VOGONS


First post, by mzlink

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Hello.

Alot of old games i have is alot of trouble to even get running on a modern windows.
Some of the games includes:
* Need For Speed Porsche (hangs randomly)
* Space Haste 2 (textures issues)
* Redline Racer (choppy gameplay and frequent crashing)

I just recently saw a driver for the xbox 360 controller and so I thought it might be worth it to get real hardware as these games i have are notoriously hard to get running good in vmware/dosbox/modern windows

While not essential, soundblaster compatibility is important, but the most important thing is well working 3d graphics acceleration.

Any thoughts on what to go for?

Edit: i plan to play on my 40" lcd tv using vga input and have the audio go to my JVC stereo (which is used as speaker for the tv)

Reply 1 of 15, by Nintendawg

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If you want good 3D graphics acceleration under Windows 98 I doubt you would be satisfied with any laptop.
Do you need compatibility with DOS games? I only ask because many of the ones I tried showed screen tearing on a large modern TV. It's caused by the refresh rates not matching up. Not sure if/how this effects windows games.
Sound Blaster compatibility should be easy to achieve.
Check out some of the builds in the System Specs forum section for some Ideas and maybe have a read of the Vogons Wiki.

Reply 2 of 15, by idspispopd

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I suppose a late P3 model would be fine CPU-wise, but than you don't always have good 3D acceleration. Still there are P3 laptops with Radeon graphics which will probably be OK.
For GF2go or even GF4 variants you will probably have to look for a P4 laptop. Of course a Pentium-M laptop would be nicer, but then it might be harder to get Win9x drivers for all components, especially sound.
The most demanding of the games you mentioned seems to be Space Haste 2 with 16MB VRAM min, 32MB recommended. The CPU speed won't be an issue, any laptop with good enough graphics will have a faster CPU.

Reply 3 of 15, by Nintendawg

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^Yes this is a better explanation. I read the question as whether or not a desktop or laptop would be better for a 98 gaming rig 😊

Reply 4 of 15, by Sutekh94

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There's systems like the Dell Inspiron 8100/Latitude C810 twins, both PIII laptops, which would probably be more than enough for at least the three games you mentioned. Mine came with a 32MB GeForce 2 Go video card, and I believe it can even be upgraded to a GeForce 4 440 Go or Radeon Mobility 7500 with 64MB VRAM. I might have to do that to mine one day.

There's also more than likely other threads here on VOGONS talking about Win98-era gaming laptops that are worth looking for.

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Reply 5 of 15, by PhantomEight

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Look into a Latitude Dell D600. There's some actually reselling them on eBay preloaded with Windows98 at a price premium.
See here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-LATITUDE-D600-WI … xgAAOSw7FRWWeaD

Of course I would pick up one much cheaper and load it with Win98 and find the drivers myself.

Reply 6 of 15, by idspispopd

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Interesting, I have a D600. I was planning to try W98 on it if I ever find the time. From my research the Audio would be the only component where finding a driver might be challenging. I found some pointers for AC'97 support in W98 so I believe the seller that everything works.
Keep in mind the Radeon 9000 in there is the 32MB model which only has 64-bit RAM access so the GPU will probably the bottleneck. (Might not matter with the internal 1024x768 screen, unless you use some kind of AA.) Also Geforce 2 Go / Geforce 4 Go have better legacy features for earlier 3D games. That aside, it's a very nice machine. You can put a secondary HDD in the modular bay instead of the floppy/DVD, there are even modules that enable you to use SATA drives.

Reply 7 of 15, by brostenen

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How about a build like this one?

Motherboard: Intel-se440BX-2
CPU: P-III 933 or 1000 (Can't remember max, what the mobo can handle)
RAM: 512mb
GFX: Geforce2-GTS, Voodoo3-3000 or Radeon9600
Sound: AWE64-Gold (SB-Live if surround is needed)

Stick it all in a HTPC Case, for the looks of it.

The thing you REALLY need to consider, regarding NFS-2000. Is the compatibility regarding menu and choice of GFX card.
GeForce's seem to get worse and worse from TNT2/GF2. TNT2/GF2 seems to have the best compatibility when running stock.
As an example. You get blurry menu (sometimes no font's/missing font) when you have AA disabled.
GF4 need AAx2 and GF-FX5200 need to have AAx4 enabled. Not that it matters that much. You just have to have a faster CPU.
Radeon seems not to suffer in the same way as GF cards, yet it lacks certain compatibility with older technology.
This only shows that no card is perfect when we are talking about Win98 games. You even have bad textures in UT99 with faster
cards from nvidia. Some can be fixed with patching UT99 with the official patches. Sometimes not.

GF2 and V3-3000 seems to be the best two choices when we are speaking of Win98 games from 1998 to 2000.

Speaking of the motherboard. If you are only planning to play games like Duke3d and Doom2, then SB-Live can do.
Then you don't really need to have any ISA slots, and any P3 Socket370 NON-ISA slot could probably do.
You can even get a card like a Yamaha ymf724 based card, wich has real Adlib build into the GX-Chip.
So. Yeah... It all depends on what you need. (and what you can find and want to spend)

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

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Reply 8 of 15, by adalbert

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I have one notebook which is near-perfect 98-era machine, it has only two or three things that could be improved.

It is called Actina, Aristo, IPC, Gericom, Jetta, Jetway etc... model 7233.

*Celeron 700MHz
*floppy
*cd-drive

12.1", 800x600 TFT screen:
+ small form factor, nice and compact
+ native resolution of Win9x games like HOMM III
Ati 3D RAGE LT
+ basic 3D acceleration
+ hardware-accelerated image scaling, and that means smooth rescaling of 640x480 to 800x600 native resolution, without this feature scaling looks awful on older notebooks

ESS Maestro 2E
+ works in DOS, both sound and midi
- not so good OPL3 emulation... but it is at least FM, not so terrible like opl3 to wavetable emulation
- no game port
- noise in left speaker (bad signal filtering)

It looks like this (it's not my photo) 1719db334eb68cc7med.jpg

So, it would be perfect only if it had another soundcard, like ESS Solo-1 or something else with very good DOS compatibility, and maybe gameport. Does anyone know anything better than this?

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 9 of 15, by idspispopd

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That sounds quite nice for DOS and for 2D-Windows. Not sure about 3D; is the Rage LT based on Rage II or is it a Rage LT Pro? Even a Rage LT Pro is not very balanced for the CPU.
And isn't Maestro 2E a PCI solution? So you need drivers to make it work in DOS?
For Windows I'd prefer a faster 3D-solution.
Still, doesn't sound bad at all, depending on what you want to run. Nice small form factor.

Reply 10 of 15, by adalbert

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Yes, it is PCI based, but has drivers which works with everything I tried - although OPL3 emulation is not so good. I don't think there are any laptops with such fast CPU, 3D acceleration and ISA-based sound card, so a PCI card with decent drivers should be enough. I don't know the details about that graphic cards, but I remeber playing Half Life and it was pretty good, better than software mode.

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 11 of 15, by adalbert

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I have identified the holy grail of Windows 98-era gaming laptop, and now I own it.
It is called Compaq Presario 1800.

Mine comes with Pentium 3 800 MHz, replaceable.
ATI Rage M128 8MB, floppy drive, CD-rom,
and the best thing: ESS Solo-1 !!!1111oneone. Everybody knows that it is probably the best PCI card with DOS compatibility, with working OPL3.
The LCD screen has very good filtering when scaling 640x480, and the CPU fan isn't painfully loud, it has pretty nice, low tone.

The laptop also has gameport via docking station. I will try to make by myself an adapter to use just the game port. The connector's pinout is in the service manual.

And the JBL speakers are really amazing, you can feel the difference compared to regular speakers.

I got it today so I didn't do too much with it. But I think that it should have sound and usable 256-color VESA graphics in Win 3.1, and I will also try using some Glide wrappers with it.

//Update:
and here is the video of working sound (there is some additional microphone noise because i used condenser microphone with low battery)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rbHIj6SMlF … iew?usp=sharing

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 12 of 15, by DX7_EP

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I would rather build a desktop for this purpose than using a laptop, as that gives you far more flexibility in part selections and system capabilities. However, laptops do also have their uses.

For desktops, I'd go with a late P3 or even P4 system with a compatible graphics card of your choice (usually Radeon 9xxx, GeForce 4, or Voodoo 3 lines), combined with a sound card with some DOS support (assuming PCI, the Aureal Vortex 2 is a popular choice here for its A3D abilities in Win9x and good DOS support; other notable options include ESS Solo-1 and cards using Yamaha YMF7xx chipsets, latter of which has authentic OPL3 for SB emulation).

When it comes to laptops, I would imagine something from 2001-2003 would be the best fit, especially if your focus is on Windows gaming and you prefer running DOS games in Win9x instead of pure DOS. Alas I can't quite think of a good option, but others here have already given some good pointers.

CM-64, FB-01, SC-55ST, SC-8850, SD-20

Reply 13 of 15, by adalbert

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Well, yes, I already have exactly something like that 😉
Re: piii tualatin 1.4ghz vs athlon xp?

adalbert wrote:

I built something pretty fast and small, and quiet: Chaintech 6via5t with PIII-T 1.4@1.5 GHz, 1GB CL2 ram, GF4Ti 128MB, Voodoo2, ISA audio, 40GB laptop HDD, slim CD drive, WiFi, FDD and triple boot DOS-W3.1 (with 256 colors SVGA driver) / Win 98 / Win XP. Using small self made open case with miniature power supply. I posted some time ago some build pics (with different mainboard) here Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?.

Sometimes I just prefer to sit somewhere with a laptop because it's more comfortable. And I'm mainly laptop collector, I have Libretto 70, 110, 486 laptop, P1 laptop, 386 laptop, all of that with active matrix screen and SB compatibility. And now I have something with working 3D acceleration, which should be sufficient for 98-99 games, as newer often can be played under XP or W7 anyway 😜 And it still has the ability to play the older DOS games, which is cool because it's universal. And it has much bigger screen than older laptops (actually i like those small laptops but at least i have something different now).

Repair/electronic stuff videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/adalbertfix
ISA Wi-fi + USB in T3200SXC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX30t3lYezs
GUI programming for Windows 3.11 (the easy way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6L272OApVg

Reply 14 of 15, by gdjacobs

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Someone needs to design a good old fashioned briefcase PC for DOS/Win98 retro gaming.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 15 of 15, by keenmaster486

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Yeeeesss!!! It needs to be a community effort, I'm thinking open-source ISA bus Socket 3 or 5 system/motherboard and case. Or maybe it should be an open-source laptop 😁 Someone should start a thread to that effect... 🤑

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.