286 enough to play games? \ VOGONS

286 enough to play games?

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First post, by Kaiketsu

Posted on 2015-10-04, 09:15

Kaiketsu Offline

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Joined: 2015-10-03, 18:40

Okay so...

this is the motherboard of the PC I acquired:

Seems in good condition, tho it obviously lacks RAM, but I can get that cheap. (keep in mind that this is an image from the internet. I know I have the same mobo, so it's not as pristine, probably 😜)

The issue in question is: is this enough to really play old games? I recall my 286 had massive hiccups on certain games, like "trolls".

Can't complain cause I got this one for free. It supposedly works. I will keep it, but I'm afraid it might not be enough for a retro-based PC to replace DOSBOX.

Last edited by Kaiketsu on 2015-10-04, 09:24. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 5, by Skyscraper

Posted on 2015-10-04, 09:24

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As its a 16MHz 286 its fast enough to play some games 😀

With a VGA video card you can expect to be able to play the same games as you would be able to play on a 386SX-16. Most games from 1988 - 1991 and some games from 1992 - 1993 will run well.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 2 of 5, by Malvineous

Posted on 2015-10-04, 11:22

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Wow, a barrel battery that hasn't leaked! Maybe you should cut it off while you still can!

Reply 3 of 5, by Kaiketsu

Posted on 2015-10-04, 11:52

Kaiketsu Offline

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Malvineous wrote:
Wow, a barrel battery that hasn't leaked! Maybe you should cut it off while you still can!

Well this is an internet photo. Mine looks less fun:

Reply 4 of 5, by Malvineous

Posted on 2015-10-04, 12:20

Malvineous Offline

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Oh sorry, I thought you meant the earlier photo was from the person who gave you the board. Looks like you got a nice haul of stuff there! Including a few hard drives! They look like IDE as well?

Reply 5 of 5, by Kaiketsu

Posted on 2015-10-04, 12:45

Kaiketsu Offline

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yes. There's also a 3,5 drive, a 5,25 drive (yeaaah :3), two IDE HHDs, and a really old dial-up modem. Lots of goodies, just no ram. Not sure if everything works yet, I need to dismantle everything and test the MoBo itself. The 30-year old PSU is also intact and working, but I have second thoughts about using it now.

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