VOGONS


Reply 100 of 202, by KT7AGuy

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badmojo wrote:

That was about the time I started to lose interest in PC gaming, I just didn't have the cash to keep up with the hardware required. My poor old DX2 66 just ground to a halt at the sight of Nascar, Quake, etc.
I didn't get back into it until '02 or so, when I had a decent job, or more to the point, a credit card 😈

I was heavily into PC gaming from 1995 all the way up through the middle of 2003. I was mostly into flight sims though. I lost interest just as the GF4 cards were in their prime and the FX series was just being released. The last game I actually purchased from a store shelf was TRON 2.0. 😳 At the time, it seemed like almost every PC game was yet another FPS. Truly, it seems like things haven't really changed much in the last 10 years either.

After IL-2 Sturmovik came out, fewer and fewer flight sims were being released. After that, the PC flight sim genre never really come back to life. I know there are tons of community-made mods for EEAH/EECH, EAW, Falcon 4, etc etc etc., but those are not new releases. I just can't justify building a new hotrod PC and spending big bucks on a new USB HOTAS for the pitifully few new releases that have come out. I suppose the old flight sims are the reason why I build and maintain my old Win98SE boxes. I still really enjoy the oldies like Red Baron 3D, EAW, EF2000, etc. My old CH Products gameport gear still works great with them too.

Since 2003, I haven't really done too much modern gaming. Bioshock 1 and 2 were fantastic though. I'd like to try Bioshock Infinite when it drops down in price. I would also like to play Mass Effect, Borderlands, and The Witcher. I also have an immense collection of indie games that I'll never have time to play thanks to Humble Bundle and Indie Royale.

Reply 101 of 202, by nforce4max

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Bioshock Infinite is amazing at times and it doesn't take that much to run it. Does like a modern second or third gen dual or quad but gpu wise almost everything will run it.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 102 of 202, by tincup

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KT7AGuy wrote:

After IL-2 Sturmovik came out, fewer and fewer flight sims were being released. After that, the PC flight sim genre never really come back to life...

.

Yeah, after 2003 for 'heavywheights' you basically have:

Striker Fighter series by Third Wire [quite a few in both the I & II versions]
DCS stuff like A-10 Warthogs, Blackshark & P-51
Rise of Flight
Battle of Britian 2
"IL2" - Cliffs of Dover
Wings of Prey
Commanche vs Hokum 2
Lock-On series
Falcon 4.0 - Allied Force [really just a retail modded upgrade but nice]

This is not counting the Flight Simulator world which as always appears to be holding it's own.

I also like racing sims and they have suffered a similar fate. The good stuff has been limited to the SimBin, ISI crowd and a bit of EA and Codemasters. In some ways rFactor [ISI] made up for it justifies having a computer at all - amazing driving game [mostly dead serious historical stuff] with a vast quantity of tracks, cars and mods. rFactor is basically a retail developed free mod platform. rF2 should be coming out soon if it hasn't already..

Reply 103 of 202, by socram8888

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I only have a single retro PC matching the description in the first post: a Dell Latitude laptop with an Intel Pentium 3 (Coppermine) at ~800MHz, 256MB DDR RAM, 10GB HDD IDE, with floppy disk drive and parallel and serial ports. Surprisingly for a 12-year-old laptop, its battery still charges and lasts like half an hour.

Reply 104 of 202, by digitalhermit86

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Not counting my main PC, my TV computer, and my wife's PC. I have 5 total retro PC.

1. Gateway 2000 486DX2 66Mhz in a pizza box case (in storage).
2. Dell Dimension XPS R450 PII 450Mhz (my main retro PC)
3. Powermac G4 Quick sliver 733Mhz w/ OS X Tiger 10.4. (in storage)
4. Compaq Persario 5BW284 PIII 850Mhz (my 2nd main retro PC)
5. All in one Power PC 1GHz Emac w/OS X Tiger 10.4 (Kitchen PC, used when someone is watching something on the TV)

Reply 105 of 202, by dada

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I don't know off the top of my head. Also the question is what you'd consider "retro".
But I have one 8086, two 286, one 386, two minitowers averaging ~90mhz, and then I have iirc about 4 laptops from 286 to 166mhz. Also I have a number of retro Macs, five desktops (a Mac Classic, a purple CRT iMac, a G3-ish minitower, a G5 iMac and a G5 Power Mac), plus a few laptops (up to the G4 Aluminum, including a mint quality G3 Wall Street that I'm very proud of).

Then there's my regular PC, a Sony FW900 monitor (24" CRT), plus components for a Hackintosh I'm building, and the skeleton of a 200MHz computer (just the case and PSU) that's functioning as a little table next to my bed, so... my house is pretty crowded... 😀

edit: I live in a 35 m2 house... single room.

Reply 106 of 202, by valnar

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I have these two Pair of Retro PC's plus a Shuttle XPC P4 2.26Ghz running XP. Not sure if that is retro enough. I also have a few laptops, but nothing extremely old enough to be called retro.

I have a couple other PC's acting as Arcade machines and a server too, besides my main i5 rig.

Reply 107 of 202, by Half-Saint

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I have too many! My collection now consists of about 12-13 complete systems ranging from XT clone to socket 370 & socket A. I could assemble at least 4-5 complete PCs from the components I have lying around..

On top of that I have a fairly modern HTPC, a gaming rig and a laptop in the office... trying to reduce the collection since it's taking up way too much space.

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Reply 108 of 202, by Robin4

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For now i have only one build off machine (that i bought from ebay).That machine going apart, i bought it because i needed the case for my V20 nec build. But if iam count all the systems i am going to made:

1. V20 NEC
2. 286 - 12Mhz
3. 386 - 40 Mhz
4 486 - (dont sure which speed i take)
5 Pentium 1 MMX build
6 Pentium II build
7 Fast windows 98 system with Athlon XP
8 Just a old Intel Quad QX9650 system to play other games with..

That all for oldskool gaming..

I also have a main computer.

explanation

1. I just cant without a XT computer.. Really like it because of the speed and only 8 bit slots.. Its also not very hard to build the system.
2. This sytem originate because of thats my 386- 40 mhz system was really fast.. I dont think a 386 33mhz system wouldnt be much slower to run speed sensitive games my XT system cant run because its to slow for that.
So i decided to make a 286 system as well.. I specially choose the 12mhz processor because its fast enough for the games i want to run on.. A 16mhz or 20mhz 286 would to fast for my purpose. For games that run to slow on my 286 i can install them on the 386!
3. I started with this system, because when i started playing with old hardware again when donutking infected me with the retro hardware virus.. (thanks for that!) Never thought going for 40mhz speed.. I never had a 40mhz 386 computer.. i only knew when my dad had a 386 DX 33 mhz one.. But when i also had a chance to buy an new 386 motherboard with included manual i was totally over!! I had tought later to skip this system.
But because i had already some 386 motherboard here, i dont really want to sell them.. So i leave this system just in!!..
4. The time on the 486 i knows really good, never played with such motherboards but i definitely wanted a 486 system in my possession. I really didnt though about the system speed i wanted to have, but i think 100mhz or so would be worth it.. And never thought about VLB again.. When i saw some other systems on this forum i decided also going the VESA LOCAL BUS route.. This more because of the quality (speed and compatibillity and sort time VLB has existence.(because of the rare of it)
5. Pentium 1 is more to relive the windows 95 time age.. When everything goes to 3D.
6. Pentuim II system is more to play normal windows 98 games.. Like Red alert II, carmaggedon, unreal and so on.
7. This system is more just a faster windows 98 game system to play games like castle of wolfenstein and games that need to have more speed then a 1 GHz processor.. Maybe could dualboot it with windows xp or so..
8 This system is more to play to older games after the windows 98 period.. I dont need i special hardware for it.. So i yes can use an older Intel Quadcore QX9650 for it..

When i had to choose on which i wanted for sure to have, i would go for the first 5 systems.. I can without a pentium II or faster system.. But its more because of time based (love to have a AGP system also.)

~ At least it can do black and white~

Reply 109 of 202, by Forevermore

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I term "retro" as 478/462 and earlier. So....;

Prescott 478 3.2GHz
Barton 3000+
Coppermine 866MHz (soon to be 933)
Argon 550MHz
K6-III 250nm 400MHz
Deschutes 400MHz
K6-2 CXT 450MHz
P55C 233MHz
MII 366GP
5x86 100GP

Plus a couple more incomplete systems kicking around

So many combinations to make, so few cases to put them in.

Reply 110 of 202, by vetz

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Robin4 wrote:

when i started playing with old hardware again when donutking infected me with the retro hardware virus.. (thanks for that!)

Retro hardware virus.. Alot of people here on Vogons infected me with that, all in their own way.. DAMN YOU 😉

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 111 of 202, by Mau1wurf1977

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Whenever I built a system there was always something I wasn't happy with, or limiting, or compromise.

I'll keep one SS7 Time-Machine and likely a slot 1 and S370 PC around, but the main hobby is entirely on a test bench setup. Whatever I fancy doing I just quickly stick together. All the parts will be neatly tucked away in anti-static bags and containers. For the mainboards I'm still investigating solutions (pizza boxes 🤣).

But this is much more flexible and better suited for what I want to get out this hobby. It also means you don't have to get as many cases, power supplies, cd drives, floppy drives for each and every system and can just focus on the cool parts like the mainboards and sound card 😀

I got my 486er going (an Acer OEM board) and figured out all the jumper settings. Now I have some 386 gear underway which I want to play with. A totally new experience for me and there will be new videos of course 😀

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 112 of 202, by Forevermore

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Mate check out your local computer shop, a lot of MB boxes get tossed away. Or is that just a QLD thing 🤣

So many combinations to make, so few cases to put them in.

Reply 113 of 202, by Mau1wurf1977

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The nearest computer shop is a 10 hour drive 😀

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 115 of 202, by PeterLI

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Modern:
1X Lenovo ThinkPad W500
2X Lenovo ThinkPad W510
1X Lenovo ThinkPad W520

Classic/Vintage/Retro
1X IBM PS/VP 486DX33/D
2X IBM PS/2 8530 8086 (1 for parts)

I only buy the best machines (in my opinion): IBM / Lenovo. I may buy additional IBM desktops / towers eventually (no MCA though): 80(2/3/4)86s and Pentiums.

I have limited space to store them however (the Mrs. gets annoyed otherwise) and limited time to configure / maintain them. I prefer playing my old favorites on them (Pirates! Gold, Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, SimCity and so on). 😀

Reply 116 of 202, by Geforcefly

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Modern (ish):
Windows 98SE: Dell Dimension 4550 with a Pentium 4 2.8GHz (533FSB), 512MB RAM, and a Radeon 9600XT
Windows XP: Dell Vostro 200 / Inspiron 530 with a C2D E8500, 2GB RAM, and a Radeon HD 4670

Classic:
OLD DOS: Packard Bell 386SX-II with a 386SX-20, 8MB RAM, 13.6GB HDD (configured as a 502MB), SB16, and a Trident 8900C 1MB video card
DOS: Freetech 486F39 (or similar) with a Pentium OD83, 32MB RAM, a Promise caching IDE controller with 16MB, and a Diamond Stealth VLB DRAM 2MB card
Windows 95: Abit TX5 v1.2 with a K6-2 400, 128MB RAM, and a Geforce FX5200 PCI

Last edited by Geforcefly on 2018-03-18, 05:31. Edited 1 time in total.

DOS/Win3.1: PCChips M396F v2.2 | 386SX-33 | 16MB RAM | 420MB HDD | CL-GD5429 1MB
Win98: ASRock 775i65G 3.0 | Pentium E5800 @ 3.3GHz | 512MB DDR (TCCD) | 80GB HDD | Radeon 9800 Pro

Reply 118 of 202, by OldCat

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Toshiba T3100 (amber plasma, CGA)
Toshiba T5100 (amber plasma, EGA)
Toshiba T3200SX (amber plasma, VGA)
Panasonic CF-41 x3 (color VGA TFT) - bought dirt cheap, so 2 are for spares

Used to have a couple others, but sold them due to place constraints and wife factor. Still want to build 286 rig with Hercules and amber monitor. Still looking for DOS gaming laptop better than CF-41 (thinner, less noisy).

Reply 119 of 202, by PTherapist

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Pretty much all of my PCs & Macs are old or retro, as they are all 9+ years old. Only 1 laptop & 1 Intel Atom Windows tablet that are only a couple of years old.

I currently have 56 systems in my collection, 47 of them built & ready to use.

Which includes 10 systems in active usage each day. 9 are unbuilt, existing only as a collection of parts and may need 1 or 2 things to get going properly.

Not sure how much of this people would consider "retro" but nonetheless, my collection is as follows -

The Old/Retro PC Build specs:

PC 1: Intel Celeron 1.2GHz (Tualatin), 512MB RAM, GeForce FX5500 256MB PCI, Opti 82C931 ISA Sound, Sound Blaster Live! PCI Sound. OS: Windows 98SE & Windows XP

PC 2: AMD Sempron 3500+, 2GB RAM, GeForce 7300LE 128MB PCIe. OS: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

PC 3: Intel Pentium III 650MHz, 512MB RAM, TNT2 32MB AGP, Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 PCI Sound. OS: Zeta 1.21, Windows XP, Windows 98SE

PC 4: AMD K6-2 500 @ 300MHz, 128MB RAM, Voodoo3 16MB PCI, Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA Sound. OS: Windows 98SE

PC 5: IDT Winchip C6 200MHz, 72MB RAM, Virge 2MB PCI Graphics, ESS 1868 ISA Sound. OS: Windows 95

PC 6: AMD Am486 DX-40 @ 33MHz, 28MB RAM, Tseng Labs ET 4000 1MB ISA, ISA Sound (need to check). OS: Windows 95

PC 7: Intel 80386SX 16MHz, 10MB RAM, Western Digital Onboard Graphics. OS: MS-DOS 6.22 with Windows for Workgroups 3.11

PC 8: AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 1GB RAM, AGP Graphics (need to check), Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 7

PC 9: Intel Celeron 400MHz (PII era, Mendocino), 64MB RAM, 3D Rage Pro 8MB AGP, Onboard Sound. OS: Solaris 10

PC 10: Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Prescott, Socket 478), 1GB RAM, GeForce FX 5700VE 256MB AGP, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 7

PC 11: AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 2GB RAM, Radeon HD 3450 512MB AGP, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 7

PC 12: AMD K6-2 450MHz, 128MB RAM, TNT Vanta 16MB AGP, Aureal Vortex 2 PCI Sound. OS: Windows XP & Windows 98SE

PC 13: Intel Pentium III 1.0GHz (Coppermine), 768MB RAM, GeForce 4 MX440 64MB AGP, Onboard Sound. OS: eComStation 2.1

PC 14: Intel Celeron D 320 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM, Intel 82845G Onboard Graphics, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 7

PC 15: AMD Duron 892MHz, 512MB RAM, Radeon 9200SE 128MB AGP, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows XP

PC 16: AMD K6-2 400MHz, 160MB RAM, Voodoo3 16MB PCI, ESS Solo-1 Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 98SE

PC 17: Intel Pentium III 500MHz, 128MB RAM, Rage 3D Pro 4MB Onboard Graphics, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 98SE

PC 18: AMD Sempron 3000+, 1GB RAM, Radeon HD 3450 512MB AGP, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 7

PC 19: Intel Pentium II 266MHz, 160MB RAM, Riva 128 4MB AGP. OS: Windows XP (will remove soon)

PC 20: AMD Athlon XP 1900+, 1.2GB RAM, GeForce4 MX 4000 128MB AGP, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows XP

PC 21: Intel Celeron 700MHz (Coppermine), 192MB RAM, Onboard Graphics (need to check), Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 2000

PC 22: Intel 80286 12MHz, 1MB RAM, Trident TVGA 8900C 1MB ISA, Hercules Monochrome ISA Graphics. OS: IBM PC DOS 7.0, with GEM/3 Desktop 3.13 & Windows 3.1

The unbuilt specs:

PC 1: Intel Pentium MMX 233MHz, 128MB RAM.

PC 2: AMD Duron 800MHz.

PC 3: Intel Celeron D 335 2.8GHz, 512MB RAM, Intel 865G Onboard Graphics, Onboard Sound.

PC 4: Intel Celeron 1.2GHz (Tualatin), 128MB RAM, Trident Blade 3D Onboard Graphics, Onboard Sound.

PC 5: AMD Athlon XP 2600+, 256MB RAM, SIS Mirage 64MB Onboard Graphics, Onboard Sound.

PC 6: AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 512MB RAM, Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB AGP, Onboard Sound.

PC 7: Intel Pentium III 450MHz, 128MB RAM.

PC 8: AMD Duron 800MHz, 64MB RAM, Rage XL AGP Graphics, Sound Blaster 128 CT4810 PCI Sound. (this system presently has a case, but will soon be reused for another build)

PC 9: Intel 8088 4.77MHz, 256KB RAM.

The Active/More Modern Built PCs:

PC 1: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+, 4GB RAM, GeForce Quadro FX1700 512MB PCIe, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 10

PC 2: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 4GB RAM, GeForce GT 430 1GB PCIe, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 10

PC 3: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+, 4GB RAM, Radeon HD 3450 256MB PCIe, Onboard Sound. OS: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

PC 4: AMD Athlon II X2 4450E 2.8GHz (unlocked Sepmron 145), 8GB RAM, Radeon HD 5450 512MB PCIe, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 8.1

PC 5: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, 2GB RAM, Radeon HD 5450 512MB PCIe, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 7 (getting Windows 10 soon)

PC 6: Intel Pentium D 830 Dual Core 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM, Radeon HD 5450 PCIe, Sound Blaster (need to check model) 5.1 PCI Sound. OS: Windows 8.1

PC 7: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+, 2GB RAM, Radeon HD 5450 512MB PCIe, Onboard Sound. OS: Windows 8.1

Laptops & Tablets:

Laptop 1: Intel Core 2 Duo T5300, 2GB RAM, Intel 945 Graphics. OS: Windows 10 (7 to be reinstalled soon).

Laptop 2: Intel Core i3-6100U, 8GB RAM, Intel HD 520 Graphics. OS: Windows 10

Laptop 3: AMD Turion 64 MK-36 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, Radeon Xpress 1100 Graphics. OS: Windows 10

Laptop 4: Intel Pentium III 897MHz, 512MB RAM, Intel 82815 Graphics. OS: Windows XP & Windows 98SE

Tablet 1: Intel Atom Z3735G Quad Core 1.83GHz, 1GB RAM. OS: Windows 8.1

Plus I have 3 ARM-based Android tablets & a Blackberry Playbook.

Macs:

Mac 1: Mac mini, PowerPC G4 1.25GHz, 512MB RAM, Radeon 9200 32MB Onboard Graphics. OS: Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

Mac 2: Power Macintosh G3 Beige Desktop, PowerPC G3 300MHz, 448MB RAM, Rage 128 16MB PCI, 3D Rage Pro 2MB Onboard Graphics (disabled). OS: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger & Mac OS 9.2.2

Mac 3: PowerMac G5, PowerPC G5 Dual 2.0GHz, 3GB RAM, GeForce 6200 256MB AGP. OS: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger & Lubuntu 16.04 LTS

Mac 4: iMac DV Summer 2000, PowerPC G3 400MHz, 512MB RAM, Rage 128 Pro 8MB Onboard Graphics. OS: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger & Mac OS 9.1

Mac 5: iMac DV Summer 2000, PowerPC G3 400MHz, 128MB RAM, Rage 128 Pro 8MB Onboard Graphics. OS: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger & Mac OS 9.1

Mac 6: iMac Rev. D, PowerPC G3 333MHz, 320MB RAM, Rage Pro 6MB Onboard Graphics. OS: Mac OS X 10.3 Panther & Mac OS 9.1.

Mac 7: Power Macintosh G3 Blue & White, PowerPC G3 350MHz, 512MB RAM, Radeon 7000 64MB PCI Graphics. OS: Mac OS 9.2.2

Other Vintage Computers:

System 1: Commodore 64C
System 2: Sinclair (Amstrad) ZX Spectrum +2A

As for what I do with all this lot, mostly just tinker with it from time to time. 🤣

Most of my gaming is done via emulation on 1 of my more modern active systems. I keep planning to set up a dedicated retro gaming rig. The working Tualatin system is great for a retro gaming system, but severely hindered by lacking a CD-ROM drive for those CD based games (it's a non-standard ePoS case). For Windows games I could get by with patching/cracking the games not to need the disc and/or use ISO images.

But I love both my 386 & 286 systems for the older DOS games. The 486 would be good too, but it's PC Speaker is dead and I'm not brave enough to start soldering on it yet - though the motherboards for this particular system are quite reasonable on eBay. Additionally I also love my K6-2 500/300 system, mostly for nostalgia reasons as I've owned it the longest and it's the most powerful "AT only" computer that I own.