Putas wrote:

kool kitty89 wrote:

even though TR was limited to 640x480 max

No it wasn't.
Resolutions are special, it cannot be said we can max them even today. If games read registry to offer any resolution supported by the machine we can play after decade games of today at resolutions our graphics cards cannot dream of.

Does Tomb Raider I (software rendered) off those sort of exploits to manually adjust resolution beyond 640x480? (I know of many windows games that allow this, but not so much for DOS)

In-game, DOS TR supports 320x200 and 640x480 along with 3 detail levels (perspective correction) and a screen-size option similar to Doom or Wolf3D.

Aha, I know nothing about software renderer.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I don't mind having an overkill system to be honest. A constant 60 frames at every situation is what I like. Ideally more but now with LCD displays it's not was easy as it was back when we had CRTs.

Ageed. 60 FPS is a good target mininum and the one I try for. Even if 60 only represents the average of a fluctuating stream of inputs, the lows will usually not be bad enough to upset overall smoothness - especially in flying and driving sims.

The often heard "anything over 30 FPS is unnecessary" misses micro fluctuation [the silent killer of responsiveness] and also doesn't take into account that visual smoothness is not the only, or even critical issue at stake. Flying or driving, often with 4+ axis involved, requires subtle physical inputs that in my experience don't feel smooth, responsive or even "real" until FPS wash out well above 30 - so 60 is good.

That said I'm still intruiged by a non-benchmarch approach to achieving results..

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The 7 series from Geforce was quite strong during the XP days. The 8 series started to go toward DX 10 so might be too new.

8-Series as well as AMDs HD2K have horrible 16-Bit quality. Not a big deal for modern games that already support 32 Bit, but older games suffer greatly.

tincup wrote:

Ageed. 60 FPS is a good target mininum and the one I try for. Even if 60 only represents the average of a fluctuating stream of […]
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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I don't mind having an overkill system to be honest. A constant 60 frames at every situation is what I like. Ideally more but now with LCD displays it's not was easy as it was back when we had CRTs.

Ageed. 60 FPS is a good target mininum and the one I try for. Even if 60 only represents the average of a fluctuating stream of inputs, the lows will usually not be bad enough to upset overall smoothness - especially in flying and driving sims.

The often heard "anything over 30 FPS is unnecessary" misses micro fluctuation [the silent killer of responsiveness] and also doesn't take into account that visual smoothness is not the only, or even critical issue at stake. Flying or driving, often with 4+ axis involved, requires subtle physical inputs that in my experience don't feel smooth, responsive or even "real" until FPS wash out well above 30 - so 60 is good.

That said I'm still intruiged by a non-benchmarch approach to achieving results..

I hate when people call 30fps playable, because it really isn't. You will never have a constant 30fps all the time, there will be highs and lows and if your average fps is only 30 then the lows will be unbearable. 30fps should be the low under the worst possible conditions but the average and max fps should both be much higher.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

(...)It's the W98 games (especially the early ones) like System Shock 2 that are very hard to get going on a modern machine. For this reason I see a decent W98 machine quite important and in a few years I expect the whole vintage scene moving on to this era (basically when the next generation comes along).

So these P3 machines will get quite rare pretty soon!(...)

This is very interesting subject to me! I'll call it "The gap between the fastest PII and the first Windows XP systems" until I find something shorter.

Let's fight the need to have another PC:

An all-in-one-pc guy 😏 like me is always trying to make other systems redundant (386 and 486 and Pentium are redundant if you assemble a nice PII)The idea is that if a game can be played on WinXP, even if from the early 2000's we should not have trouble playing it on a P4 2.8GHz for example?
And if so, are there any win98-only games that need, say, a 1.0GHz P3 AND that for such game a PII 450MHz doesn't do it?
Max Payne can be played on Windows XP... so even if my Deschutes can't handle it I'll go to the non-retro machine.

Are there games the fit in the gap?

The all-in-one-pc is attainable only if the games you want to run 'cooperate' - basically meaning they can all live with the same OS, are neither overwelmed nor underwelmed by the CPU, can coexist in the same video and audio environment. There are ways to expand the scope of some of these constraints, like dual-boot, 2D video cards coupled with 3D cards, etc., but you can only throw so much variation into a box.

In my case the basic variables are; games that only run with Voodoo1/2, run best with Voodoo5, only run with on Rendition, and those that 'prefer' a vanilla 2D card. DOS games earlier than 1990 or so are not a focus and I don't mind relying on DosBox to run the ancient stuff. So out of this stew I'm finding 3 boxes are needed to cover all the bases:

1 Diamond 3D-2000/Voodoo1 P233 [underclocked to P90/100 if needed]
2 Rendition/Voodoo2 SLI P3-566
3 Voodoo5 P3-1000 to 1400

1 & 2 will handle DOS [dos box and restart in DOS] and earlier 3D games. 3 will handle all the later 3dfx Glide stuff. After Glide things run fine on my everyday XP rig, so I don't see them as 'retro' yet...

Yes there are DOS games that will run on a modern Phenom 2 like Prince of Persia for example 😀 But PC speaker sound only...

And we have to thank XP for being around for so long. I mean it's been like 10 years, so such a PC will be able to run a HUGE range of games. Most of these games run fine on Windows 7.

Got to give huge credit to Microsoft for this with their gaming libraries and standards and all of that.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yes there are DOS games that will run on a modern Phenom 2 like Prince of Persia for example 😀 But PC speaker sound only...

And we have to thank XP for being around for so long. I mean it's been like 10 years, so such a PC will be able to run a HUGE range of games. Most of these games run fine on Windows 7.

Got to give huge credit to Microsoft for this with their gaming libraries and standards and all of that.

Yes, let's all give Microsoft credit for making Vista such a steaming pile of crap that it forced them to continue XP support long past it's expiration date. 😜 😁

Hehe. Wondering if there are games that will ONLY run on vista 😀

Another thought I had was about retro gaming and new generations. Our generation (30+ to 40), we really grew up when the whole thing started. From text adventures to Battlefield 3.

I wonder if the next generation(s) will have the same nostalgic memories about the things they grew up with or if this is unique to us oldies...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Another thought I had was about retro gaming and new generations. Our generation (30+ to 40), we really grew up when the whole thing started. From text adventures to Battlefield 3.
I

Yes, and this is a case where the 'younger' generation actually has more nostalgia for older stuff than the 'older' generation - if you were a kid when consoles/PC came along you played these games at home. If you were just getting out of college when the whole thing happened you might not even pay attention to computer games for 10+ years since you were in your 20's and going out and having fun 🤣...

😒 Why would you want a SLI on a Pentium233?

Ooops, just questioned about the last post OF the previous page 😖

It is still a valid question but what I'm really interested in is the Pentium III thing , not the first sloted 500ish Megahertzed ones , but like at least 750 to 1133 more or less. Is there a place for this things? IMHO you can get a nice early Athlon XP or P4, pop in some win98se gaming goodies and that's it.
Very sorry for the poor socket 370 P3 PC :´-(

Filosofia wrote:

It is still a valid question but what I'm really interested in is the Pentium III thing , not the first sloted 500ish Megahertzed ones , but like at least 750 to 1133 more or less. Is there a place for this things? IMHO you can get a nice early Athlon XP or P4, pop in some win98se gaming goodies and that's it.

If you are strictly interested in running late-era W98 games, Voodoo5 and D3D stuff, then a high end P3 Tualatin, P4, or an AMD 64 based rig is great. I forget the model but there was an AMD 64 based motherboard that supported the Voodoo 5500 [3.3volt agp slot] and you could make a real glide screamer around that.

My main machine 2001-2005 was a W98 box running a P4-2.4 and a 128mb ATI 9700pro and that rocked for that sort of thing. But it stepped away from Glide, and I did miss that. Then XP came along, glide wrappers etc. so it wasn't such a big deal. But at the end of the day it's nice to have a rig that you can install a game from a particular era and not have to fuss with workarounds, compatibility modes/patches/fixes, and other cludges... hence the growing stock of retro boxes:)

I am very much of the opinion that there is no point in making a computer that will run everything if you don't actually plan to play that many different games. Decide what you want to play and then, if you don't have hardware that can be persuaded to play it, then go find hardware that will play it.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Hehe. Wondering if there are games that will ONLY run on vista 😀

Halo 2, maybe? (Apparently it's actually quite trivial to get that to run under XP, but it's not something Microsoft intended.)