You could probably scrape by with 2 or 3 builds maximum, if you accept various compatibility problems and utilise slow down tric […]
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You could probably scrape by with 2 or 3 builds maximum, if you accept various compatibility problems and utilise slow down tricks and patches etc etc.
There's a lot of crossover with DOS era gaming, ie. you could find games released in the early 1990s that could still run on an original IBM PC from the 80s. The latter DOS period crosses over with the early Windows 3D gaming period, so for that alone you might desire 2 separate builds to cover everything with a bit more period correctness.
For myself, I made use of what I had and did it like this for the least amount of builds:
XT/8088 4.77MHz + 640KB RAM - Covering CGA gaming from the 80s & early 90s. Can of course also manage Monochrome games.
<- could have added either a Turbo XT and/or a 286 build inbetween here for a better performing CGA/EGA crossover build.
386SX 16MHz - Covering EGA gaming and early VGA gaming from the 80s & early 90s. A 386DX build would be better than SX, but I don't currently have one.
486 DX2 66MHz - Covering VGA and some SVGA, late 80s & early 90s DOS gaming. Could also respectably cover Windows 3.1 era games. Can also run some late 1990s DOS games too, with varying performance levels.
<- then you could fit a Pentium/Pentium MMX Win95 build in here, but I decided to skip it to save space as the other builds covered my particular gaming needs. There's also the option of a 486 DX4 100MHz + VLB graphics build too, but there'd be a lot of crossover with games you could quite as easily play on either the DX2 or the Pentium.
AMD K6/2 500MHz + Voodoo 3 Graphics Card - Covers mid-late 1990s DOS gaming as well as early Windows 3D gaming with Windows 98SE. Though I primarily use this for Windows gaming + Glide supported games. A Slot 1 Pentium II build would also work for this era.
My next build after that was a Windows 2000 build, as I pretty much consider 1997-1998 the absolute cut off point for DOS gaming.