First post, by KazutoB
Hey all,
I recently decided that I want to put together some dedicated gaming PCs for DOS, 98SE, and XP. I've already picked out the parts for, and mostly built, a 98SE rig (just waiting for the sound card to get here), and now I'm turning my attention to picking out parts for a DOS system. I realize that I should be able to play a lot of DOS games on my 98SE system, but, that motherboard doesn't have any ISA slots, which makes getting good sound a bit of a hassle, and the video card I chose isn't a Voodoo and therefore doesn't support Glide without a wrapper, so, I'd prefer to just make a separate DOS system for convenience.
Unfortunately, however, DOS was a bit before my time, and I'm not very familiar with hardware from that era. I've been looking around trying to figure out what I can, but I have a few questions I'd like to ask, some of which I couldn't find conclusive answers to, others I just want to verify in case I misunderstood what I've previously read.
As far as games that I'm hoping to play on this system, I'm aiming mostly for mid-to-late era DOS games. Ideally, I want a system that can run stuff like Dungeon Master, Ultima IV, and the various Sierra and Lucas Arts adventure games, but can also run the later Glide games like Tomb Raider, the Descent games, and the Quake series. A few more games I'm specifically interested in include System Shock, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom 1 & 2, Myst, and Fallout 1 & 2.
Originally, I was going to put a Voodoo 3 in my 98SE machine, so that it could run all the Glide games, and then the DOS rig could focus more on the pre-Glide era, but I ended up going with an FX5600 Ultra instead, so that that system could run Morrowind, which requires DirectX 8 or newer. It's possible I might be better off putting the Voodoo 3 into it after all, and just run Morrowind on the XP machine I'm going to eventually build, but at this point it'd be more convenient for me if I could just find a decent DOS configuration that covers both Glide games and most of the pre-Glide games that I'm interested in. I know there's no "perfect DOS PC" that can play every DOS game perfectly without any issues, but, the more games I can play the better.
Some specific questions I have:
What kind of CPU should I get? I saw someone on another thread asking about DOS hardware recommend a Pentium MMX, and they mentioned that the MMX lets you limit its speed, which would be good for older, more speed sensitive games, but I'm not sure if that's the best choice in my case, given some of the later games I want to play, or if an MMX would still be reasonable here. Should I pick up a Pentium Pro or a Pentium 2 instead? Also, if I do get a CPU that lets me limit its speed, how does that work? Do I just change it in the BIOS every time, or can I make a batch script or something to do it whenever I launch a specific game?
I still have the Voodoo 3 card I was going to put into my 98SE build, and I'd like to put it to use. It's a Voodoo 3 3500, one of the Compaq ones that doesn't have the TV tuner. Would this card work well for this purpose, or would I find better compatibility with, say, a pair of Voodoo 2's in SLI?
It's my understanding that, because DOS and DOS games tend to make you manually set up your hardware (such as setting up IRQ and DMA addresses), I believe I should be able to put multiple video cards or sound cards in the same system without any problems, is that correct? So, for example, I could get two video cards and two sound cards, and then choose on a game-by-game basis which hardware to use?
What should I look for when buying packs of blank floppy disks? I've heard that older ones tend to be better and last longer, but how can you tell when they were manufactured when looking at eBay listings or what have you? Is there anything in particular I should look for or be wary of?
Sorry for the long post, but I really appreciate any advice or opinions yall are willing to give!