That kind of machine would be useful to "bridge the gap" - because a powerful system will allow you to play most games emulated through DOSBox, but there are a good number that still won't work too well for whatever reason. I'm thinking of the really demanding games like Syndicate Wars, Extreme Assault, and the like.

Old machines are useful for DOSbox debugging mainly to see if it 'happens on the real thing too'. Too many test straight through NTVDM and assume its approximation of what would be called 'good performance' as a comparative result with dosbox nowadays

But I don't know if I can build this and have all the hardware liking each other.

It's actually easier than you think. Find a good 440BX-based motherboard (Asus P2B series or similar) and it will just work. I have this kind of setup and so far it worked perfectly with everything ISA and PCI I tried -- although that was mostly limited to sound, video, and MIDI cards. On some motherboards the bottom PCI and top ISA slots are somehow related, that can cause some compatibility issues, but that's about it. Oh, and I would not put anything beyond TNT2 in that AGP slot.

The 1st PCI slot shares IRQ with AGP. And, on 440BX boards, if there is a 6th PCI slot it is a slave slot and can't be used with cards that need an IRQ (Voodoo cards don't so they can go there). Chipset limitation.

My Abit BF6 manual is very descriptive on what IRQ signals go where.

But, IMO, DOSBOX is definitely the easiest way to go unless you also just like to mess with old hardware.

justkevin7 wrote:

It's not like I don't have the parts to build it.. I have a LOT of old hardware laying around. Sound blasters, pro audio spectrum 16, Roland LAPC-I, Roland mpu401at, SC-55 daughtercard, 3dfx voodoo 1, 2, 3, and 5. As well as lots of CPUs, motherboards, cases, and tons of other crap.

It would be a terrible waste not to use some of these components in a retro machine. 😉

I really suggest using emulation. I have all the required parts as well (except GUS and some more advanced MIDI equipment), but I just keep the parts for their historic/emotional value. Actually building such a PC also means messing with DOS versions, memory managers, memory sizes (think of the Realms of Arkadia >16MB bug), CPU speeds, hardware conflicts (if putting a lot of stuff into a single box), and so on...

Sure, I'd give my right arm to have a kind of machine like in the old days, a desk-sized 286 (I suspect "desktop" really meant "you can use the top as desk") with EGA and a "jumbo jet sound"-type 20MB MFM hard drive and which resetted itself if you hit the desk hard enough, since such a box has indeed a high retro coolness factor. But actually using it for extended gamig sessions? Naaah... hand me my dosbox with fast startup, nice scalers and everything.

Yeah. When you really get into building a machine from those days, you start to remember the good 'ol hardware conflicts and bugs. Stuff like certain chipsets not quite being compatible with games and their extenders, etc. Non-Intel CPUs with bugs and poor programmer support. Drivers that aren't stable. Weird hardware instability that could be caused by old age and shriveled-up electrolytic capacitors. Crappy BIOSes. Corroded connectors/slots. It goes on and on.

DOSBOX was created to run old DOS games and work around quirks. It's more than a PC emulator. It's designed to work with all the hack jobs that the game devs used to do. I have no doubt it is more compatible in some ways than real hardware.

And there's nothing like being able to Alt-Tab to your browser window to look up hints/tips or post on VOGONS. 😀

justkevin7 wrote:

-Play OLD games (like sierra, origin, etc.) with original MT32 sounds.
-Play old 3dfx glide based games (independence war deluxe, Mechwarrior2 3dfx, etc)
-Ability to boot into Win98.

The problem is that it is virtually impossible to build a retro gaming PC that is optimal for various DOS games of different eras. A Pentium 100, for instance, is way too fast to run games like Origin's Wing Commander or Sierra's Code Name: Iceman (I still remember losing the sub battle over and over again since the game was just too fast for me to react).

On the other hand, a Pentium 100 is rather slow for GLide games and non-accelerated 3D games in hi-res (640x480 and up).

If you want to build a DOS gaming PC, it's better to focus on late DOS games (1996 and up) like Privateer 2, The Elder Scrolls: Red Guard, Sandwarriors, Top Gun: Fire At Will, Jetfighter III, System Shock (640x480 and above), Duke Nukem 3D (640x480 and above), or other resource-demanding DOS games that run choppy in DOSBox. 440BX with Pentium II or Pentium III would make an ideal system.

However, if you really want to go overkill (or to quote Riboflavin, "putting rockets on a skateboard"), you might want to go with Soyo SY-845PE ISA; it is a Pentium 4 motherboard that supports up to 3.06GHz Northwood CPU, and it has three ISA slots (yes, I said three).

The systems described above are of course too fast for old DOS games like King's Quest or Ultima Underworld (and mind you, Origin's games are notoriously clockspeed-dependent). Thus, you better use DOSBox for such games.

If I was building retro PC, I'd build something that runs win98 and with Voodoo board. Emulation works well for older games and even glide DOS games (you can run that on your primary PC), but there's currently no reliable emulator for windows glide games or older directx titles.

Right, but I have a feeling that will change ^^

gulikoza wrote:

If I was building retro PC, I'd build something that runs win98 and with Voodoo board. Emulation works well for older games and even glide DOS games (you can run that on your primary PC), but there's currently no reliable emulator for windows glide games or older directx titles.

Ah, I just forgot my own system: Epox 8KTA3+ with Voodoo5 AGP and SB AWE32. Yup, Epox8KTA3+ is quite a nice mobo because:
- it supports AGP2x (V5 5500 AGP)
- it has ISA slot (SBAWE32 or other DOS sound card)

By the way; anyone ever tried putting different versions of Voodoos in one mobo? For instance, Voodoo5 and Voodoo1?

I've got two PC's like that. One is a spare. 😀

Pair of Retro PC's

Everyone, thanks all for your thoughts on this. Part of the problem is that I don't know what games will or will not work if I built a retro PC. I am still really torn about it.

I had never considered building a semi-vintage PC before. That is, playing some of the games nativly, and some through DOSbox. That seems to be a great idea and probably the route I will take. Would a Pentium II 300 be fast enough for DOSbox to play older games? (486 era?) I also have a pentium III 700, if need be.

The reasons why I don't play older games on my modern PC with DOSbox is:

1. MT-32 support emulation not that great... sounds really goofy. I know, as I have a LAPC-I.

2. As such I would need to buy an MT-32 and hook it via USB to MIDI if I wanted TRUE MT32 support... right?

3. Glide.. I admit I haven't tried it yet, but how well can DOSbox do glide? Will in play ALL glide games? I rememeber my Voodoo3 and Voodoo5 card wouldn't play OLD glide games, like the Mechwarrior 3dfx edition. The most compatible Voodoo setup I know of is the good ole' Voodoo2 card.. perferrably in SLI mode for speed.

4. First test is crashed! In trying to determine if DOSbox would be a good solution for playing old games, I installed Tie Fighter collectors CD and fired it up. At first the joystick woudn't work correctly, and after I changed the setting "timed=false" in dosbox.conf it would work, but only in a window. As soon as I fired in full screen mode it crashed.

So I was thinking, if its this much trouble to get one game working in DOSbox, it doens't sound like that much more trouble to get a real vintage PC setup.

But then again, maybe not. Like I said, I don't know what will or will not work at this point. Thats why I thought I'd ask all of you!
😜

Would a Pentium II 300 be fast enough for DOSbox to play older games? (486 era?)

286

I also have a pentium III 700, if need be.

medicore 386

That's being generous and really depends on the games.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Would a Pentium II 300 be fast enough for DOSbox to play older games? (486 era?)

286

not quite. You'll need at least a Pentium II 400MHz to get accessable performance. Anything less (all k6-2 line included) barely marches along text mode.

You'll also need an even more powerful machine (P3,etc) to be able to use OPL2/3 emulation with good performance. Otherwise you'll run into awful segfaults in games and general huge slowness

DOSBox gets really outstanding on an Athlon, from 800mhz and above, including playing Tyrian on Wild Detail. with OPL3.

You still have frameskip 😁

frameskip barely does anything for me, infact makes things worse hehe

CGA games are however playable on k6-2s though text mode is unbearably slow (resolution i bet)

leileilol wrote:

not quite. You'll need at least a Pentium II 400MHz to get accessable performance. Anything less (all k6-2 line included) barely […]
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h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Would a Pentium II 300 be fast enough for DOSbox to play older games? (486 era?)

286

not quite. You'll need at least a Pentium II 400MHz to get accessable performance. Anything less (all k6-2 line included) barely marches along text mode.

You'll also need an even more powerful machine (P3,etc) to be able to use OPL2/3 emulation with good performance. Otherwise you'll run into awful segfaults in games and general huge slowness

DOSBox gets really outstanding on an Athlon, from 800mhz and above, including playing Tyrian on Wild Detail. with OPL3.

This is definitely wrong. A P2-333 is enough to play non-action games, including protected mode and OPL3 music. I have done so for about a year, when 0.58 was current. I even used hq2x scaling (my own implementation, which was a lot faster than the current one). Since then DOSBox got a lot faster.

Much needs to be tuned, however. See the page on the wiki I wrote about exactly this setup. My favourite game in that time was X-Com, and it was fun to play.

BTW, if DOSBox segfaults on a slow machine, while it works on a fast one, it might be a hardware problem with the slow machine: insufficient cooling.