Properly dated. It smells better.

If there are no speed or compatibility issues, I like to use something that is somewhat faster and lets me enjoy it maxed out. Sometimes this isn't possible, like with Splinter Cell, and you are constraint by the hardware and software requirements.

But I don't like to use something that is too far ahead of its time. So yea, something that runs the game maxed out and without slow-downs and I'm happy.

I'm with Phil, I like my porridge exactly right.

Time correct always win over speed imho. For example I'd much prefer a 0,60u Pentium 120 over a 0,35u Pentium 133. 😉 That's why I much prefer 5v 486 over the newer versions. Not necessary for games, just for the fact to have the hardware as originally designed.

For me it depends on how much time I have and what my goal is.

Normally I get enjoyment from building a specific machine to match the age/period, so this involves finding the correct parts and building a machine. A correctly spec'ed Pentium 133 is better than a Celeron 300A.

If I just want to play a random old game or do a retro lan, then whatever machine works well that I have I will use. Currently my default gaming retro box is an Athlon 1.2GHz, Voodoo 5 & Windows 2000 (most games I like are late 90s/early 2000s games from when I was back at school).

A combination of the two - I'll pick a generation range, but I'll max out the parts for that, so the best socket 7 CPU I can get, best Socket 370, etc. It, A: means I won't have bottlenecks, and B: it gets me a system that I couldn't afford way back when I could only afford a Pentium 75 or a Celeron 366. 😀

I prefer to keep it in between. It needs to "feel old" yet still fast enough to play nice.
Some builds are period correct and some have just a bit more kick to it.
All depends on what I need to run.

Sciby wrote:

A combination of the two - I'll pick a generation range, but I'll max out the parts for that, so the best socket 7 CPU I can get, best Socket 370, etc. It, A: means I won't have bottlenecks, and B: it gets me a system that I couldn't afford way back when I could only afford a Pentium 75 or a Celeron 366. 😀

I like this approach, but it can be expensive 😀

I prefer to go with the next system, but choose average parts that cost peanuts.

Like a cheap Pentium 4 with a 1.7 GHz CPU instead of a Tualatin build.

brostenen wrote:

I prefer to keep it in between. It needs to "feel old" yet still fast enough to play nice.
Some builds are period correct and some have just a bit more kick to it.
All depends on what I need to run.

Often is my way of thinking too. The original Pentium cpu choise is a classic where many would choose the fastest but the original Pentium shouldn't in my way switch to 66Mhz fsb... 😁

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I like this approach, but it can be expensive :) […]
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Sciby wrote:

A combination of the two - I'll pick a generation range, but I'll max out the parts for that, so the best socket 7 CPU I can get, best Socket 370, etc. It, A: means I won't have bottlenecks, and B: it gets me a system that I couldn't afford way back when I could only afford a Pentium 75 or a Celeron 366. 😀

I like this approach, but it can be expensive 😀

I prefer to go with the next system, but choose average parts that cost peanuts.

Like a cheap Pentium 4 with a 1.7 GHz CPU instead of a Tualatin build.

True, but I've got a fairly sizeable CPU collection, so I've got some flexibility on that. That said, I still use my P233mmx that I've owned since 98 and a C300A running at 450mhz... I'm still a sentimentalist for those two. 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

If there are no speed or compatibility issues, I like to use something that is somewhat faster and lets me enjoy it maxed out.

^Same^. I get a kick out of running old 3d games at extreme resolutions and detail levels.

My goal is to play old games without the hassle of emulation but still in the best conditions possible. I'm glad for Phil and his videos pointing me to the K6 solution, though if I could throttle an i7 down to 386 speed, I probably would lol (but then I'd run into trouble with ISA). I try to use the best hardware and software as I can without running into compatibility problems.

Playing the games of the time, without the hassle of the time, is my motto.

Hence a stupid amount of RAM, a super fast CF as HDD, retrofitting powerful yet silent coolers, and using expansion cards I could only dream of back then.

I can't stand CF cards as hard disk... they sound so "fake", oh well better to say they doesN't sound at all.. 😁

It is always nice to run titles on high-end period correct hardware because the speed at which the software runs reminds you of the times.

For me, I usually don't mind using graphics cards that are a few years newer because back in the 90's, I was always upgrading the graphics card on older systems and keeping the old system going. I enjoy running motherboards which are a few years OLDER than the software titles, because that was the way I had it back then. It relives the experience for me.

I was ridiculed by my peer group for running a 486-133 until Dec. 1998. I did have a CD-RW drive, from early 1997, so they still found me useful. Friends wanted me to copy their game CD's. I remember trying to run some of those 3D games on my 486 and it was more like a slideshow. Moving into the present, I get a kick out of pushing a socket 3 "486" beyond its capabilities so that those slideshow 3D games of 1997-1998 actually run somewhat smoothly, due mostly to accelerated graphics.

To answer the question outright, I would say that I prefer high-end period correct PC upgrades!

Both ways can be fun, and depending on my resources, I'll go either way. I'm a DOS guy, and when I built my first retro DOS PC (a Pentium 200MMX Overdrive), I discovered it was capable of many speeds, depending on cache and test register manipulation. It worked awesome for most games from 1990-1997. Then I lucked into a cheap DX2-66 and after I completed it, found it had its own personality and was equally fun to use. In fact, I completed Ultima Underworld I on the P55C using SETMUL to slow it down to 486 speeds, then I completed Ultima Underworld II on the real 486.

I generally agree with Phil's assessment, but if I'm in a particularly nostalgic mood, I may lean more towards "properly dated". 😉

feipoa wrote:

It is always nice to run titles on high-end period correct hardware because the speed at which the software runs reminds you of […]
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It is always nice to run titles on high-end period correct hardware because the speed at which the software runs reminds you of the times.

For me, I usually don't mind using graphics cards that are a few years newer because back in the 90's, I was always upgrading the graphics card on older systems and keeping the old system going. I enjoy running motherboards which are a few years OLDER than the software titles, because that was the way I had it back then. It relives the experience for me.

I was ridiculed by my peer group for running a 486-133 until Dec. 1998. I did have a CD-RW drive, from early 1997, so they still found me useful. Friends wanted me to copy their game CD's. I remember trying to run some of those 3D games on my 486 and it was more like a slideshow. Moving into the present, I get a kick out of pushing a socket 3 "486" beyond its capabilities so that those slideshow 3D games of 1997-1998 actually run somewhat smoothly, due mostly to accelerated graphics.

To answer the question outright, I would say that I prefer high-end period correct PC upgrades!

I'd probably win using the (cheap) 386SX-20, 4MB (upgraded) and Oak 512Kb until the late 1998 when I switched to the K6-2 350 and S3 Trio3D system. 😈 😵 🤣

I prefer "as fast as backward compatibility allows", like putting a GeForce 6800 GT on a Windows 98 system, or playing MDK (a Windows 95-era Direct3D games) using GeForce Titan if such thing is possible. Though I'd like to add that too much speed can be bothersome, even though there's no obviously apparent "issues". Crimson Skies is an example where too much speed is detrimental to the gameplay, even though there's practically no issues (no crash, no speed-related artifacts, etc). When you are playing night missions on something like Intel i5 CPU, where there are virtually no textures, your aircraft's roll rate becomes too fast that it's unmanageable. However, in heavily-textured missions, the frame rate becomes choppy due to my crappy GeForce 310M integrated GPU. That's why I tend to go for "as fast as possible" GPU combined with moderate speed CPU.

386SX wrote:

I'd probably win using the (cheap) 386SX-20, 4MB (upgraded) and Oak 512Kb until the late 1998 when I switched to the K6-2 350 and S3 Trio3D system. 😈 😵 🤣

So you didn't have Internet until late 1998?

I should add that my friends stopped poking fun at me when I purchased a dual PII-400 in Dec. 1998. I still have that system.

I care very little about availability dates - it's an aside purely for flavor. No great reverence for absolute integrity of a product either; I'll perform reasonable, usually reversible, modifications to improve hardware when I want. Wide enough compatibility comes first, then it's all about performance whether that means speed, picture quality, sound quality, game control features, etc. Although nostalgia for certain things certainly affects my own choices if not my objective judgment. 😀