Probably a Pentium III 800-1100 something with a Radeon 9500-9800 + 3dfx Voodoo + PowerVR PCX2 and maybe a SBPro/16/AWE64 and/or a Monstersound/Live. Disable cache on the P3 and you should be able to hit the finicky 386/486 speed mark for pure DOS (well, for the first P3's at least)

If I absolutely had to choose it would be the 1.4 Tualatin system OR a Athlon XP. Hopefully we could disable cache to slow it down enough for earlier games but I would rather give up the very early dos era and keep the mid to late dos games and be able to go the way all the way to late 98 early XP games.

This is coming from someone who's first PC was a 486 and never really got into those games that were designed around the 4.77mhz speed or whatever.

Jade Falcon wrote:

every game from 1989 to let's say 2002 with out any emulators

That's the thing. There is no such machine. You need at least two build's to go were you want to go.

For them games from 1989 to 1995, you could build that 3-in-one P133/P166.
(It is the one that Phil has done a video about) This gives you ATX SS7 board's.
This, are still not ideal for some games, as they might have problems.
I am thinking of games such as Syndicate and Dynablaster. Possible more.
One of the most important things regarding this solution, is to make shure,
that there is a real OPL chip. Lurking deep within that machine.

For games from 1996 to 2002, you can use a fast Win98se machine.
That is something like a Socket-A/754 or Socket-478/775.
Skip the ISA thing and go for the AGP/PCI combo instead, for eighter Vortex2 or YMF-724.
Get a really fast and good Radeon-9800/Geforce4 and pair it with Voodoo2. Single or SLI.

That's what it boils down to. Do you prefer better DOS compatibility, or do you want more games in Windows playable?

My choice is easy, SS7 is my first preference.

I don't want to miss out on the golden oldies from Origin, Sierra and Lucas. Many 2000 era games will still run on the K6-2+, but not all of them. Tomb Raider 4 for example runs well, but many 3D shooter games will struggle.

I have a S7 based system for this purpose, but Coppermine/Ezra-T compatible BX/Slotket might be worth checking out.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Anyway if you wanted a system that could play every game from 1989 to let's say 2002 with out any emulators what would you build?

I would argue: why would you want to agonize over perfecting this mythical beast when you could spend your time doing something like, say, actually playing those games? Are there really that many PC games from 1989 that you really want to spend that much time with and that you cannot possibly bear to run in DOSBox for some strange reason? There comes a point when you just have to be practical. And certainly things weren't exactly graphical and aural masterpieces back then as far as the PC was concerned.

Reminder: You're posting in Marvin, where this "agony" is fun. Practical reasoning has no place here. 😀

leileilol wrote:

Reminder: You're posting in Marvin, where this "agony" is fun. Practical reasoning has no place here. 😀

Exactly what I was thinking.

Also, while I like the idea of making a single system to cover a huge range of games, I think that the physical feel, look and sound of the computer and peripherals has a large effect on the game experience. For example, playing 80s and early 90s DOS games in DOSBox on a modern system with an LCD screen and slim keyboard, using a modern windows interface to run the game via a shortcut... its great to have the option to simply be able to play these games again, but the games have way more lasting appeal for me when there's a genuine piece of old equipment powering it all. I didn't fully appreciate this until I got an IBM 5150 late last year. I'd never enjoyed DOS prompts, and mouseless 4-16 color gaming so much in all my life, and I have been playing computer games for as long as I can remember (started witha a VIC20, Atari 130xe, Tandy 1000 and eventually a Packard Bell 486).

Having a somewhat up to date system that can natively run 80s DOS games is definitely useful and certainly worth pursuing as a project, but you'll still lose a lot of the appeal of the much older, more simplistic games, unless you can manage to actually boot in pure DOS and use a CRT and old peripherals. I'd consider it more of a half way point between a period correct PC and DOSBox.

nahh

I appreciate the question and all of the responses. I especially appreciate the efforts of Phil (long live socket 7!!) and others in trying to come up with the best "all-in-one" solution that meets the most needs/wants as possible. But I tend to agree with brostenen, you would need at least two builds to accomplish this.

The part I agree with most of all is the "at least" and not the "two". 😊 I think you should have more!!! Realistically, yes, you should be looking at 2-3 builds for this. But why stop there? 🤣

I have around 15 complete builds dating from around 1995-2015, most from the 1995-2006 era, and I think each and every one have their strengths and drawbacks. That's why there is no all-in-one solution. Technology advances so fast, especially over that time period, so you cannot expect to have one solution to cover it all.

We all love this hobby for different reasons. Some of us revel in building that perfect time-specific build. Some like a build that plays a specific game or handful of games/runs a certain software as best as possible. Some like that they can buy or put together the system of their past that brings about great memories of times gone by, or they enjoy buying or putting together a system that would have cost a gazillion dollars in 1998. Me personally, I actually enjoy the restoration process (cleaning, swapping parts, upgrading, customizing, etc) the most, and that's probably why I have so many builds, though it seems that each one of these also has some nostalgic aspect involved. I mean nobody needs 4 socket-A systems, but I enjoy working on them, and I suppose I can see the subtle differences in each of the 4 that I have. I also can tell you specifics about my life based upon what rig I had at the time, or what parts were the parts to have. That's what appeals to me.

I mentioned that there is no solution that can "cover it all". That is a limitation of our hobby, but in my opinion, that is also one of the main factors that makes it great.

Or, you can just call me a hoarder if you want, but it is all neat and tidy and tastefully done. 😎

petro89 wrote:

The part I agree with most of all is the "at least" and not the "two". 😊

I think that sums it up nicely 🤣

Don't want to derail this too much but speaking of neat and tidy, there are no less than 11 complete builds as well as hundreds and hundreds of parts (CPUs, video cards, RAM, hard drives, optical drives, motherboards, fans, cables/adapters, etc) in this small closet.

My other 4 builds are on two small desks, (my daily driver on its own, and three other rigs put in an audio cabinet with a KVM so a very small footprint and nothing extravagant). Maybe I am inching towards that hoarder mark, but the closet is my limit. If I want more, something has to leave!

And the best part is whenever I want to mess around with a system in the closet, I just pull it out and attach it to the 4th port on the KVM. Easy Peasy Japaneasy.

I already built that sort of system, actually, precisely because I didn't have the space for all those builds and just wanted one box for 98SE and XP. Emphasis on 98SE since VMs are terrible with it even before factoring in the lack of hardware graphics or sound acceleration, whereas DOSBox forks cover just about everything I could ask for.

-BCM BC875PLG industrial motherboard (875P chipset, one fully-functional ISA slot)
-Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz w/Scythe Ninja+ HSF
-2 GB (2*1 GB) DDR-400
-GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP

-Creative SB AWE64 Gold (ISA, for DOS games)
-Turtle Beach Montego II (PCI, for Win9x games and glorious Aureal A3D 2.0)
-Auzentech X-Fi Prelude (PCI, for XP games and EAX 5.0 + CMSS-3D Headphone)

Yeah, I have THREE sound cards in this machine, and the AWE64 Gold would actually be an AWE32 CT2760 if I actually had a case where that behemoth wouldn't get blocked off by a hard drive cage while still providing adequate ventilation. Guess I'll just have to drill out some rivets holding said hard drive cage's mounting platform in place, or find a new case.

It all hinges on getting an industrial board that supports 800 MHz FSB P4s while still packing AGP and ISA slots, though. Not a common combination, and one you're bound to pay more than $100 for. Don't count on getting overclocking/underclocking options in the BIOS, either. But with all of that aside, it is indeed possible to get a system that'll have the mid/late 1990s covered and still manhandle anything up to 2004, like the big Far Cry/Doom 3/Half-Life 2 trifecta.

Oh, and for those of you with multiple desktops like that: be glad you don't have family members insisting you set aside most of what you don't use for recycling because you've got way too many desktop towers taking up space.

The great thing about a single computer is that it's there, ready to be used 😀

It is great if you can just play a DOS game, then reboot into Windows for some Wing Commander Prophecy.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

Oh, and for those of you with multiple desktops like that: be glad you don't have family members insisting you set aside most of what you don't use for recycling because you've got way too many desktop towers taking up space.

Yep, I hear ya. About 15 years ago when I lived with the folks, more than one computer was completely out of the question.

Nowadays, the better half and I have a small but sufficient house so its all about being smart about the space you do have. I think one small closet for my hobby is not much to ask for - you have to be fair though, and I let her do things she likes too. You only live once, but you have to have reasonable limits. Is 15 computers normal? Absolutely not. But in the whole realm of life, is the usage of one small closet reasonable? I think so.

Not to mention, most of these systems/parts were freebies or thrift store buys so that helps. The most I've spent on one of those systems is less than $20, most are around $10.

This gentleman over here My 1999-Turn of the Century Gaming Build has already build probably the most versatile retro machine. It's good if you only have space for one system.
However just as brostenen said I also think that it's better to have 2 retro machines for different eras.
I would have something like this below and a 486 machine for DOS.

Slot 1 or Socket 370 motherboard
P3 600-800 MHz
3dfx Voodoo3 or Matrox G400 with 3dfx Voodoo2
256MB RAM
Aureal Vortex 2 or Creative Sound Blaster Live!

leileilol wrote:

Disable cache on the P3 and you should be able to hit the finicky 386/486 speed mark for pure DOS (well, for the first P3's at least)

For some games it becomes too slow. For example, P3 1000 with cache off plays slowly Dyna Blaster. For games which for comfortable play needed 386DX (1992 and later) - it may to be bad variant. The cache slowdone is inconsistent, so some games may to work better. For 90s games it's good to have 486 33MHz level, while P3 1000 gives near 386SX 20-25 MHz. P3 with lesser MHz will work slower.

^^ Yup that's the case.

I found the cache disabling tricks on a Pentium III very limited and not something I would recommend.

I know there are people on Reddit who consider even 486/Pentium machines "too modern", but I still wonder — why does anyone need a dedicated machine for late 90s-early 00s games? None of you here mention any games that can't run properly on Socket 7 (or on modern hardware, for that matter) and A3D seems to be the only standard that probably needs dedicated hardware. Am I missing something here?