For me, the "properly dated" systems are the most interesting. They allow you to experience games and other software exactly like people did back in the day. Like a time machine. I think it would actually be interesting if people documented this somehow, eg making playthrough videos captured from actual hardware, so that it is preserved for the future, and people from later times can get an accurate view of how things were back in the day. Like a sort of museum/documentary.

jarreboum wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

CF cards are not SSDs. Most are as fast if not slower then a real period correct HDD, and suffer from severe slowdowns when trying to read from different locations - even worse then mecanical HDDs. I find sometimes a machine using a CF card as a HDD will freeze for a a few seconds when it's doing a lot of work. They make really poor HDD replacements. If you really want to go solid state, get industrial disk on modules. Those are designed to replace HDDs and handle the task much better then a CF card ever could.

That hasn't been my experience at all? CF have no wake-up period and have blazing fast access to files. My only use is for gaming though, not general OS use. I know of the DOM solution, but the prices don't agree with me.

CF cards also don't last very long if you use the machine daily. These things aren't really meant for heavy read-write cycles. When I got in to retro computing I didn't have any small HDDs so I used 512mb and 1gb cards for older machines - needless to say, the ones in PCs that saw daily use didn't last long.

kanecvr wrote:

CF cards also don't last very long if you use the machine daily. These things aren't really meant for heavy read-write cycles. When I got in to retro computing I didn't have any small HDDs so I used 512mb and 1gb cards for older machines - needless to say, the ones in PCs that saw daily use didn't last long.

I believe that would be alleviated by disabling swap? Though that would only work for old win9x, I suppose it might be more problematic with xp.

I myself prefer to go period correct as much as possible, my current 2 projects do reflect that as much as possible. Since I had to choose a new Mobo I am getting even more period correct then before (where the mobo was '97 and the rest either '96 or '98), now most of my important hardware is '98 dated (only the Tower and FDD are '96)

kanecvr wrote:

CF cards are not SSDs. Most are as fast if not slower then a real period correct HDD, and suffer from severe slowdowns when trying to read from different locations - even worse then mecanical HDDs. I find sometimes a machine using a CF card as a HDD will freeze for a a few seconds when it's doing a lot of work. They make really poor HDD replacements. If you really want to go solid state, get industrial disk on modules. Those are designed to replace HDDs and handle the task much better then a CF card ever could.

trouble is with DoM cards is their their availability to the general consumer market, here in the Netherlands they aren't very known nor available much except for low amount of Mb's (1 gb is already €40,-) I ordered mine in China for my Pentium 1 project a industrial 8Gb Kingspec (€30,- inc. shipment).

I always check the games specs (release year, recommended specs) and then choose the optimal hardware for it, meaning something that was available at that time.

kanecvr wrote:

CF cards also don't last very long if you use the machine daily. These things aren't really meant for heavy read-write cycles. When I got in to retro computing I didn't have any small HDDs so I used 512mb and 1gb cards for older machines - needless to say, the ones in PCs that saw daily use didn't last long.

That is why I use microdrives instead of CF cards; you can still find unused microdrives at reasonable prices in the size ranges that are useful for retrocomputing (4 to 6GB). The HDDs that you find in that range are usually much more expensive, and will generally already have a significant amount of wear. For instance I recently got a pack of 10 4GB microdrives, still sealed in the original package, for $20.

Personally I have never experienced serious performance or lifespan issues when using CF cards as replacement for hard drives for DOS based systems. I can understand the limited erase/write cycles could be a problem on an OS which uses a swap file or is continuously writing files, but for DOS it shouldn't be an issue unless you do massive file transfers very often. Most usual DOS activities involve reading, and that shouldn't cause wear on the card.

I have been using these cards on my DOS machines for the last 5 years or so, and none has died so far (not 24/7 use of course, but they have gone through some intense gaming sessions...). And if one dies, no big issues, it can be easily replaced and it is not a valuable vintage component.

Regarding performance, maybe I used really crappy hard drives back in the day, but I find that CF is noticeably faster.

I would definitely use older hard drive models if I could find some new or with little use, but 20 year old drives are generally so beat up at this point that they are not reliable enough to spend any money on.

a Mix of both, just because something came out in Spring 93 doesn't mean it wasn't being sold in Fall of 95 for instance, Wal-Mart Sold Civilization II from 1996 until 2001, so I'd say its fine with a Pentium Classic or with a Pentium 4 becuase that was the life time of the game.

by your Logic you'd never experince Quake, Fear, FarCry, Crysis or Oblivion for instance at the best possible settings because the hardware to do it came out after release

I'm very much interested in playing old games and apps with the highest compatibility and least amount of hassle. There is something comforting about the slow bootup and configuration, but really it's somewhat of a waste of time that could be better spent having fun playing.

That's why my pII main retro system has both an SSD and an SDCard floppy device in it (faster, more convenient), and my slow retro system has an IDE SSD DOM, but both systems absolutely need a graphics card around the time period, as later cards are not compatible.

What I'm running is significantly better than I had at the time - Roland sound modules are more economic, and I can buy second hand Quadro cards to run shutter glasses, plus Aureal3D cards for surround sound. Some of those aren't cheap (the CM32L certainly wasn't), but even so it's still a lot less expensive than new..

I don't have any working combo slower than a Pentium II 233 on a LX motherboard. Lately I have used systmes with Athlon XP 2400+, Pentium 4 3.06GHz and Core 2 Duo E6600 for DOS and Windows 98SE usage, but it would have been cool to play around with a 486 on a VLB motherboard. 😀

I prefer properly dated. But since the hardware available to me is limited, I choose a system that can run the game okayish.
Games like Far Cry or Doom 3 for instance would also work on my newer computer, but they also run ok on a Geforce 4,
so I play them on an older PC.

And I usually don't max the graphics out, I just set the graphics to medium, even if the game runs on maxiumum graphics with 100+ fps.

Scali wrote:

For me, the "properly dated" systems are the most interesting. They allow you to experience games and other software exactly like people did back in the day. Like a time machine. I think it would actually be interesting if people documented this somehow, eg making playthrough videos captured from actual hardware, so that it is preserved for the future, and people from later times can get an accurate view of how things were back in the day. Like a sort of museum/documentary.

I'm the complete opposite regarding properly dated systems, especially early on in the lifetime of the IBM PC and compatibles. Gaming existed before the original IBM PC in the form of Arcades, and they were FAR more advanced to what those early PCs could do. And that was the benchmark for many that grew up in that environment.

Playing a game on a home/ PC computer or console of the time was an experience in itself regarding convenience and cost. But certain genres sounded/ looked and loaded like ass compared to state-of-the-art technology in arcades, with smooth and colourful scrolling, and fantastic sounds. This was always the benchmark for me, and using period correct hardware didn't always live up to this experience until PCs took over the technology race.

Moreover, 'period correct' is a nebulous term when the original PC was designed to be expandable from the outset, so that whatever upgrade regarding expansion cards/ CPU/ memory etc., that met the requirements of the user, was THE PC of choice by definition.

i'll use whatever fastest computer, and see if the damn game would go out of speed control, unreal and dos version of quake for example.

feipoa wrote:

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

Weird but as of late I'll rather play WinQuake on my 166@292 MMX/128mb/s3 Trio64v/SB16/ system at 320x400 all day long than on any of my much faster Tualatin machines! There's something that feels so 'right' and geniune about that socket 7 system I cannot seem to replicate on anything else than a Pentium 2 350 + early BX board, no matter how much 'Voodoo2 SLI/5500/Uber Tualatin/Barton" I attempt to throw in . 😁

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu! Finally someone who likes playing Quake slower rather than faster!

Hey! But it does 67.4 fps at 320x240! 😊

j^aws wrote:

I'm the complete opposite regarding properly dated systems, especially early on in the lifetime of the IBM PC and compatibles. Gaming existed before the original IBM PC in the form of Arcades, and they were FAR more advanced to what those early PCs could do. And that was the benchmark for many that grew up in that environment.

Playing a game on a home/ PC computer or console of the time was an experience in itself regarding convenience and cost. But certain genres sounded/ looked and loaded like ass compared to state-of-the-art technology in arcades, with smooth and colourful scrolling, and fantastic sounds.

Well, this is exactly my point. The younger generation doesn't know this. In fact, the big point I like to make here is where the humble PC came from. Back in the 80s, many home computers and consoles could get reasonably close to arcade level, and at least they delivered smooth and colourful scrolling and half-decent sound.
PCs however couldn't do smooth scrolling, and the graphics of CGA and sounds of the PC speaker were pretty damn horrible. What makes it worse is that the PC was far more expensive than the alternatives.

It seems that the younger generations aren't even aware of the fact that non-x86 systems used to exist, let alone that the PC wasn't always the best or even very good at gaming.
Which is why ideally I'd like to have some sort of 'museum', where you could see the actual arcade machine, and then ports of that arcade game on various platforms of the time, including the PC.

j^aws wrote:

Moreover, 'period correct' is a nebulous term when the original PC was designed to be expandable from the outset, so that whatever upgrade regarding expansion cards/ CPU/ memory etc., that met the requirements of the user, was THE PC of choice by definition.

I don't see what's nebulous about it. "Period correct" means you can't use expansion cards/CPUs/memory etc that weren't available on the market at the time. You could still use the most 'kitted out' PC humanly possible in that period (which is pretty much what PC gamers had to have anyway, given the limitations of the platform).
Expansions are quite irrelevant in this respect, because if you could get a CPU or memory upgrade-kit, then you could also get a new computer with that CPU and that amount of memory directly. Which was always the better option, because you'd get a better/newer motherboard with less bottlenecks.

For a retro gaming pc I agree that the best should be to build it with the best hardware at the game released time. So no ssd/cf disk, no absurd video cards (like agp 4x one on a agp 1x slot) and often no cpu with lower process size.

I'd very much disagree that most PC gamers had the most kitted out machine possible - they don't now, and they didn't then. The reality was that if the computer didn't have a sound card one would be added, possibly some memory, but the graphics card (pre 3D acceleration) and processor probably wouldn't be upgraded. No one had an MT-32/CM32L/LAPC-I because they were horrifically expensive. The display device was the one the computer shipped with (so a slightly fuzzy 12" CRT rather than a modern TFT or 21" CRT). PC gaming was a pain in the arse with all the memory management and limited disk space.

I'm just glad that many talented people have created websites and new DOS memory managers, mouse and cdrom drivers so with one evening of effort I could create three separate memory configurations that run practically all old DOS games without pain. The days of DOS 4.0 and boot disks are best left in the past.

It's also better to use a modern SSD as an old IDE hard drive will have a limited life span..

I like retro computing, because modern emulation isn't always the same - the graphics or music is a bit off, or the game is slow if the host PC isn't fast enough to emulate it. When emulation does work it's fantastic, certainly for old 8 bit computers and consoles pre save games I could do without repeatedly wasting two hours of gameplay railing against an unfairly balanced enemy.

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. 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.

This is almost exactly explains my way of doing things but...

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

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

...I wouldn't do that. 😊

I guess I have some specific correlation in my mind between certain Windows versions and certain hardware, and I almost totally ignore some of the CPU classes. Like DOS/WFW3.11 = 386DX to Pentium MMX, Windows 9x = Coppermine to Tualatin, Windows XP = Athlon XP to Athlon 64 X2 and have almost nothing to do with PII, P4, 486 and Pre 386 CPUs. And I personally prefer closer to the upper bracket in each era (like PMMX for DOS, Tualatin for W9x, and dual core Opteron for XP)

I don't care much about "periodically correct" either. Although my DOS machine must have a 5.25" drive, I generally prefer modern ATX cases, relatively modern PSUs, modern optical drives, etc. Again, without any sane reason, I prefer real and older HDDs to SSDs, and I love everything SCSI.

ynari wrote:

I'd very much disagree that most PC gamers had the most kitted out machine possible - they don't now, and they didn't then.

Well, firstly, I said they 'had to have' it, not that they actually did.
But I know from personal experience that I had to upgrade to a 386SX-16 when Wolfenstein 3D came out, and again to a 486DX2-66 VLB when Doom came out.
While technically not THE most high end machines available at the time, they were the top-end of the consumer-grade machines. Yes, you COULD buy a full 386DX, or even an early 486 when Wolfenstein 3D came out, but then you were shopping server/workstation class stuff, at insane price ranges.
Likewise, when Doom came out, the Pentium was just launched, but they were stupid expensive. The 486DX-2 66 was the top-end consumer-grade machine at the time, and you had to have one to play Doom properly.

These days it's different. Games aren't as demanding anymore, and they scale down better. Back in the day, Wolfenstein 3D *needed* a 286, because it used 286-specific instructions. It simply was physically incapable of running on an 8088-class system (a 9.54 MHz system I got about 2 years earlier, and already upgraded from CGA to VGA in the meantime, for a stupid amount of money).
Likewise, Doom *needed* a 32-bit CPU, because it used the 386 32-bit protected mode.
Technically my 386SX-16 supported it, but it was way too slow to play the game, even in a stamp-sized window. Imagine that, on a machine that I bought only about 2 years earlier, at which time it was considered reasonably high-end. Things moved so much faster back then.
And again, within 2 years after that, I needed a Pentium to play Quake, because the 486DX2-66 was slideshow-like slow in that game. You basically were looking at a 2 year upgrade cycle in that first decade of PC gaming.

Games these days will generally not require any CPU functionality that hasn't been mainstream for ~10 years already anyway. Likewise, they don't necessarily require the latest videocard or the highest performance level. You can just turn down some effects and detail, and it will run acceptably.
Gaming in the 80s and early 90s was more of an all-or-nothing affair.

Scali wrote:

Well, firstly, I said they 'had to have' it, not that they actually did. But I know from personal experience that I had to upgra […]
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ynari wrote:

I'd very much disagree that most PC gamers had the most kitted out machine possible - they don't now, and they didn't then.

Well, firstly, I said they 'had to have' it, not that they actually did.
But I know from personal experience that I had to upgrade to a 386SX-16 when Wolfenstein 3D came out, and again to a 486DX2-66 VLB when Doom came out.
While technically not THE most high end machines available at the time, they were the top-end of the consumer-grade machines. Yes, you COULD buy a full 386DX, or even an early 486 when Wolfenstein 3D came out, but then you were shopping server/workstation class stuff, at insane price ranges.
Likewise, when Doom came out, the Pentium was just launched, but they were stupid expensive. The 486DX-2 66 was the top-end consumer-grade machine at the time, and you had to have one to play Doom properly.

These days it's different. Games aren't as demanding anymore, and they scale down better. Back in the day, Wolfenstein 3D *needed* a 286, because it used 286-specific instructions. It simply was physically incapable of running on an 8088-class system (a 9.54 MHz system I got about 2 years earlier, and already upgraded from CGA to VGA in the meantime, for a stupid amount of money).
Likewise, Doom *needed* a 32-bit CPU, because it used the 386 32-bit protected mode.
Technically my 386SX-16 supported it, but it was way too slow to play the game, even in a stamp-sized window. Imagine that, on a machine that I bought only about 2 years earlier, at which time it was considered reasonably high-end. Things moved so much faster back then.
And again, within 2 years after that, I needed a Pentium to play Quake, because the 486DX2-66 was slideshow-like slow in that game. You basically were looking at a 2 year upgrade cycle in that first decade of PC gaming.

Games these days will generally not require any CPU functionality that hasn't been mainstream for ~10 years already anyway. Likewise, they don't necessarily require the latest videocard or the highest performance level. You can just turn down some effects and detail, and it will run acceptably.
Gaming in the 80s and early 90s was more of an all-or-nothing affair.

I agree, back then only the "reduce window" slide option could improve just a bit the gameplay but these big name games were always more demanding than the hw available. With my 386SX-20 I could not play Wolf3D full screen smooth cause the Oak vga was too slow. Also Stunts ran at lower details. But 486 not to mention Pentium prices were really high.