furan wrote:

Does the 3D Blaster VLB go for over $~1500 on ebay because it's pre-(popular)internet? Or just because it's old and rare? I have a hard time thinking of something like that, released now, that I'd want to hold on to.

Old and rare. There are only a handful of games that support it, 3-5 I believe. Even when it was new it was pretty much useless as a 3d accelerator, hence why it is that rare.

happycube wrote:

Considering a good bit of what's talked about these days could be considered garbage when they were new, it's hard to predict. I can see grey Dell P4's making a comeback...

On the less razzy side, 2nd gen (and some high end 1st) i5's and i7's have held up better than pretty much any previous CPU IMO. Dual Nehalem/Westmeres might become popular, and you can get a two-socket standard ATX Xeon board that holds 48GB of RAM, still large by today's standards!

On the server side of things, the dual LGA1366 (Nehalem/Westmere) you can get a whole lot more RAM stuffed into them than 48GB. I've actually got a couple Dell Poweredge R710 dual socket servers that I upgraded to dual X5675 CPUs and 48GB of RAM when I got the RAM really cheap... and they can hold a whole lot more RAM.... specs say the max is 288GB 😲 😈

I think the i5-2500K, i7-2600K and i7-2700K will always be collectable. They have all been popular and easy to overclock (I got an i7-2700K up to 5 GHz with watercooling, logged on hwbot. I will definitely rebuild the same system when prices hit a trough.

oeuvre wrote:

one day RGB will be retro

brb building a 486 with RGB fans and RGB LEDs installed in a model M

you gotta stop watching linus man

It all depends on if there will be some big change in computer tech that makes it incompatible with older software and hardware. It would require answer to questions like if pci express still exists 20 years from now and when does newer OS drop compatibility with older hardware. Perhaps graphics cards will become fast enough to be able concentrate on ray tracing and will drop rasterization completely and making old games incompatible at some point. Perhaps even desktop pcs will go extinct completely when newer generations just buy more integrated computers like laptops and smaller.

Collectible, yes, but maybe not as desirable.

My reasoning is this... if you go back to the 70s, 80s, and 90s you had lots of hardware from very different manufacturers - they were put together differently, had different engineering, ran different software, had different stories behind them. I've got an Atari ST, Amiga 1000, and Apple IIGS behind me and they were all remarkably different.

Once everything became PC/MAC (and or x86 for that matter), it's all one big homogenized mess. Sure there are a few popular motherboards and GPUs (GTX690 comes to mind, as it was the first with the big giant metal cooler from team green), but by and large I don't think it will ever be the same again.

It's highly unlikely anything after around 2007 will be collectible. Why?

Simply because there are little or no programs/games that came out for Windows Vista (2007/DX10) that would not work on a modern computer today, or probably in 10 years time. Crysis came out in 2007 and can still suckerpunch a modern computer if you turn everything up high.

The reason we collect retro stuff is primarily because old games don't run on new hardware, and lots of old hardware with lost capabilities can't even connect to a modern computer.

If I could buy a modern motherboard with PCI and ISA slots that had a magic knob to turn a Ryzen down to around 10mhz would I be messing around trying to get a K6+ to work in a recapped socket7 motherboard? Hell no!

I mentioned this in a similar thread a couple years ago. I imagine one day that certain models of netbooks will become collectible...not for their value, but for their oddity. Especially the original EeePC. They're also easy to collect with their small size, and since I don't anticipate any real value to them, they theoretically should remain cheap for a long time to come, which might entice some people to try collecting them in the future. Yeah, they might not be able to do much and, like I said, aren't of any real monetary value...but they're still interesting little critters that did admittedly help launch a whole new category of personal computer (albeit a short-lived category that eventually failed).

squiggly wrote:

It's highly unlikely anything after around 2007 will be collectible. Why? […]
Show full quote

It's highly unlikely anything after around 2007 will be collectible. Why?

Simply because there are little or no programs/games that came out for Windows Vista (2007/DX10) that would not work on a modern computer today, or probably in 10 years time. Crysis came out in 2007 and can still suckerpunch a modern computer if you turn everything up high.

The reason we collect retro stuff is primarily because old games don't run on new hardware, and lots of old hardware with lost capabilities can't even connect to a modern computer.

If I could buy a modern motherboard with PCI and ISA slots that had a magic knob to turn a Ryzen down to around 10mhz would I be messing around trying to get a K6+ to work in a recapped socket7 motherboard? Hell no!

I don't think it is as simple as that. We have lots of ways making old games work on a newer pc like dosbox or glide wrappers. Many people still like the old hardware itself or perhaps they just want to replicate the first pc they ever owned and get enjoyment for nostalgic feelings of just having it. Also I am sure there are many people who just enjoy messing with old hardware than actually playing the old games. You simply can't do that with a new computer and many would still like doing that even if there was a perfect emulation for all the old hardware.

The concept of software compatibility is really one of the major factors in making computers retro.
As somebody else already mentioned, most XP era games run just fine on Windows 10. Also, hardware ages more slowly in terms of performance now, than it ever did. My previous computer, an i7 920, is still in daily use by a friend of mine. I gave it to him when I built my i7 6700k, and for him, it's still fine for gaming and such. Even most current games run fine. I use my Dell XPS laptop from 2007 on a mostly daily basis for secondary tasks, like skyping and web browsing from the sofa and such. It may be old, but it isn't "retro" by any means. The games that my XPS can run, will also run on my Windows 10 desktop PC, except better. There isn't a single task my XPS can do better than my desktop.
My 486 on the other hand, can do lots of things my desktop can't do, at least not without resorting to emulation and such, and frankly, pressing a power switch, is more convenient than making 50 different DOSBox profiles for different games and programs.

Today, semi-conductor technology is coming very close to the limits of what is possible. Sure, we can make small incremental optimizations in the chip design, add more cores, more cache, etc, but there are limits to things like clock speed etc. Copper traces will only move electrons so fast. At some point we WILL have to move on to a new type of CPU architecture in order to make computers significantly faster, and at that point, it's highly likely that backwards compatibility with current software will be down to emulation. At that point, suddenly all pre-changeover hardware will become highly desirable for the same reason pre-NT era hardware is so desirable today.

Baoran wrote:

We have lots of ways making old games work on a newer pc like dosbox or glide wrappers...even if there was a perfect emulation for all the old hardware.

I don't get why people shill for emulation so hard. It's utter crap 90 percent of the time. Number of times I have installed a game from GoG onto Win10 that works without major glitches = about zero. Every Steam and GoG forum for every retro game filled with complaints about how shit doesn't work.

The closest to a working emulator I have seen is ScummVM, except it's not an emulator it effectively is a remake of multiple games at once, and only a couple of dozen adventure games at that.

I also like old hardware, but it's only 5% of the reason I did it - the reason I have spent thousands building old PCs is I want to be able to play 20 years of worth of the original and best era of PC gaming perfectly, the way they were supposed to run, every single time.

And no, even WinXP games rarely work without issue on Win10 in my existence. Thankfully putting together a retro core 2 duo rig with a Radeon 5850 and winxp can be done for next to nothing - old pcs of this generation are literally being put out by the curbside where I live.

I think only pre <1996 computers are collectible.
I like power and speed after 1996< the more the better.
Modern computers are only plain white bread and butter manufactured with only cost cutting in mind.

squiggly wrote:

I don't get why people shill for emulation so hard. It's utter crap 90 percent of the time. Number of times I have installed a game from GoG onto Win10 that works without major glitches = about zero. Every Steam and GoG forum for every retro game filled with complaints about how shit doesn't work.

The closest to a working emulator I have seen is ScummVM, except it's not an emulator it effectively is a remake of multiple games at once, and only a couple of dozen adventure games at that.

Personally, I found emulation to be the answer. When you say 'emulation' I presume you are talking about 'PC' only?

I was emulating Playstation1 games on P3/800 with ATi RagePro and running them at 800x600 back in 1999... better than any playstation could run them. NeoGeo, MegaDrive, SNES, N64... all being emulated on pre Y2K hardware... in terms of consoles (20 yrs+) they are all emulated pretty well... Saturn and Dreamcast being the only exceptions I can think of tbh (or at least the only consoles I wanted to be able to emulate but it wasn't up to scratch...fuck knows what they are like now?)

Amiga emulation has been pretty perfect for a number of years now (WinUAE even emulates what the drive sounded like o.0), and can emulate hardware which didn't even exist (A500 with '040 ??? o.0).... yet amiga hardware prices are through the roof currently?

So no, imo, emulation (in general) isn't shit and even if it was, I don't think it's the reason old hardware is getting expensive (Amiga?). Emulation can do things no old hardware can do, it can add functionality no old hardware ever could and these days, pushes games in ways there were never designed (save states, reshading etc). Maybe users who expect everything to be handed on a plate don't like it (generation snowflake? GOG exists for exactly this reason), but unfortunately they won't get answers by sourcing old hardware to run things. Granted perhaps some PC emulators are not great.... give it time.

squiggly wrote:

I also like old hardware, but it's only 5% of the reason I did it - the reason I have spent thousands building old PCs is I want to be able to play 20 years of worth of the original and best era of PC gaming perfectly, the way they were supposed to run, every single time.

This has never really been the case since 486. Everything takes a little bit of effort, because every computer is different... now, then, and no doubt in the future. So simply using old hardware isn't going to remedy this (it has its own problems, and could be argued is a lot less compatible than it is today). The only thing that old hardware can really give is the 'nostalgia' feeling for those who experienced it (being able to get something that was beyond wildest dreams back then, drooling over magazine reviews/articles... and now I can own one!), or the for those who didn't, a little taste of what things were like. Nothing back then was compatible with everything, just like today... only difference is today, you are more likely to have something that can be compatible... because of software compatibility layers like emulation with enough spare CPU cycles to actually work. The only hardware you can guarantee to work with every game released for it would be on a console because consoles are sandboxed and not that expandable, so software written for it will always work with it (maybe why their emulators are much more consistent). This has NEVER been the case with a PC. Maybe another difference today is that you don't need to worry about min spec.. back when there was a very good chance (at least in my case) that a big box game I got in a shop wouldn't work straight away with my PC. People actually read the 'min spec' and took on board what it was saying.

squiggly wrote:

And no, even WinXP games rarely work without issue on Win10 in my existence. Thankfully putting together a retro core 2 duo rig with a Radeon 5850 and winxp can be done for next to nothing - old pcs of this generation are literally being put out by the curbside where I live.

🤣, just like 486's were 20 years ago, junk, had for pennies, found everywhere. And in the future (10/20 years from now) people will be complaining about the prices of C2D when there are fuckall about... then some smart arse like myself will point out that in 2018... you could pick them up for pennies and they were everywhere. Personally I never thought 386's would ever command a premium... but hey, here we are!

Given the rise of low power multicore processing offered today.. in 20 years I would be surprised if we are still using x86... then all 32-bit compatible x86 cpus would be worth something (because few if any will be making them)... same way 68K/PPC stuff is today. Yes much more x86 hardware is manufactured these days... but it is still finite.

yea no joke i almost wish i bought that packard bell 386 in goodwill in 2006 for 3 dollars, id have made a good return on investment now 🤣

squiggly wrote:

Baoran wrote:

We have lots of ways making old games work on a newer pc like dosbox or glide wrappers...even if there was a perfect emulation for all the old hardware.

I don't get why people shill for emulation so hard. It's utter crap 90 percent of the time. Number of times I have installed a game from GoG onto Win10 that works without major glitches = about zero. Every Steam and GoG forum for every retro game filled with complaints about how shit doesn't work.

I've had generally good experience with emulators, but I'm not surprised by your experience or those forum members either. Most of the ones I've used, whether for PC games or consoles, have required some tweaking. I've had excellent results, but rarely out of the box. I'd still rate it as cheaper and more convenient than putting together a retro rig, and for many of us more practical as well.

squiggly wrote:

And no, even WinXP games rarely work without issue on Win10 in my existence. Thankfully putting together a retro core 2 duo rig with a Radeon 5850 and winxp can be done for next to nothing - old pcs of this generation are literally being put out by the curbside where I live.

Odd. I tested sixteen games from 2000-2007, and was able to get every single one to run on my modern Win10 setup. I had some issues with a handful of games, but all of them were playable. Arguably it put on a better showing than my XP machine, where three games crashed (one repeatedly) and one had an unusable menu. Of course, my sample size is very limited.

Might I ask which games you've had problems with?

spiroyster wrote:

🤣, just like 486's were 20 years ago, junk, had for pennies, found everywhere. And in the future (10/20 years from now) people will be complaining about the prices of C2D when there are fuckall about... then some smart arse like myself will point out that in 2018... you could pick them up for pennies and they were everywhere. Personally I never thought 386's would ever command a premium... but hey, here we are!

To be honest, I'm not convinced.

Games from the 1990s and earlier run much closer to metal than games do today. They relied on accessing specific hardware directly, they relied on certain memory layouts, they relied on tight hardware timings. Games from the 2000s onward sit atop a layer cake of abstraction. They are literally forbidden to make the kind of direct hardware accesses that were entirely commonplace back in the day. Everything is done through system calls and agnostic APIs. While these evolve over time, the degree of backwards compatibility is extremely high. And it's much easier technically to have that backwards compatibility when you can have different modes or emulate things at a very high level independent of what's below because there's so much in between already.

spiroyster wrote:

Given the rise of low power multicore processing offered today.. in 20 years I would be surprised if we are still using x86... then all 32-bit compatible x86 cpus would be worth something (because few if any will be making them)... same way 68K/PPC stuff is today. Yes much more x86 hardware is manufactured these days... but it is still finite.

The loss of backwards compatibility could happen, but it would be a change in paradigm rather than a change in hardware that would drive it. Microsoft has recognized how important this is to people. Even Windows on ARM has a compatibility layer, and while it's slow and limited today it could get better. I don't think there ares any technical obstacles here (keeping in mind the above), especially if we take the optimistic view that hardware will keep evolving at a fast rate*. Now Apple might be taking a different stance if rumours are to be believed, but I don't have any reason to believe the industry as a whole is moving in this direction despite what some people are saying.

*If we take the pessimistic view that we've hit a well, that means that some of today's fast rigs will still be in service in 10-20 years because there's no point replacing them.

> Arguably it put on a better showing than my XP machine, where three games crashed (one repeatedly) and one had an unusable menu.

Well maybe you needed a Win98 retro PC as well. Win98 is where I play the vast majority of retro games, and they all work perfectly notwithstanding actual known game bugs. WinXP had almost as much trouble with Win98 games as Win10 has with XP games.

XCVG wrote:

Games from the 1990s and earlier run much closer to metal than games do today. They relied on accessing specific hardware directly, they relied on certain memory layouts, they relied on tight hardware timings. Games from the 2000s onward sit atop a layer cake of abstraction.

We have gone full circle with this since the AZDO.... Vulkan/DX12 put us back on 'the metal', or at least a lot closer to it than before AZDO o.0

XCVG wrote:

They are literally forbidden to make the kind of direct hardware accesses that were entirely commonplace back in the day. Everything is done through system calls and agnostic APIs. While these evolve over time, the degree of backwards compatibility is extremely high. And it's much easier technically to have that backwards compatibility when you can have different modes or emulate things at a very high level independent of what's below because there's so much in between already.

The moment OS's became multi-tasking and started `providing the 'GDI' is when we started to decouple ourselves from a particluar genetation of hardware allowing multiple generations of hardware (newer usually giving a better experience) to be used and wider compatibility. Yes agree the compatiblity is now more dictated by the software rather than the hardware. But then again at the same time (in relation to graphics) we started to not become limited by the CPU and rest of the system, mainly the discrete gfx.

XCVG wrote:

The loss of backwards compatibility could happen, but it would be a change in paradigm rather than a change in hardware that would drive it. Microsoft has recognized how important this is to people. Even Windows on ARM has a compatibility layer, and while it's slow and limited today it could get better. I don't think there ares any technical obstacles here (keeping in mind the above), especially if we take the optimistic view that hardware will keep evolving at a fast rate*. Now Apple might be taking a different stance if rumours are to be believed, but I don't have any reason to believe the industry as a whole is moving in this direction despite what some people are saying.

I think if we all move to ARM (not saying I want to, but the world seems to think thats the thing to do) and different architectures (even with x86 compatiblity layers) then at some point someone will go.. wait a second, I know our software compiled for x86 works on <insert compatible non x86 hardware here>, but its a layer on a layer etc... why don't we just depoly it natively since 90% or our customers use <insert compatible non x86 hardware here>. Compatiblity requires effort, and its only worth the effort if the market is there for it... Apple dropped PPC at some point, despite a massive portfolio of PPC software, because no professional outfit in 20XX dedicates time to PPC development, but a lot of PPC software will run fine one the last PPC MacPro. some Youtube might struggle though 🙁

Agree though, it will probably be software blackballing old compatability (lack of, buggy)... probably not hardware.

XCVG wrote:

*If we take the pessimistic view that we've hit a well, that means that some of today's fast rigs will still be in service in 10-20 years because there's no point replacing them.

I agree partially with this. We have certainly plateaued of recent, with 10 year old systems still able to add practical value to most usage (my daily driver is 2011, work laptop is 2015 o.0), but its the software that is pushing it out of practicality. 10 years ago every C2D would be able to browse ebay without a lag, or play all youtube videos at the highest quality youtube offered, but times changed and now a lot of youtube is out of the scope of a lot of C2D users, granted not all, mainly the low-end C2D, but I reckon things will change.... the phrase "If it ain't broke don't fix it" only goes so far in software developemnt until one of your dependencies decides its broken coercing you into an upgrade even if your particular requirements need it or not.... this we all have to move along with the status quo at some point.

squiggly wrote:

It's highly unlikely anything after around 2007 will be collectible.

I thought the same way back in the 90s about Pentium PCs, yet these Super Socket 7 PCs are highly sought after.

Personally, I don't know what the future holds, but a few of the hardware I considered "new" some people already have developed nostaglic feelings for.
To give an example, I "just" bought a Geforce 210 card to make use of video acceleration in Flash 10.2 and Firefox 3.x.

To me, this was just yesterday. In reality, this had been almost 8 years ago. Same is true for the Geforce 750Ti.
It feels like this was 1-2 years ago when I planned to get one for my sister's Optiplex PC (BTX form factor).

- The card is really cool because it has reasonable performance, but runs with 300W power supplies (a rare case).
Also, it supports Windows XP very well.

Windows XP, in turn, has some features that are important to gaming. Running it in a VM doesn't do justice.
It can run DirectX 7 (incl. 1-6), 8, 9 titles well and on top of this supports DirectMusic, DirectSound 3D, OpenGL, MPU-401 and the old Gameport natively.
It also fully supports DirectDraw, including the bilinear filtering and other things.

Edit:

spiroyster wrote:

I agree partially with this. We have certainly plateaued of recent, with 10 year old systems still able
to add practical value to most usage (my daily driver is 2011, work laptop is 2015 o.0), but its the software that is pushing it out of practicality..

a) It doesn't need ARM to break backwards compatibility. Killing the BIOS in 2020 is almost enough.
If Intel get's serious about removing CSM from the UEFI firmware, other board makers might follow this approach.

- Originally. both the 8086 as well as the PC BIOS were the foundation of the Personal Computer platform.
Take away one of them and backwards compatibility is gone.

The fiercy things is, that the removal of compatibility is taking place slowly and that it isn't necessary.
UEFI adds more problems than it actually solves. It also turns the PC into a closed platform eventually.

b) My father's PC is a PC from 2006. It's an Athlon 64 X2 with 8GB of RAM, an SSD, running Windows 7.
A system some of you would call a retro rig.. He's using it for daily work. 😀

I don’t think we’ll every look at today’s hardware in the same way we look at pre 2000 hardware. It’s just not the same and it’ll never match up, nor could it truly be called “retro”.
In 20 years I’ll still be able to install Windows 98 on any of my pre-2000 hardware, but try installing Windows 10 in 20 years when it’s thought of retro.... good luck, the activation servers will be out in the pasture.

We reached a point, I believe at the Core 2 Duo age, where cpus became so fast that even today they can still run most web applications and desktop software perfectly fine with minimal impact on performance. And it’s been 12yrs since the c2d was released!After 2000, or around the XP age... games also reached a point where even today you can run most of those 2000+ games on modern hardware, without issue or very, very minimal trouble, eg; Windows 10.

Retro to me is the hardware pre XP and Core 2 age... anything newer I can’t see how it’ll ever be, or could be compared to real classic hardware of the 80’s and 90’s. we build our custom 486’s and Pentiums so we can play Decent, Wing Commander, Sierra Online games, and the vast FMV games of that age. Today it doesn’t matter, I can slap together an i5 and run everything post XP... the fun and excitement is lost in current hardware. The whole point in retro computing and gaming, IMO, is to be able to run the software and games of that era, but today you no longer have to build a 2005 system to play 2005 games.

While some people might think of the Phenom or i5 1st Gen as retro, it’ll never ever compare to the classic Pentium and 486 and earlier days. Those are the true retro systems!

dave343 wrote:

I don’t think we’ll every look at today’s hardware in the same way we look at pre 2000 hardware. It’s just not the same and it’l […]
Show full quote

I don’t think we’ll every look at today’s hardware in the same way we look at pre 2000 hardware. It’s just not the same and it’ll never match up, nor could it truly be called “retro”.
In 20 years I’ll still be able to install Windows 98 on any of my pre-2000 hardware, but try installing Windows 10 in 20 years when it’s thought of retro.... good luck, the activation servers will be out in the pasture.

We reached a point, I believe at the Core 2 Duo age, where cpus became so fast that even today they can still run most web applications and desktop software perfectly fine with minimal impact on performance. And it’s been 12yrs since the c2d was released!After 2000, or around the XP age... games also reached a point where even today you can run most of those 2000+ games on modern hardware, without issue or very, very minimal trouble, eg; Windows 10.

Retro to me is the hardware pre XP and Core 2 age... anything newer I can’t see how it’ll ever be, or could be compared to real classic hardware of the 80’s and 90’s. we build our custom 486’s and Pentiums so we can play Decent, Wing Commander, Sierra Online games, and the vast FMV games of that age. Today it doesn’t matter, I can slap together an i5 and run everything post XP... the fun and excitement is lost in current hardware. The whole point in retro computing and gaming, IMO, is to be able to run the software and games of that era, but today you no longer have to build a 2005 system to play 2005 games.

While some people might think of the Phenom or i5 1st Gen as retro, it’ll never ever compare to the classic Pentium and 486 and earlier days. Those are the true retro systems!

I partially agree with this. For me personally, playing with "retro" hardware is about experiencing computing (usually gaming) the way it was experienced at a given period in time. I do like to push these systems to be the ideal\perfect system for a given set of tasks, so I would rarely ever choose to build a system to run a specific game if it wouldn't run that game as well as a faster computer, but sometimes with very old or very unique systems the clunky old hardware is part of the experience. Most of the time though, for me, the retro aspect is first and foremost about software compatibility (CPU speeds, OS support etc.) and features that cannot be emulated (various MIDI music types, A3D, hardware specific 3D features)... after that I often focus on having the absolute best experience\performance in a given set of tasks\games.

I think anything from the Vista era and later (once DirectSound3D hardware acceleration was officially killed off) should remain compatible for the foreseeable future. DX9,10,11,12... everything works fine on modern hardware and the vast majority of the time it works in Windows 10. To me, this means that as long as Windows 10 (and its successors) maintain the same compatibility with software that dates back to the DirectX 9 era (and often times the DX8\8.1 era is fine as well), there will be very little interest in getting them later for "retro" builds. Devices that make up the very end of a given software support "era" will likely be the most valuable later on. For example, the last video cards that have VGA support, the last motherboards with PCI slots, the last devices with Windows XP support etc.

For example, 10 years from now, why buy a Core 2 Duo system for XP gaming when you can buy a Sandy Bridge system with the same expansion capabilities (but better), more efficiency, more single threaded speed, better motherboard components (almost all caps are solid now), etc.

I don't, however, think that retro enthusiasts will have to fear Windows 10 activation problems in the future. People already find ways around these things now, so if Windows 10 is the last OS to maintain great compatibility with older operating systems, you can bet that the retro geeks will have a few systems with "unactivated" but perfectly functional OSes. The worst problem we'll have is that so many games involve multiplayer or online features that are connected to a specific service. If Steam ever crashes and burns... say goodbye.