
• Little Big Adventure 2
• Realms of the Haunting
• Sam & Max Hit the Road
• Day of the Tentacle
• Full Throttle
• Possibly Toonstruck
• Possibly Sanitarium
• Metal Gear Solid 1-2
• Resident Evil 1-3
• Possibly Alone in the Dark 1-3
• Beneath a Steel Sky
• Severance: Blade of Darkness
• Blade Runner
• Possibly Deus Ex 1-3
• Discworld
• Discworld 2
• Discworld Noir (this one is unavailable to buy digitally and I'm not sure it works on modern OSs)
• The Longest Journey
• Duke Nukem 3D
• Possibly Earthworm Jim
• Outlaws
• Final Fantasy VII
• Gabriel Knight: SIns of the Fathers
• Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within
• Grim Fandango
• Heretic
• Hexen
• Hexen II
• Hogs of War (unavailable to buy digitally and I'm not sure whether it works on modern OSs)
• Possibly I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
• Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
• Mafia
• Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey
• Oddworld: Abe's Exodus
• Painkiller
• Phantasmagoria
• Psychonauts
• Possibly the original Prince of Persia
• Simon the Sorcerer (this and the sequel were played back in the day we had Windows 95, so - memories)
• Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe
• Sonic 3D
• Possibly the Serious Sam games
• Silent Hill 2 - Director's Cut
• Silent Hill 3
• Possibly Silent Hill 4: The Room
• Possibly Shadow Warrior
• Possibly South Park - the one from the PlayStation and N64
• Possibly Starship Titanic
• System Shock
• System Shock 2
• Possibly The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• The Simpsons Hit & Run (not available to buy digitally)
• The Settlers III
• The Sims
• Thief: The Dark Project
• Thief 2: The Metal Age
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Those are the main ones that come to mind anyway. grinning face

I'd suggest an ipxe bootable lan card. Either an Intel e100? or realtek 8139. They were common as dogshit. Intel was better, but […]
Show full quote

I'd suggest an ipxe bootable lan card. Either an Intel e100? or realtek 8139. They were common as dogshit. Intel was better, but whatever.
Ipxe means zero fucking around with cds and floppies.

Hdd absolutely use an SSD. Compact flash or ide disk-on-module will be the least likely to cause headaches. Ide-to-sata adapter if you must.
Don't worry about it having cache ram. It'll be plenty fast without.

That, above should run everything from win95 through to windows 7.

I'm not familiar with an ipxe bootable lan cards, if I'm honest. ^^; That'll be uncharted territory for me rolling on the floor laughing.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:06:

If you haven't already, I would suggest watching Phil's Computer Lab videos on YouTube.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll go and check them out and possibly subscribe. grinning face

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:37:

[*] The Secret of Monkey Island
...
[*] Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Your range goes (at least) from 1990 to 2004. Fourteen years worth of gaming on a single computer? That would be extremely difficult without a very specialized build. And even that would require some compromises, meaning your latest games wouldn't run smoothly, and your earliest ones wouldn't run well on such a fast system (natively, not talking about DOSBox).

My advice, build at least two retro rigs, and split your games between them. Hardware progressed at an insane pace during the 90s, and trying to cram everything from that list into a single system will just result in problems.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:47:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:37:

[*] The Secret of Monkey Island
...
[*] Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Your range goes (at least) from 1990 to 2004. Fourteen years worth of gaming on a single computer? That would be extremely difficult without a very specialized build. And even that would require some compromises, meaning your latest games wouldn't run smoothly, and your earliest ones wouldn't run well on such a fast system (natively, not talking about DOSBox).

My advice, build at least two retro rigs, and split your games between them. Hardware progressed at an insane pace during the 90s, and trying to cram everything from that list into a single system will just result in problems.

Well, some compromises can be made if needed. I certainly don't have the space for two retro PCs. ^^; I guess early 00s games I can live without on this system. So it can be everything in the 90s.

Oh. Forgot to add American McGee's Alice on that list, too. Another that hasn't been re-released yet.

My bad. I meant pxe.
Ipxe is an open source project to make things pxe bootable.

Also Intel pro100

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:52:

Well, some compromises can be made if needed. I certainly don't have the space for two retro PCs. ^^; I guess early 00s games I can live without on this system. So it can be everything in the 90s.

So that leads to a strategic dilemma. Early 2000s-friendly hardware is much, much, much easier to get your hands on. Not as easy as late XP hardware, but much more plentiful than 486/socket 5/etc hardware.

That'd make me think that you should focus on an early 2000s system first. Easier, cheaper, etc. But at the same time, hardware is getting more scarce, 486s will be harder to find in two years than they are today, etc.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:37:

Oh man, now you're asking... :P […]
Show full quote

myne wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:00:

My advice is to put together a list of what you actually want to play.

Oh man, now you're asking... winking face with tongue

Let's see...

<snip>

Those are the main ones that come to mind anyway. grinning face

That's quite a list of games. beaming face with smiling eyes

The way I see it, you have three options:

1) Build a system that can accommodate from about 1990 to ~2003/2004 with support for native DOS/9x/XP gaming. This means a motherboard with ISA slots w/ DMA support for DOS sound card(s). This is a highly specialized build as there aren't many motherboard models that can do this, but they do exist. You can see my Pentium 4 build for an example of such a build: Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build Log (DOS/3.11/95/NT4/98/2k/Me/XP)

2) Build a system to accommodate 1990 to ~2003/2004 games under Win9x / XP. This means a fast Pentium III or a Pentium 4/Athlon XP system with PCI slots (no ISA) and relying on either SB emulation for DOS games via Windows 98 or DOSBox/ScummVM/etc emulation under Windows XP. (Technically SBEMU under DOS is another option if you wanted native DOS support).

3) Build a more period correct system with a narrower focus, such as your original Pentium III-600 idea. Such a system could reasonably accommodate gaming into the late 90s.

The challenge with all of these systems is speed sensitive games from the early 90s do require throttling. If running via emulation (e.g. DOSBox) that's not an issue since speed can be controlled via the emulation software. But if running in native operating systems like DOS, you need to consider throttling options which is dependent on the motherboard and CPU used.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-11, 16:38:

That's quite a list of games. :D […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:37:

Oh man, now you're asking... :P […]
Show full quote

myne wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:00:

My advice is to put together a list of what you actually want to play.

Oh man, now you're asking... winking face with tongue

Let's see...

<snip>

Those are the main ones that come to mind anyway. grinning face

That's quite a list of games. beaming face with smiling eyes

The way I see it, you have three options:

1) Build a system that can accommodate from about 1990 to ~2003/2004 with support for native DOS/9x/XP gaming. This means a motherboard with ISA slots w/ DMA support for DOS sound card(s). This is a highly specialized build as there aren't many motherboard models that can do this, but they do exist. You can see my Pentium 4 build for an example of such a build: Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build Log (DOS/3.11/95/NT4/98/2k/Me/XP)

2) Build a system to accommodate 1990 to ~2003/2004 games under Win9x / XP. This means a fast Pentium III or a Pentium 4/Athlon XP system with PCI slots (no ISA) and relying on either SB emulation for DOS games via Windows 98 or DOSBox/ScummVM/etc emulation under Windows XP. (Technically SBEMU under DOS is another option if you wanted native DOS support).

3) Build a more period correct system with a narrower focus, such as your original Pentium III-600 idea. Such a system could reasonably accommodate gaming into the late 90s.

The challenge with all of these systems is speed sensitive games from the early 90s do require throttling. If running via emulation (e.g. DOSBox) that's not an issue since speed can be controlled via the emulation software. But if running in native operating systems like DOS, you need to consider throttling options which is dependent on the motherboard and CPU used.

Thanks for the suggestions. I didn't read through all of your thread, but which hardware did you settle with in the end that proved the most stable? I suspect I'll end up going with option 3, so I'll need to narrow my focus a bit more. How would you typically throttle native DOS games anyway? Would I have to underclock the CPU? Is there some software that would achieve that?

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 15:57:

Oh. Forgot to add American McGee's Alice on that list, too. Another that hasn't been re-released yet.

An updated port of it that runs on modern computers was included on PC and console version of the deluxe edition of Madness Returns. Sadly EA only still sells the base version. But you might still be able to get it on the PS3. The 360 store closed last month.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 16:54:

Thanks for the suggestions. I didn't read through all of your thread, but which hardware did you settle with in the end that proved the most stable? I suspect I'll end up going with option 3, so I'll need to narrow my focus a bit more. How would you typically throttle native DOS games anyway? Would I have to underclock the CPU? Is there some software that would achieve that?

I think you are choosing a good approach. That P3 is pretty straightforward build compared to trying to figure out an all-in-one solution for 10-15 years. And they are IMO ”classical” PC systems from a fascinating time period.

Typically there are couple of ways to slow down such system. With SETMUL software you can disable cache on the CPU on slot 1 system. I never had to do this because I have bunch of systems to cover different time periods, but I imagine that something like P3 600 should probably slow down to something like slow 386 or even 286 level when you don’t have cache enabled.

Other very simple method is using different software throttling tools to ”choke” the CPU, such as moslo. These won’t generally work well on fast machines such as P4, but are completely usable on low to mid tier P3s. There are many options, but moslo is probably one of the most popular. I sometimes use these on my fast 486 boxes when I don’t bother to swap something slower on my desk. You practically can adjust the software on command line how much you want it to push brakes.

You can search this forum about slowing down these systems and you will find lots of information. And I should say that most likely everything you are currently pondering about building such computer, is already discussed here on many occasions. Computer you are planning to build is like a bread and butter of retro PC computing and thus many hobbyists here are very, very familiar with them.

SScorpio wrote on 2024-10-11, 17:21:

An updated port of it that runs on modern computers was included on PC and console version of the deluxe edition of Madness Returns. Sadly EA only still sells the base version. But you might still be able to get it on the PS3. The 360 store closed last month.

My ex has it, I think. But I have Madness Returns on Steam. Before it got removed. My ex gave me a spare copy of the original game though.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-10-11, 16:54:

Thanks for the suggestions. I didn't read through all of your thread, but which hardware did you settle with in the end that proved the most stable?

I built the initial system around the DFI ITOX G7S620-N-G motherboard which uses the Intel 865G chipset and the Pentium 4 651 (Cedar Mill, D0 stepping) processor.

I've found the 865G chipset a great choice for both Win 98 and XP, since it's been rock solid in terms of stability. Meanwhile, the processor offers good throttling options including some multiplier adjustments (12x to 17x) and consumes less power (65W TDW) than most P4 processors.

Graphics card is a GeForce 4 4200 Ti, which offers great general compatibility under DOS/Win9x/early XP.

I suspect I'll end up going with option 3, so I'll need to narrow my focus a bit more. How would you typically throttle native DOS games anyway? Would I have to underclock the CPU? Is there some software that would achieve that?

There are various ways of throttling systems. Typically these include cache disabling (L1/L2 cache), multiplier adjustments (if supported by the CPU), changing FSB speeds (motherboard/chipset dependent), On Demand Clock Modulation (ODCM), ACPI throttling, among other things.

Your options all come down to whatever is supported by your specific CPU or motherboard. The two main tools I use are CPUSPD and SETMUL. There are dedicated threads that explain what they can do:

CpuSpd - A Hardware Based CPU Speed Control Utility for DOS/Win9X Retro Gaming
SetMul - Multiplier control for VIA C3 / AMD K6+7+8 Mobile / Cyrix 5x86

There are also other tools like MoSlo, FSB adjustment software, etc. I don't tend to use those, so I can't comment on their functionality.