First post, by teh_Foxx0rz
I have a curiosity in playing (the DOS version of the original) Castle Wolfenstein. My current retro PCs extend back to a Slot 1 system I can put a Pentium II 233 downclocked to 133MHz in, but unsurprisingly, while the game runs on it, it's graphically corrupted and runs way too fast. I didn't expect it to play something so old of course, but I was curious. 😜 (Although it does run Rogue just fine so that's nifty)
I'm interested in getting an older system anyway, for games such as Wing Commander (which to my understanding the above system would also be too fast for, and works best somewhere around 25-33MHz), so, while I know this is often a tall order for PCs, I figure I'd look into a system with the most versatility, to kill two birds with one stone. I know that from the original Pentium and earlier processors were a lot more flexible with their speeds, too.
So, is there a processor which could cover that whole time period at all? I've seen PhilsComputerLab cover how Pentiums and such can be given very fine granular control over their speed, but I get the impression that original Pentiums can't go quite slow enough. I've seen less information on 486es, though I'm aware that the original Intel 8088 of the IBM PC held quite the influence over compatibility considerations in the '80s and was the reason Turbo buttons came about (even if they stopped being about that eventually). Or, would I have to go back even further for Castle Wolfenstein and other early-DOS-specific games? Is it even possible to have a system that can extend to work with both?
I'm not necessarily looking for a simple answer to this too; I'm not immediately looking to buy anything, I'm mostly just curious, and want to inform a potential future build I might make!
