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Top game pics for 286 era

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Reply 21 of 38, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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sliderider wrote:

You guys should be ashamed. Nobody mentioned Wing Commander I and II.

While Wing Commander I indeed runs on 286, I don't think it really represents 286 era. After all, it is the game that triggered the "upgrade to 386" craze at that time.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 22 of 38, by snorg

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I'm positive I ran both Wolfenstein and Wing Commander I on the 16mhz 286 I
had in high school. Only had 1mb RAM, too. I may have been running WC in lower
detail but pretty sure Wolf 3D ran full screen.

Reply 23 of 38, by Great Hierophant

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snorg wrote:

I'm positive I ran both Wolfenstein and Wing Commander I on the 16mhz 286 I
had in high school. Only had 1mb RAM, too. I may have been running WC in lower
detail but pretty sure Wolf 3D ran full screen.

Did you run WC in 16 colors? That is the only lower detail that game supports.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 24 of 38, by Skyscraper

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Dizzy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizzy_series

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Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 25 of 38, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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snorg wrote:

I'm positive I ran both Wolfenstein and Wing Commander I on the 16mhz 286 I
had in high school. Only had 1mb RAM, too. I may have been running WC in lower
detail but pretty sure Wolf 3D ran full screen.

Yup, but it is slow. I too, played the first Wing Commander on a 12mhz 286, but it's slow, and without expanded memory, you cannot see the animation of your hand moving the stick.

Of course, I took it to my advantage. See, since the game is slow, it's actually easier to score hits, so I dominated the kill board in no time.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 26 of 38, by sliderider

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According to this walkthrough/FAQ

http://www.ign.com/faqs/2003/wing-commander-w … roughfaq-381882

It says it was designed for fast 286's and early 386's in the 20-25mhz range, so I guess that makes it a borderline 286/386 game. It would probably run fine on a Harris 20 or 25mhz 286 but slower than would probably not work out well.

Reply 27 of 38, by snorg

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I think it ran tolerably on my system, maybe in the range of 12-16 fps?
I don't remember for sure, it's been so long. I do remember that I had just
bought a low-end VGA board and sound blaster that year so it was a big deal to
play Wing Commander on my system. I also had a crappy 30mb MFM drive
at that point and had used Stacker to compress it. That drive shook my whole
tower when it was being accessed. Pretty sure WC took up a size able fraction
of that too 😀

Reply 28 of 38, by DonutKing

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Back in the day we made do with what we had. I was playing games on a 25MHz 486 that had min spec of 66MHz - eg Transport Tycoon deluxe, Command and Conquer. It chugged but it was playable. I put up with it because I wanted to play it and I didn't have anything better.

These days I don't have the patience for that. Part of this hobby, for me, is revisiting these old games on systems that make them run optimally, and we have the luxury of legacy hardware that costs a fraction of what it did when new.

So, you can play WC and Wolf3D on a 286, but I wouldn't say they are definitive of the 286 era. I definitely think of them more as 386 games, and they will be much more enjoyable on such a system. Descent will run on a 386 but I wouldn't say its a 386 era game.

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 29 of 38, by Malik

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My favourite of all time - The Secret of Monkey Island (And also Monkey Island 2). 😁

I played it on my 286 first. I had a 40MB hard drive in that 20Mhz system, with 2 5.25" floppy drives, later changed to the combo 5.25" + 3.5" drive. It had the legendary Sound Blaster 1.5 in it. 😁 It also had a VGA monitor. I never knew what was the graphics card back then.
(I still have the card, complete with the box, which I managed to salvage before I left for college that time. The 286 is no more, though.)

And yes, I played Wing Commander, like there's no tomorrow in that system. Also Wing Commander II. Having a 20Mhz 286 really helped me played these 2 games profoundly. WC2 struggled slightly, but it's playable. I thoroughly enjoyed it on that system.

I'm an adventure gamer (in addition to RPGs and strategy games), hence, I was having a blast with my 286 - Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, King's Quest V, etc.

Then there was F-29 Retaliator. It's so smooth in that 286.

Gods - another game I enjoyed when I had the 286.

Then there was Midwinter.

In fact the most memorable of all games I have ever played were on the 286.

Others - Golden Box RPGs from SSI, most of Sierra Adventure games, many simulations from Microprose, and countless others.

Edit : Forgotten to mention Broderbund titles - Prince of Persia, Prince of Persia 2, Galleons of Glory, etc.

Accolade Titles - Elvira, Test Drive III

Access Software - Links, Countdown, Martian Memorandum.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 30 of 38, by sliderider

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I think the experience of playing on late 286 era hardware is going to be drastically different than playing on early 286 hardware, even moreso than playing on late 386 hardware vs early 386 or late 486 vs early 486. If you can find a Harris 25mhz chip, and a motherboard that supports it, it will probably play all 286 era and even many early 386 era games (that don't rely on features unique to the 386) with playable framerates.

Reply 31 of 38, by Half-Saint

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Now that you mention it... I played a lot of the games mentioned above on a Peacock PC with a 10 MHz NEC V30, 640K of RAM, Hercules graphics and amber screen from NEC 😁 I enjoyed them a lot but I sort of envied my friend who later got a 286 with VGA and Sound Blaster Pro!

Most notably:
F-19 Stealth Fighter - slow as hell and PC speaker sound was driving my parents nuts
Prehistorik
Zeliard
Leisure Suit Larry 1, 2 & 3
Space Quest 1, 2 & 3
Police Quest 1 & 2
Hot Rod 1 & 2
California Games
Monkey Island 1
Indiana Jones 3
and many others 😀

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Reply 32 of 38, by holoprox

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Street Rod 2 (PC/DOS) 1990, California Dreams
Red Baron (Sierra\Dynamix) - PC Game 1990
Chuck Yeager's Air Combat (PC/DOS) 1991, EA

100+ retro computers on board!
50+ flightsticks!

Reply 33 of 38, by kixs

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Not exactly sure about hotrod 286... but my first PC was 286-16, 1MB and this shouldn't be a hotrod by any means 🤣

Played most of my early PC games on it:

Dune II
Xenon II
Cannon Fodder
Pinball Dreams
Pinball Fantasies
Crazy Cars 3
F1GP
Falcon 3.0
Wolf3D
F-29 Retaliator
F-117
F-15 Strike eagle

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 34 of 38, by pipmastah

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Half-Saint wrote on 2014-02-19, 07:29:
stbunny wrote:

Wolfenstein 3D, which runs smooth enough on Harris 20MHz + 1Mb RAM + Trident 9000c ISA.

I have the same system and if I compare it to a 386DX-40, Wolf3d runs like crap on a 286.

Wolf3D runs perfect on my 0ws 286-16!

Reply 35 of 38, by ThinkpadIL

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Almost a 10 years old topic. Wow! If it was a computer it could be considered vintage.

And if talking about top games for 286, for me back in the days it was this one:

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Reply 38 of 38, by mmx23

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Accolade Winter Challenge and
Summer Challenge.

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