Regarding Win98, then I have only one machine. I found out that I only need one machine for that OS. Ms-Dos on the other hand, is a way different story to me personally. I have 5 machines with MS-Dos 6.22 installed. (286, 486dx-33, 486dx2-80, 5x86-133 and Pentium-166). If you ask why, then I am mostly into machines with MS-Dos installed and not Win9x. In my case, it is purely nostalgia. As I started playing with computers around 1985'ish or something, when my cousin bought an Commodore64. Anyway... Yes.. There are some situations, in which you will need more than one machine with the same OS. It all depends on you'r personal taste in retro/vintage-computers.

Main reason for me to have multiple PCs with same OS are speed sensitive games. On the other hand you can usually have the faster pc with the same OS to have some multipurpose by have it dual boot to 2 different OS like for example you can have P3 pc that can run non-speed sensitive dos games perfectly well and at the same time use it for windows games as well.
I have 1 slower dos PC for speed sensitive games and faster dos pc that is good for non speed sensitive dos games.
In addition to that I might have need for 4.77Mhz 8088 dos pc if I wanted to play the really old dos games that require that specific speed and are not playable with anything faster.
Same works with win98 too that you might need something slower for speed sensitive games that would not be able to run newer win98 games at good frame rates.

Other reason for multiple builds with same OS is if you want mutually exclusive hardware - in the Win98 era you might want to have nVidia and ATi AGP cards. As you can only have one AGP port (let alone driver hell with both types in same PC), you'd need different PCs for that.

Same thing with DOS and sound cards - it's possible to have multiple cards in a single machine, but there are limits. If you have a lot of cards, you need multiple machines.

There isn't even a reason to have two retro gaming rigs.

*briskly walks away before rotten tomatoes appear*

There's many reasons:

- Speed issues: a P100 and a PIII 600 will both run Windows 98 perfectly but there's a massive speed difference and some games hate it.
- DirectX issues: some early Windows 9X games demand early DirectX versions
- Graphics cards: going Voodoo2 or going for a more recent card like the GeForce 2 --> lots of early 9X games were designed around Voodoo/Glide
- DOS use or not? I got a low end P166 Win98 machine that doubles as a fast DOS machine. More modern sound cards (PCI mainly) do NOT work in real DOS mode
- different sound cards = different sounds

I have two Windows XP machines for example for similar reasons - and early Windows XP machine from around 2000 and a late Windows XP (with some Vista hardware) from around 2007. Both give the best compatibility combined.

Regarding soundcards, then this is one heck of a setup...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rYFfRnLwIY

Depends what you want. Some people are happy with DOSBox and other emulation solutions. Others want real hardware for various reasons. Some hardware isn't capable of being emulated at this time. Some people want the challenge. Some people like the nostalgia of old hardware. Even within the context of real hardware, there are different shades. For 3dfx hardware, a collector or purist would probably want the real thing whereas I'm perfectly happy using a solution like nGlide.

I confess than I kind of enjoy them all in a great big pile together. I'm like a dragon that hoards computers.

I agree with the idea that more than 1 computer is needed for MSDOS, I personally use 2, an IBM 5170 and a Pentium 90. However I think DosBox is the best solution entirely avoiding real machines if your just doing it to play the games.

I also think there is an argument for adding machines where you see you need them, I don't think there is a single machine that will be compatible with all the software you want to throw at it for every OS. I have 2 XP machines because some of the games I have refuse to run on anything newer than a Geforce 4, but they could just as easily be 2 9x machines.

OK it seems from the general consensus there is no particular answer to this conundrum which is fair enough. But It is as really interesting discussion IMO

Also I note that a lot of you are into far older hardware than me at the moment!

My take on this thread would seem to be 'do your own thing'

I really do need to reduce this down a bit rhough. The super socket 7 seems a good investment based on the current market. it sounds like I could also use that as an early Win XP rig as well as a Win98 Rig and have a lot of gaming fun. The Pentium-S 200 I'm gonna think long and hard about but it doesn't seem so popular (or there is a lot more of them about) but right now I am inclined to sell it and upgrade the others

I'll have a good think what to do with the rest

Richard

The typical categories you may need, some of which can overlap by dual boot, or by slugging with cache and multiplier:
A. Slow DOS, for speed sensitive stuff … Wing commander is the prime example
B. Fast DOS, for later DOS games
C. Win9x, I'd be inclined to go 98 rather than 95
D. XP
E. Modern daily driver
F. Specialized hardware - the Voodoo is a prime example

1. Pentium-S 200 MHz - maybe a fast DOS, not sure if it would slug to slow DOS

2. K6-450 Super Socket 7 mobo, cheapo SiS AGP card, ISA AWE32, 256Mb PC100 RAM running Windows 98 - was thinking of keeping this one, upgrade to K6-2+ or K6-3+, the fastest I can find/overclock, plus voodoo 3 AGP
With the Voodoo, it would be a nice kit, also capable of being fast DOS

3. Dell GX110, Pentium 3 - Maybe a P3 holds a special place, or maybe it doesn't, more a completeness thing

4. HP Compaq dc7600, Pentium 4, slimline desktop, Unexceptional

5. Asus P5B Deluxe, Core 2 Duo, Radeon X1850, running Windows XP - was thinking of keeping this one and upgrade to X1950 or 2x X1950XTX Crossfire - the mobo and psu would handle two GPU
With upped graphics, maybe go Core 2 Quad

6-8 all fit into the Win7-10 class.
The Geforce 6200 AGP might be somewhat interesting, as it has driver support for both 98 and XP, for possible dual boot setup

P3 can take place of fast dos pc which you can play dos games with that are not speed sensitive and win98 pc. I think that is why they are popular.

I personally do have multiple systems with the same OS and similar configurations, but only because I've amassed the collection over many years and would regret it if I parted with any of them. Not all of my machines are setup for gaming purposes though, only certain specific configurations.

As others have said about pure DOS systems, there's lots of compatibility issues to consider if you want to play a broad spectrum of DOS games on real hardware. For that reason I have a few dedicated DOS gaming systems set up, slightly different Operating Systems based upon the system's abilities, but all geared around DOS gaming nonetheless:

• An 8088 4.77MHz PC, 256KB RAM with a CGA graphics card - for the very earliest DOS CGA games (some of which even DOSBox can't play properly) + PC Booters. Runs IBM PC DOS 3.30
• A 286 12MHz PC, 1MB RAM, currently with VGA graphics - to cover early DOS EGA games, some VGA & CGA games that the 8088 can't run (mostly due to RAM). Runs IBM PC DOS 7.0
• A 386SX 16MHz PC, 10MB RAM - Covers early VGA games. Runs MS-DOS 6.22
• A 486DX 33MHz PC, 28MB RAM - Has a sound card, also covers early Windows gaming (nothing amazing, with those specs). Runs Windows 95

These 4 systems largely counter any speed sensitivity issues too, allowing me to run games without having to alter settings or run 3rd party utilities. Plus Windows 3.1 runs on both the 286 & 386SX, so there's a little bit of Windows 3.1 gaming thrown in too on the latter 3 systems.

My other dedicated retro gaming setup is a Tualatin 1.2GHz Celeron with 512MB RAM, that dual boots Windows XP & Windows 98 SE. This covers the largest amount of games that I'd ever play so I see no need to have multiple dedicated gaming systems with the same OS past this point.

I am considering a faster Windows XP or Windows 7 based system though to cover games from the early 2000s onwards, that won't run properly/at all on modern 64-bit systems or Windows 10. So I'll probably look at setting up 1 of my later systems at some point.

Matth79 wrote:

The typical categories you may need, some of which can overlap by dual boot, or by slugging with cache and multiplier: A. Slow D […]
Show full quote

The typical categories you may need, some of which can overlap by dual boot, or by slugging with cache and multiplier:
A. Slow DOS, for speed sensitive stuff … Wing commander is the prime example
B. Fast DOS, for later DOS games
C. Win9x, I'd be inclined to go 98 rather than 95
D. XP
E. Modern daily driver
F. Specialized hardware - the Voodoo is a prime example

1. Pentium-S 200 MHz - maybe a fast DOS, not sure if it would slug to slow DOS

2. K6-450 Super Socket 7 mobo, cheapo SiS AGP card, ISA AWE32, 256Mb PC100 RAM running Windows 98 - was thinking of keeping this one, upgrade to K6-2+ or K6-3+, the fastest I can find/overclock, plus voodoo 3 AGP
With the Voodoo, it would be a nice kit, also capable of being fast DOS

3. Dell GX110, Pentium 3 - Maybe a P3 holds a special place, or maybe it doesn't, more a completeness thing

4. HP Compaq dc7600, Pentium 4, slimline desktop, Unexceptional

5. Asus P5B Deluxe, Core 2 Duo, Radeon X1850, running Windows XP - was thinking of keeping this one and upgrade to X1950 or 2x X1950XTX Crossfire - the mobo and psu would handle two GPU
With upped graphics, maybe go Core 2 Quad

6-8 all fit into the Win7-10 class.
The Geforce 6200 AGP might be somewhat interesting, as it has driver support for both 98 and XP, for possible dual boot setup

The P200 machine would have a wider performance envelope with a PMMX cpu. Also, it's possible to build a machine that has overlap between Win9x and high performance DOS with judicious selection of peripherals.