First post, by bmwsvsu
I recently converted a Wyse V90LE thin client into a retro gaming rig.
-Upgraded the 512 MB DOM (disk on module) to a 16 GB DOM
-Installed a PCMCIA to 15-pin gameport adapter:
After mods, the system has the following specs:
-1.2 GHZ VIA c7 CPU
-1 GB DDR2 RAM clocked at 533 MHZ
-16 GB DOM
-CN700 Unichrome Pro graphics w/64 MB shared RAM
-DVI output with support for VGA
-VT8237 AC97 sound
-VT6102 Rhine-II Ethernet adapter
-1 front and 2 rear USB 2.0 ports
-PCMCIA expansion slot
-SD reader
-Dedicated PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports
I opted for a dual-install of Windows 98SE and XP. It took some digging online, but I managed to track down all the hardware drivers for both operating systems. Here's a device manager screenshot from Windows 98 (also showing that I was able to get the DOM correctly working in DMA transfer mode) :
Here are the passmark scores from running Performance Test v6:
This ended up being an interesting little build. The Soundblaster emulation for DOS games running under Windows 98 seems to be decent for the games I tested. Doom and Duke Nukem 3D both played fine with both sound and music. 3d platformers and racing games run under 98 and XP ran fine. Altogether I tested nearly 40 different games and for the most part I was quite impressed with what I was able to play with this machine.
For anyone curious - I did a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYoTgrYmmec on this project - first 10 minutes shows setup and specs, the rest is gameplay footage.
Lastly worth noting is the full-featured nature of the BIOS - far more options than in any other thin client I've ever seen. You can adjust the CPU multipler from 4x to 12x in 1x increments and you can also disable the L1/L2 cache. There's IRQ settings in here, boot order, etc....the whole works.