Hi!

I would say the oldest one *might* be able to run Windows 98/ME. You'd want to drop it to 512 MB of RAM and you'd probably need to find a different GPU to run in it that's compatible with Windows 98.

I'm not sure if you can get the Intel 945 chipset to behave in Windows 98, as I don't think there's drivers for it. Worth trying, but you might have issues.

The middle machine would make a good XP machine for games of that era.

Thanks for the quick reply. What games 'era' would be good for the second machine? Some popular example titles.... ?

The last one full spec is
ASUS Motherboard P8Z68-V
Intel i7-2600K @ 3.4GHz
16Gb RAM DDR3 1600MHz
Radeon HD 6800
60Gb SSD
2TB HDD
Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit

I think it's about 6 years old now - what would run nice on that one? I mostly enjoyed the Tombraider type games (with a puzzle solving aspect, not purely action). I never played games during the 2010s so any recommendations for that last system?

best regards
Rich

A lot of people here (myself included) still use machines very similar in spec to that third one as our primary daily-driver PCs... feels weird seeing one being relegated solely for "retro gaming". I suppose you could run DOSBOX on there at full speed, but Win10 might have too many compatibility issues for pre-2010 games, assuming the sheer CPU speed and thread count don't cause their own problems.

Also, that second machine, wherein you will find DDR2 RAM, not Rambus, is from at least 2006, not 2004.

Q6600 Was launched in '07.

To answer your question, the first one with a different graphics card and XP on it could handle early 2000's games really great, and would be fun to mess around with. Q6600 would be great for ~10 year old games, albeit most of those work just fine on modern computers.

Thanks guys. The last one IS my main PC I use (in fact I'm posting from it) I just wondered what games my run well on it as never used it for gaming.

The second rig as I recall I did build about the end of 2004 (the SSD was added later) but after a year or so it went faulty and the problem in the end was the Core Duo (or whatever the first dual core Intel CPUs were called) and I ended up replacing the CPU and Mainboard at the same time at the end of 2006 (xmas/new year). It thought did have RAMbus when I built it originally but maybe my memory fails me. I am 100% certain I did have a rig with RAMbus at one time/

After getting a new mobo and CPU I then eventually got a replacement CPU for the original faulty one under warranty and I honestly thought I then sold the Mobo, CPU and Ram on ebay as used/working. But when clearing out the loft recently I found an ASUS P5B Deluxe mobo, with CPU, cooler and 2x DIMM and then I thought that must have been the original parts and maybe I didn't sell them. I've just got the heatsink and cooling fan off and had a proper look at what it is. That one is an Asus P5B Deluxe, it has 2Gb of DDR2 553(4) and the cpu is Intel Core 2 Duo 6680 Malay 2.4GHz

That *may* be the original mobo from when I'm certain I built that rig at the end of 2004 and it may be working, Does that sound the right era? i'm not sure.

best regards
Rich

Not really,

Core 2 Duo was released on July 2006. So no way to build a PC using such a CPU in 2004.

dicky96 wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply. What games 'era' would be good for the second machine? Some popular example titles.... ? […]
Show full quote

Thanks for the quick reply. What games 'era' would be good for the second machine? Some popular example titles.... ?

The last one full spec is
ASUS Motherboard P8Z68-V
Intel i7-2600K @ 3.4GHz
16Gb RAM DDR3 1600MHz
Radeon HD 6800
60Gb SSD
2TB HDD
Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit

I think it's about 6 years old now - what would run nice on that one? I mostly enjoyed the Tombraider type games (with a puzzle solving aspect, not purely action). I never played games during the 2010s so any recommendations for that last system?

best regards
Rich

Honestly I'm running an i5-2500 w/ 12 GB of RAM and a Radeon R7-265 as my main desktop, which is basically an overclocked Radeon 7850. And I can still game on current titles at medium-high for the most part. Grab a newer GPU and you'll be able to play the latest and greatest with no issue. Heck, the 6800 you have would still get you low-medium most of the time, with some exceptions.

Edit: And I'd imagine you would have had a P4 with Hyperthreading or a Netburst-based Pentium D in 2004. 2006 might have been the time when you switched to a Core2 based system, that would make sense.

Madc0w wrote:

Q6600 Was launched in '07.

To answer your question, the first one with a different graphics card and XP on it could handle early 2000's games really great, and would be fun to mess around with. Q6600 would be great for ~10 year old games, albeit most of those work just fine on modern computers.

Any suggestions on a sutable graphics card for that one then? Has 1 AGP and 1 PCI slot but not a lot of room in there as its a slimline desktop so only takes a half height card. Ther is a little riser that allows a full height PCI card to be fitted horizontally but again only about 17cm long

Cheers
Rich

HI guys (again)

I've dug the last old PC out of the loft and got it running. The 20Gb HDD was faulty but I found another old 80Gb IDE and managed to install Win XP on that

I did a bit of googling and I believe this PC should run Win 98 and drivers are available?

Dell Optiplex GX110
Intel Piii-800
128Mb PC100 RAM (2x 64 Mb dimms)
80Gb HDD
Onboard INtel VGA & Sound
CDROM and Floppy Drive

All is working fine now in Win XP (all drivers installed according to the control panel) apart from I can't test the floppy drive as I don't have any floppies!

So a few questions:

I know this was originally a business machine, but would that one be any good for Win98/95/DOS games?

It has 3x full length PCI slots - no AGP.
Would it work with voodoo2 (I used to own one and have a kinda nostalgia to own one again)
What PCI graphics card would work well in it, or at least better than the onboard VGA? (possibly alongside a voodoo2)
Maybe a PCI sound card is better than the onboard sound for compaitibility?

Thanks again
Rich

dicky96 wrote:

HI guys (again) […]
Show full quote

HI guys (again)

I've dug the last old PC out of the loft and got it running. The 20Gb HDD was faulty but I found another old 80Gb IDE and managed to install Win XP on that

I did a bit of googling and I believe this PC should run Win 98 and drivers are available?

Dell Optiplex GX110
Intel Piii-800
128Mb PC100 RAM (2x 64 Mb dimms)
80Gb HDD
Onboard INtel VGA & Sound
CDROM and Floppy Drive

All is working fine now in Win XP (all drivers installed according to the control panel) apart from I can't test the floppy drive as I don't have any floppies!

So a few questions:

I know this was originally a business machine, but would that one be any good for Win98/95/DOS games?

It has 3x full length PCI slots - no AGP.
Would it work with voodoo2 (I used to own one and have a kinda nostalgia to own one again)
What PCI graphics card would work well in it, or at least better than the onboard VGA? (possibly alongside a voodoo2)
Maybe a PCI sound card is better than the onboard sound for compaitibility?

Thanks again
Rich

Old business machines are often better built and more reliable. Honestly, that would make a solid 98SE/ME machine. I've had luck with PCI Radeon 9250's and also PCI Geforce 5200 and 5500 cards, at least if you're going for mid-late 9x era. If you want to play older games with a Voodoo2 then I'd imagine that there'd be suitable 2D PCI cards available, I'm just not as familiar.

With only PCI, I would personally look for YMF74x (OPLSAx) based sound cards, or an ESS Solo-1. Both work pretty well with older DOS games if that's interesting to you at all and still work fine for 9x stuff.

Got a Celeron 850mhz on a MSI MS-6337 V5 motherboard off a more or less blind buy off gumtree.

Not quite the perfect motherboard, but still a great board to put my 1ghz coppermine system in 😀

Thanks guys for some solid advice.

OK I'm gonna look to put a voodoo 2 system in the Dell GX110 PIII-800 machine and install win98. Yeah I know voodoo2 are fetching money but there are some around on ebay at what I would consider reasonable prices (like well less than what one cost me back in the day!!). Hell I may even be able to get my old voodoo2 back from a friend who I gave the PC to years ago. He hoards things so i suspect he still has it.
So a 2D PCI card to go along with that would be the next recommendation I am looking for. Any suggestions? I guess with 3 PCI slots I could either fit a soundcard, 2D card and voodoo2... or I could use either the onboard sound or the onboard vga... and put 2x voodoo2 SLI.

The little slimline HP Compaq dc7600 (Pentium 4, 3GHz, 1Gb RAM) running XP - I also will look to upgrade that one for games from around 2000 era, although it is now playing Tombraider 2 just fine as it stands. All I need to buy for that one needs is an AGP card but I need a low profile one. Since posting I found an interesting video on youtube that seems to be just what I am looking for 'Low Profile Graphics Cards comparison for Windows XP Retro Gaming on Small Form Factor Pre Built PCs' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QjZJvook8 but any further advice from here would be highly appreciated guys.

The other two rigs I will leave as they are for now. Really these two are my main daily use PCs anyway.

But it does sounld like I have a good selection of rigs here that would handle a wide range of games from mid 90s on.

best regards
Rich

Ahh no maybe that video wasnt what I am looking for as those all seem to be PCI-e cards

Now I'm finding some low profile AGP cards fairly cheap - mainly NVidea TNT2, Matrox G550 and Radeon 7500 seem to be the common ones available......

**** extra info
Now finding quite a few Geforce 6200 256Mb Low Profile AGP not too expensive for me - is that my best choice?