VOGONS


First post, by Kynrek

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Here is my grand plan for 3 retro PC system builds to cover ~1983-2007 games, anything I should change? any big games I missed? Do I need 4 systems (I may be getting a Pentium 4 too 😀)

System 1:AMD K6-III 550mhz Windows 98SE
Video Card:Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Sound Card: Yamaha Audican 32 & Turtle Beach Aureal Vortex 2
Games: all Dos Games, Outlaws, Rogue Squadron, Shadows of the Empire, Star Wars X-Wing alliance, Half-Life, Soldier of Fortune

System 2:Pentium III Tualatin 1.4Ghz Windows 98SE
Video Card:ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128MB
Sound Card: Soundblaster Audigy
Games: Far Cry, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (too new?), X-Wing alliance (too old?), Freelancer, Deus Ex, Mafia, Max Payne, Red Faction, Noone Lives Forever 1 & 2, Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza

System 3:AMD Athlon 64X2 4200 Windows XPSP2?
Video Card: Geforce GTX285
Sound Card: Soundblaster Audigy ZX2
Games: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2, Doom 3, Medal of Honor Pacific, Tron 2.0, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, Fallout 3?

Reply 1 of 10, by clueless1

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You'll be hard-pressed to run games from 1983 on system 1. I think with that system, you're looking at oldest DOS games from around 1990 being playable. If you're really interested in games of that era, you should look into getting a 486. With caches and turbo disabled, it will cover games from the mid 1980s to 1993. The K6-III can pick it up from there.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 2 of 10, by jheronimus

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No single system can run "all DOS games" properly. So start by looking at this list. It doesn't really cover mid 80-s games that absolutely need an 8086, but it will give you some idea as to what games you absolutely don't want to miss.

That being said, if your system 1 motherboard supports AMD K6 2+ and 3+ — switch for it, and you should be fine with running 386 (late 80s) to late Pentium level of gaming. Some games also got later rereleases (like Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga) that don't suffer from speed issues.

"plus" models of AMD K6 are mobile-friendly chips that allow you to change speed through software. Add disabling L1 and L2 cache to it, and you will be able to get a lot of things running. That doesn't include XT-level games, though.

MR BIOS catalog
Unicore catalog

Reply 3 of 10, by infiniteclouds

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Using a Slowdown or Throttle utility for 8088 era games should work ok? Most of these games used PC speaker so the usual problems of choppy sound doesn't seem to apply.

K6+ CPU alone won't give you all of the 486 speeds you need, either -- it will go up to ~486-DX33 before jumping to Pentium speeds.

Reply 4 of 10, by Fusion

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Jedi Outcast will run great on a 9800 Pro. Half-Life 1 however, will be a bit slow on System 1 with only that 550Mhz K6-III. Its really CPU intensive in many spots especially during firefights.

Pentium III @ 1.28Ghz - Intel SE440xBX-2 - 384MB PC100 - ATi Radeon DDR 64MB @ 200/186 - SB Live! 5.1 - Windows ME

Reply 7 of 10, by carlostex

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My 2 cents:

You really need a 4th system. If early 1980's games are really importante for you just build a Turbo XT with CGA. Then the K6 machine canal potentially cover almost every game that is too slow on the Turbo XT. Test Drive III comes to mind, even with all the slow down you can on a K6+ it might run a little too fast.

But with these 4 builds you can cover upwards of 95% of the games.

Reply 8 of 10, by infiniteclouds

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Phil has demonstrated that TDIII actually runs quite well on a K6 that is downclocked and has all 3 caches disabled.

What are some real world examples of 8088 games not running correctly when using slowdown utilities? Sound problems seem to be the #1 issue with slowdown utilities in my experience and most of these games use PC Speaker. Things like Sierra AGI games have built in speed settings, too.

Reply 9 of 10, by clueless1

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infiniteclouds wrote:

Phil has demonstrated that TDIII actually runs quite well on a K6 that is downclocked and has all 3 caches disabled.

What are some real world examples of 8088 games not running correctly when using slowdown utilities? Sound problems seem to be the #1 issue with slowdown utilities in my experience and most of these games use PC Speaker. Things like Sierra AGI games have built in speed settings, too.

Games like Lode Runner, early Ultimas (I-V), and early Might & Magics (I-II) are still too fast at the slowest K6 speeds. I'm sure there are more, but those are ones I have experienced. If I play these on my 486, disable caches and turbo (getting down to 286 speeds), then they run okay.

edit: just remembered, Knights of the Sky is still a little too fast and needs a fast 286 or very slow (16Mhz) 386 to run at the right speed.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 10 of 10, by infiniteclouds

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clueless1 wrote:

Games like Lode Runner, early Ultimas (I-V), and early Might & Magics (I-II) are still too fast at the slowest K6 speeds. I'm sure there are more, but those are ones I have experienced. If I play these on my 486, disable caches and turbo (getting down to 286 speeds), then they run okay.

edit: just remembered, Knights of the Sky is still a little too fast and needs a fast 286 or very slow (16Mhz) 386 to run at the right speed.

Absolutely -- but using a slowdown utility seems to work fine for these games. I can play MMI and II just fine on a K6 at the slowest speeds with caches disabled and use a slowdown/throttle utility to get it to the perfect speed. I agree that cache/downclocking on S7 or Slot 1 machines cannot get us to the 16, 8, 6, 4.77 mhz ranges but what I'm wondering is if there is any need when slowdown/throttle programs don't seem to cause issues for these games they way they might if you were say... trying to slow down a Pentium or Pentium II to a 486 or 386 speed.